The second country (and last) of my GLOBE TRAVELLING EXTRAVAGANZA (2 countries, already stated) was to the Philippines. I got invited out to travel for a week with my Filipino friend before she returned to Canada (confusing, don't ask). Go on then.
After a 4 hour delay of my flight, I managed to survive the (about) 45 temperature shift from neg 15 to pozzy 30ish. As I was packing light, this involved running to the bus stop in Seoul wearing all my t-shirts and one thin jumper. A little chilly. Initial impressions of Manila - mutha lovin' scary. Within minutes of getting in the taxi outside of the airport 2 kids had run across a busy road to knock on my window and ask me for money. I'd also managed to scare myself the night before arriving by reading many horror stories from peoples' time spent there of pickpockets and other general criminal activity. I spent the whole time cautiously guarding my belongings so that they wouldn't get stolen, in particular my camera which I ironically lost in Korea on the journey home. Genuine distress.
Seeing as my mate was Filipino, the planning was left to her. However she had taken my lazy motto 'no planning is best planning' to heart, and as most nights we left it till passed 11pm to find a place. This also lead to some rather dubious sleeping locations (purposefully vague, ask me), but also gave us more freedom and was more excitement. Sometimes. Stress others. Whilst I was in Japan I got a stared at a lot for being foreign, and thought that it would have been the same in the Philippines. To my sheer delight no one seemed to be staring at me. What was even more delightful was that instead they all seemed to stare at my Filipino friend, eyeing her up from head to toe and probably wondering which website that they too would need to sign up to to find a man of my calibre (by my 'calibre' I mean not fat and old). She claimed she didn't enjoy it, but I was paraded like a prized turkey. Her 20-something year old aunt even introduced me to her work colleagues as the her boyfriend. Used, abused.
My mate decided it would be great to introduce me to a Filipino delicacy, and after some recent questionable cuisines that my stomach had (heroically) managed to digest, I felt I could tackle anything (except a tackle). So on the menu, today's special - chicken foetus. This was properly properly hanging. First you pierce the shell, so that you could drink the juices (vom), and then peel the shell away revealing a little half formed chicken foetus (vom), and then you eat that along with some other... thing that's inside (vom). It's called 'balut' if you wanna spank that into youtube and watch some insultingly grim videos.
Loved the transport. A 'Wallace and Gromit' style bike and side cart seemed to be the primary taxi-ing service, although this thing had a legal limit of 5 passengers (honestly couldn't fathom getting 5 on this thing) my mate claimed she managed to get 20 on one time. If that didn't give you enough thrills then you could get in a van with an open door in the back which essentially hop on, pay the driver about 20p and then hop off whenever you fancy. Broke a fair few British helath and safety laws. Talking of which, definitely very much enjoyed watching several around-7 year old children, without any parents around, playing a game of 'chase each other with a chunk of wood that is on fire'. That well-known classic.
I feel like I saw everything though: touristy islands, beautiful mountain sceneries, little towns and villages, rural houses, rough suburban areas, dodgy transport, disgusting foods, cheap everything. The thing that struck me the most was although people had less, everyone seemed a lot more happy and content with life than they do in the west. A trip that will live long in my memory, unforgettable. Thank you Fran.
Monday, 21 January 2013
Saturday, 12 January 2013
Ho ho herro Japan!
Apologies for the lack of post updates recently. This is because I have been TRAVELLING ALL AROUND THE GLOBE*. This post will be dedicated to my time in Japan where I met my older bro and sis.
Seeing as me, my older bro and sis we're all together in Japan for Christmas, we all had a Christmas skype session with the rest of the family back in Blighty. Got to watch Lizzie Babes' (a.k.a the Queen) speech over the webcam connection too which made me feel extra patriotic. Whilst saying good bye, and attempting a kiss to the webcam (I sight to die for, ladies) Mum exclaimed that my face looked like an anus. Cheers ma.
The toilet seats at the house were heated. I foolishly said that it was an unnecessary commodity. It's not, it is wonderful. Really really wonderful.
Had a travel pass to use the Japanese rail system, and so did a bit of travelling around. Went to Kyoto for a night. At our accommodation we were given a bizarre tour of the facilities (which pretty much solely consisted of looking at one toilet, going outside to see the 'other half of the facility' which was just another toilet) by a Japanese man whose mannerisms suggested he took Fawlty Towers as an instructional video of how to run a hotel. Our room was literally right outside the reception, and so we woke to yet more of his tours in the morning, although one party only got half shown around as I was using the toilet at the time (they literally missed half of the tour). Abused my brothers' fluency in Japanese to get some random girls to take some photos with us (whilst we wore Pikachu costumes) in a photo booth. It's not as weird as it sounds. Maybe it is.
Definitely is.
Headed up to some town called Takayama which pretty much no Japanese person has ever heard of, excluding the ones that live there (perhaps including). Managed to get the female receptionist there to come out and do Karaoke with us. Studs. Bro asked her to translate a fortune he'd received that day and under the 'love' section she could barely get the words out she was giggling so much. She was hot for us, no(t much) doubt. Went to visit a Japanese folk village whilst we were there, so bought some bus tickets to go. I thought 2 minutes before the bus was to arrive was enough time for a cheeky toilet trip. It turned out it wasn't. It definitely could have been, but due to unforeseen circumstances (toilet accident, details intentionally omitted) it wasn't. Also managed to lose my wallet on this day (later to be recovered). Needless to say, that day was a bad day. On the way back to Tokyo stopped off in another town for an hour, had a refreshing snack of ice cream + egg + cornflakes. Eggsellent.
Went down to Tokyo/Yokohama. Went to some properly weird anime shops (don't judge) on my brothers quest to purchase the Pikachu costume (fair play) that we had worn a few days prior (hello ladies). When I say weird I mean the really bad weird, not the bad weird. Got back to the flat one night to find a guy pissing on the floor by the front door of our apartment block. We walked straight by, pretending it wasn't ours (slick), only to find, once we had returned, a traffic cone was placed on the area of the crime. That's Japanese courtesy at it's finest.
* 2 countries.
Seeing as me, my older bro and sis we're all together in Japan for Christmas, we all had a Christmas skype session with the rest of the family back in Blighty. Got to watch Lizzie Babes' (a.k.a the Queen) speech over the webcam connection too which made me feel extra patriotic. Whilst saying good bye, and attempting a kiss to the webcam (I sight to die for, ladies) Mum exclaimed that my face looked like an anus. Cheers ma.
The toilet seats at the house were heated. I foolishly said that it was an unnecessary commodity. It's not, it is wonderful. Really really wonderful.
Had a travel pass to use the Japanese rail system, and so did a bit of travelling around. Went to Kyoto for a night. At our accommodation we were given a bizarre tour of the facilities (which pretty much solely consisted of looking at one toilet, going outside to see the 'other half of the facility' which was just another toilet) by a Japanese man whose mannerisms suggested he took Fawlty Towers as an instructional video of how to run a hotel. Our room was literally right outside the reception, and so we woke to yet more of his tours in the morning, although one party only got half shown around as I was using the toilet at the time (they literally missed half of the tour). Abused my brothers' fluency in Japanese to get some random girls to take some photos with us (whilst we wore Pikachu costumes) in a photo booth. It's not as weird as it sounds. Maybe it is.
Definitely is.
Headed up to some town called Takayama which pretty much no Japanese person has ever heard of, excluding the ones that live there (perhaps including). Managed to get the female receptionist there to come out and do Karaoke with us. Studs. Bro asked her to translate a fortune he'd received that day and under the 'love' section she could barely get the words out she was giggling so much. She was hot for us, no(t much) doubt. Went to visit a Japanese folk village whilst we were there, so bought some bus tickets to go. I thought 2 minutes before the bus was to arrive was enough time for a cheeky toilet trip. It turned out it wasn't. It definitely could have been, but due to unforeseen circumstances (toilet accident, details intentionally omitted) it wasn't. Also managed to lose my wallet on this day (later to be recovered). Needless to say, that day was a bad day. On the way back to Tokyo stopped off in another town for an hour, had a refreshing snack of ice cream + egg + cornflakes. Eggsellent.
Went down to Tokyo/Yokohama. Went to some properly weird anime shops (don't judge) on my brothers quest to purchase the Pikachu costume (fair play) that we had worn a few days prior (hello ladies). When I say weird I mean the really bad weird, not the bad weird. Got back to the flat one night to find a guy pissing on the floor by the front door of our apartment block. We walked straight by, pretending it wasn't ours (slick), only to find, once we had returned, a traffic cone was placed on the area of the crime. That's Japanese courtesy at it's finest.
* 2 countries.
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