Yikes!

Last Wednesday night was the opening of the Foundation Day celebration at Silliman University. I went to the opening of booths at one of the soccer fields with my friends, Daphnie and Ethel, and my cousin, Chary. Later that night, we went to the Boulevard, which isn't very far from my school where there was a Food and Beer Festival. They had a kick-ass band from Iloilo that was really, really good.

Last night we went to the booth festival at SU again. FYI, the booth area is filled with quite a number of native booths where people sell food and any kind of stuff. Anyways, every night there are programs at the booth area, and last night was a dance contest and a fashion show, to be preceded by a band. We got to watch the "fashion show" and it was, erm... amusing. After that, we left the booth area to go to the boulevard, but on the way, we got distracted by people preparing fireworks. It turned out there was a fireworks display at 10:00 pm. Since it was about 15 mins. before 10:00, we decided to stay about 50 meters from where the fireworks were, and waited to watch. When they were lighted, waaaaaaaaaa!!! It was ok at first, but soon, we got scared because they didn't get too high and they were exploding right over our heads. Yikes!

After that, we went to the boulevard for the Food and Beer festival, just when the band that was playing was just finishing. They weren't very good, not like the other band we witnessed, and as some people said, not unlike the band from Cebu the previous night. After the band got off the stage, another band took over, and they played techno-tribal music. Yikes! That was sooo fun... NOT!!!

The night went really worst for me, however, because my eyelids started getting puffy. In other words, I got allergies, goodness knows from what! It could have been the fish that I ate for the first time that lunch, but I thought it was because of the tree that we were sitting under last night. Oh my, they got so puffy and red like I've never seen them before, so we went home. Before, when I was growing up, my eyelids would get puffy sometimes (but never as puffy as last night), and I thought I was over that. My symptoms had changed to just sneezing. Gahhh!!! OMG, I hate this fuckin' allergy! Until now, my eyelids are still sorta puffy... *cry cry*

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The Amazing Race 5

I am soooooooo freakin' excited, I can barely stand still! The Amazing Race 5 passed through the Philippines, and they're probably gonna show it as a two-hour special! I don't know if they're gonna break it up into two episodes or not, but I can't wait to see which places they visited and what things they did! To top it off, the first episode of TAR 6 is gonna be shown the weekend after TAR 5's last episode next month. That means there won't be a long wait! Oooh, I am sooooo psyched! *jumps and screams all around the place*

El Nido, Palawan -- leg 12 site of The Amazing Race 5

*Sings: I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it!* LOL

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Ugh

Oh God, can someone please write this entry for me? It's so late that I don't have the will to do it myself anymore. >.< Anyways, here goes:

We did take the 9:50 am bus out of YCAT, and arrived at Narita at around 11:30. was supposed to be on another terminal so April and I said good bye to her on the bus, which really sucked, but which I guess, was easier. We got our tickets, and checked our luggage. We were so worried that we might have to pay so much excess (we thought 20kg was allowed) that our big-ass suitcases were just a little over 20kg. When we went there however, the lady at the counter told us that Filipinos (since we were taking Philippine Airlines [PAL]) were allowed 30kg. She weighed our tinier suitcases that we planned to hand-carry, and told us they were too heavy (only 7kg was allowed), and told us to transfer some of the stuff from the smaller luggage to the bigger one, since it didn't reach 30kg yet. That was a real pain in the butt. Days before, I had packed and repacked my big-ass suitcase just so that it wouldn't weigh so much, and there they told me it was too light!

We had no choice, we started to do what the lady said (you can imagine how funny that looked in the middle of an airport), when two Filipino women approached us and told us that if they didn't have excess baggage, they'd give us a couple of phone cards that allowed an additional 10kg each. Indeed, they didn't have excess, so they gave us the cards. It was quite interesting, it was just a phone card, but then the company apparently has a partnership with PAL. We were thankful for that, and we ended up checking in all the suitcases we had, including the smaller ones that we meant to hand-carry.

 A PAL A330 at Narita

We boarded the plane, which was occupied to the last seat, mostly by Japanese who were going on vacation to the Philippines. April and I were given seats near one of the emergency exits, and one of the flight attendants made us read some instructions and told us that if something happened, we'd have to be the ones to open the door, jump first, and catch everyone. If we wanted to transfer seats, we should just tell her. Hmmm. That's a lot of pressure, but I thought to myself, it's better that I'm here because I'd get to jump first, and most of all, I understood the English instructions. Forgive me for saying this, but I thought that having April and myself there was better than having a Japanese in our place who could very possibly not understand the emergency instructions.

Anyway, a little after 2:30 pm (scheduled departure) the plane started to taxi down the runway, when suddenly, the captain's voice came on the speaker and said he noticed a problem with one of the engines and that we had to go back. Now, isn't that scary? The funny thing is though, all my anxiety about flying disappeared when that happened. Maybe it was because something already happened, but nothing bad happened to us {you know what I mean}. But I know it was also largely because of the nice flight attendant who was seated right in front of us, talking and telling us jokes. We finally took off at around 4:00 pm, and the flight was pretty much ok--no turbulence and stuff, but it was really cold and they ran out of blankets, so April and I didn't have blankets. Abused, eh? Silly this might seem, I found comfort in the manifestation of something truly pinoy (i.e. really cold air conditioners), as you might have remembered my complaints before of Japanese air conditioners being put at warm temperatures.

We arrived in Cebu two hours delayed, just a little after 8:00 pm. We lined up at Immigration, and then the first Philippine reality came crashing down on me: long, slow lines. LOL. We passed through customs, and as I braced myself for questions, opening of luggages, and the possible need for some under the table, the man just asked to look at our passports, nodded and let us pass. Hmmm. Interesting, but I am very grateful. Anyways, one of April's sisters met her, and a lot of people met me. :) My mother, my two uncles Noli and Nene who live in Cebu, my uncle's wife, Merly, and my cousin, Tope. Cathy, my other cousin would have been there, too, but she was on a business trip to Leyte so I wasn't able to meet her that time. We had dinner at my uncle's house near Gaisano Mactan, and there was so much food because it was my cousin Pangging's birthday. We checked in at a pensionne house just in front of Gaisano, and the next day went shopping around SM.

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Schedule

Leaving the dorm tomorrow at around 08:30. Hopefully, will be able to take the 09:50 bus from Yokohama City Air Terminal (YCAT), and arrive at Narita at around 11:30. Narita-Cebu flight leaves at 14:30 JST, and arrives at around 18:00 PST.

Our dorm...

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Update Update

Ohh, sooo busy. Sorry, don't have time to do my journal. I'm in the process of doing the single greatest drawback of traveling: packing. And of course, squeezing all the last sight-seeings, parties, and omiyage-buying in between. Tough work indeed. Wish me luck!!!

Soon I'll have to say goodbye to this bed...

Five days left in Japan! Waaaaaaaaa! It hasn't sunk in yet. >.<

omiyage - souvenir

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Cruisin'

Went on a Tokyo Bay cruise last Saturday with some friends that I met on the chat party a month back. I was shocked when we got to the port, because I was expecting that we would just be on one of those small sight-seeing boats, but I was wrong, it was really a ship! It wasn't especially big, but maybe 3 or 4 levels were in use. And, at the top deck, where we had a table, there was a dance floor. Yeah! I didn't expect to go to a disco, but there was one, so hell yeah! I'm not complaning!

It was really, really pretty. It would have been nice if it were a day and night cruise so that we would see the sights in broad daylight and then the lights at night, but since we were only on the ship for two hours from 7:30 only the lights could be seen. However, it was a good experience. It was my first time to be on a cruise ship, and it was really interesting. The combination of foreigners, Japanese girls in yukata, and drag queens some of whom were wearing skimpy clothes and swimsuits was something that I know will be memorable to me for a long time.

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And I live!

Just when I thought I was going to die: starving, bereft of entertainment on my last month here in Japan... I live! Hahaha. In other words, I am not broke anymore! By no means am I rich, but, I believe I now have enough money to pay my bills, buy food, and to some extent, enjoy my last two weeks in the land of the rising sun. Thank goodness for arubaito! Yatta!

This afternoon, I'm going to go to my friend Nica's house (she's Japanese, I met her on the Undernet #Japan/#Tokyochat party) and stay over for the night. I believe we're gonna be doing some really Japanese stuff. Yay for me!

With my Japanese friends, Nica and Carol

arubaito - part-time job (which in my case, was just scanning a book and labeling some text)
yatta - a Japanese expression that denotes happiness/victory

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Whew.

Busy, busy, busy! But thank God it's finally over now!

Annie and myself all dressed up for hanabi

My friends and I went to hanabi last Saturday. Hanabi is the summer fireworks festival in Japan. We went to the one that was held in the water near Yamashita Park. Oh my God, there were so many poeple in the Yamashita Park/Minato Mirai area. I have never seen so many people in my entire life! There's supposed to be almost 500,000 people who go to that affair every year. Now, just imagine that number!

As expected, the fireworks were amazing. However, there was this big-ass ship docked right in front of where we were staying, so we couldn't see the fireworks leave the ground. That's ok, though, we could still see them up in the sky. Nevertheless, we kept on wishing that ship would just sink. :P We all wore a yukata to the hanabi, by the way (quite a number of Japanese people do that). :)

Saturday was also when Annie's parents arrived from the States. Her mom is gonna stay for two weeks, her dad, a week. I went to Kamakura and Enoshima with them yesterday, and they are two of the nicest people I have ever met!

The Great Buddha of Kamakura

It was my first time to go to Kamakura, and it was beautiful (don't ask me, I just didn't get the chance to go in the past). For those of you who don't know, Kamakura lies about 30 minutes in the south-west of Yokohama and was an old capital of Japan. It's where a huge Bronze statue of Buddha that was built in the 13th century stands to this day, withstanding a tidal wave that destroyed a temple surrounding it in the 15th century, and the Great Kanto quake of 1923 that only destroyed its base (that has been fixed and is now designed to make the Buddha just sway in case of another strong quake). We also went to the Hase Temple in Kamukura. It was just so beautiful with its amazing gardens, and the altars were so majestic.

Kaikōzan Jishōin Hase-dera, one of the great Buddhist temples in Kamakura

The sunset from Enoshima

After that, we went to Enoshima, a tiny rock of an island that lies south-west of Kamakura. It's connected to the main land by a long bridge. There were no beaches, but up at the top of the island, there's a shrine, and an observatory where you can see all around you. They have this sunset deck, and since we went there in the afternoon, we were able to catch the sunset at that place. What was more, just a little to the side of the sun setting was Mount Fuji. It was amazing.

Today, I had my oral exam in Japanese. We had it here at the dorm because we planned to have lunch together with our teacher, Ito Sensei. It was great having lunch with sensei. She's very nice and I'm so greatful for all the things she's done to help us with our stay here. I made adobo, April made a kinda Japanese rice, and our other classmate, a Chinese girl we call Shu-san, made a Chinese dish with eggplants. It was all good. I was so full afterwards. ^^;

And now, two weeks to go till we go home. What's next? Cleaning and packing. Ugh.

adobo - a Filipino dish cooked with meat that has been marinated in soy sauce and vinegar

yukata - summery, Japanese kimono made of cotton

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Bull

If you're a foreigner in Japan, you'd most likely be stared at, looked down upon, considered stupid, talked about, and always considered an outsider. When you are another Asian (especially brown-skinned ones like me), or when you are black, then the intensity of those treatments I mentioned above gets doubled, tripled, quadrupled, quintupled!

Now, I am naturally oblivious to most things happening around me. In other words, unless they don't parade their racism in front of my face, I don't care. (In other, other words, I am a snob. :P) But if a compatriot tells me that they have been abused, misused, and all those other bad forms of the word use, then my blood will boil--which is why I am writing this entry. Because my friend, April, has been the recipient of very bad use indeed.

I have a feeling I'm starting to sound patriotic here (and that worries me, because I'm not patriotic), but then again, Filipinos do really get icky treatment here. Ever since we arrived, there have been many times when we just feel that we don't measure. But April's most recent experience was the really, erm, disappointing one. Why? Because this person is our friend, supposed to be very educated, and not even Japanese (but still Asian).

Here are the comments:
- When your senior came here [another exchange student in the past], I thought: this girl must be rich because she can afford to go to college.
- At first, I thought you couldn't speak English, too.
- [And then, upon finding out that we do speak fluent English...] Why do you always speak English? You should be proud of your language.

Frankly, people's ignorance can be disappointing. If they were the kind who hadn't gone even to elementary school, I would understand. But that's not the case. I'm tired of this language crap, too. Before I came here, I never knew English was such a big deal! In the Philippines, it's just there! We don't exactly think about it as a foreign language anymore. After all, why do Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, speak English? It's because of England's influence on these countries. Well, we have also been influenced by an English-speaking country (America, of course) for over a hundred years. Why does that not give us a right to be proud of our English (although admittedly, sometimes, we tend to speak Carabao English)? True, I'm not exactly proud of Tagalog, but I don't hide it in shame either. And I'm proud of my English because I have literally spent ages trying to perfect it.

Yes, the Philippines has a lot of faults, but just FYI, here are a few statistics:
Adult literacy rate, year 2000: Male - 95%, Female - 95%
College enrollment rate: 27% (4th in Asia, next to South Korea-55%, Taiwan-38%, Japan-29%)

So, there! We're not all completely uneducated fools.

There is a silver lining behind all these crap, though. 'Coz now I have acquired the experience and can surely tell you: If you hate your country, move to another place for a while. Then you'll love your country and be proud of it.

Carabao - a water buffalo in the Philippines
Carabao English - a term for English with a lot of grammatical errors

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U.S.-Philippine relations

Being in Japan, I don't know much of what happens in the Philippines nowadays, but another blogger's latest entry has woken me up to what's happening in Manila and in the Middle East.

The Chancery of the Manila American Embassy

So the latest hostage in Iraq is a Filipino. This still comes as quite a shock to me. I know that there are millions of Filipinos in the Middle East (my father included), but normally no one targets us. We are a peace-loving country, after all. We are accepting of foreigners, and we don't bother other people. Sometimes, terrorists from the southern part of the Philippines commit crimes to other nationalities and civilians inside the country, but they are the same kind of people working in the ranks of Osama bin Laden and his men, so pardon me if I don't consider them one of us.

I believe President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has now ordered the early return of the 51 humanitarian forces in Iraq. People all over the world are criticizing Arroyo's decision. And, what was the US Ambassador to the Philippines quoted as saying? I think it was something that goes: "Do not confuse your enemies or your friends." You have to admit, Arroyo's decision is a difficult one. I do understand why Arroyo would want to save even just one Filipino worker's life. Because even though we Filipinos have the crab mentality (i.e. if you're down, then pull the others down with you) among ourselves, I still believe that when other nationalities bug us, we stick together. And being a predominantly Catholic nation, even just one person's life is valued.

Now, you might say that because the government has decided to pull out the troops, it will be more dangerous because the terrorists will think that we can easily be manipulated. Well, so what? You see, if the troops were pulled out, they wouldn't have anything to manipulate us with, right? In the first place, those troops shouldn't have been sent there! And so what if people are criticizing this move? I bet only those who are in favor of this war are doing that. What about France, Germany, and all those other nations that do not support this war? It might be a little late, but we can still move in that direction.

I know the Philippines has been an ally of the US ever since they rescued us from Spain. I can't believe I'm saying this, as I have been pro-US ever since, but now, I don't believe in the term "US ally" anymore. I've realized that we're actually just a "US puppy". We're practically at the beck and call of the US. I know, we put ourselves there, but I think it's high time to stand up for ourselves. True, if we were involved in a war, we would get our asses kicked if the US didn't help us. But if we just stayed out of everybody's business, then nobody would bother us and we wouldn't need defending. As a matter of fact, the only war we've been involved in has been WWII, and the only reason the Japanese bombed was because we were a colony of the US! If you really think about it, being a US puppy has done more harm than good to the Philippines. I'm not saying that we should make an enemy out of the US government (because that would be suicide). I'm just thinking, maybe it's time to distance ourselves a little.

I think it's getting very obvious that this war has become a lose-lose situation. Bush always says America has become a safer place. Ok, so maybe the US is safer now. But, hell, the rest of the world is not. Because before this war started, I didn't fear for my father's life in Saudi Arabia, and I didn't have a fellow Filipino pleading for his life on television!

Mr. Bush, I think it's time for you to realize that there are other people and other countries in the world!

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