16 September 2005

Well today went very well, I quite rather enjoyed myself. I visited three places and if you count going back to the SM mall then make it four. I woke up at a respectable time this morning, about 6:30. Ate some breakfast at the hotel being as it was included with the room. LetLet (Jim's wife) gave me a list of things to see here in Cebu, and she haggled with a taxi for the price of taking me around and waiting for me. My first stop/attraction was the Taosit Temple. I would like to be able to tell you about this temple but I didn't really come across any history about it. I did however get some good pictures of it. Speaking of pictures I was quite worried that all the film that I brought with me might be ruined because my x-ray bag is only rated to protect film from handbag scanners not heavy suitcase x-ray scanners. Well, in Manila they run all the bags through the same scanners which I believe are made specifically for scanning heavy thicker bags. So today’s pictures were kind of a test run to see if my film was any good. Much to my great fortune it all seems to be ok being as the film I developed later in this paragraph seems to be ok. On to the next stop, Tops a restaurant located at the top of a rather tall mountain overlooking the city of Cebu. It was quite hazy so the pictures I took of Cebu from Tops didn’t turn out all that well, but one of the restaurant itself turned out fairly well. To tell the truth the view from Tops wasn’t all that great, but there were many great views all along the road up the mountain. Many of the views were vistas of surrounding mountains and valleys, and then there is the patchwork of huts, and houses, and shanties the line the road. I tried to get my taxi driver to slow down a couple of time so I could get pictures of the “houses” if you can call them that but he seemed to be in much of a rush even though, I his passenger was not, and he was going to waiting on me when I got to the next place anyway. I am going to have to try to get pictures of these sorts of dwellings.

16 September 2005 Second Attempt

Ok so my battery died last night and the computer shut itself off, so I am going to finish this off now. I had to go to a computer store so I could get an adapter, so I could plug my computer in, as a side note they don’t seem to like to use ground plugs here. The third place I went was Magellan’s Cross. This is supposed to be where several hundred Filipinos were converted and baptized. Now the cross is enclosed in an outer cross case protecting it, and there is a large outdoor cathedral as well as an indoor cathedral. It was Friday about noon when I visited and there was a service going on with what seemed to be thousands of people in both cathedrals. The cathedrals were both under varying stages of construction or repair, I think the indoor cathedral is older than the outside cathedral. There were constant prayers and songs going on from both the people and the clergy. There were also people kneeling and shuffling on there knees from the entrance of the inside cathedral to the front where the pulpit was, and praying the whole time. There were also many people around the cathedrals selling candles for you to burn inside, and others just trying to sell you anything from sunglasses and watches to bracelets made from pretty white flours. And then there are those that are just there to beg, its hard to tell which beggars are truly downtrodden, and which do it just because its any easy way to get money. I have been sticking mostly to just giving money to the children, but I have been told that they collect it for other people and they don’t get any of it anyway. After Magellan’s Cross I headed to SM Mall to develop my film while I got some lunch. As I said earlier the film was a test more or less, and fortunately it all turned out good. That about raps up the day, and I’m out of time for now. I have to run, so more later.

Hay I’m back yet again, I thought that there was something I was forgetting to mention. Jim and LetLet wanted to go to a beauty salon/parlor or what ever you may call it. Whatever you call it they do everything you could want to beautify yourself from hair cuts, and eye brow tweezing, to manicures, pedicures, and you name it. So as I was saying before I side tracked myself. Jim wanted a manicure and LetLet wanted a manicure and a pedicure. Jim called me while I was in my room burning my eyes out with the TV and asked me if I would care to join them. I said sure, I having nothing better to do, and as I’ve never done this before, so it’s about time to give it a try. Now I figured I would just get a manicure, and call my self good, but as I sat in there letting the girl work on my hands I began pondering about a pedicure. Now I had been wearing my boots for the better part of the day so I was wondering if I should ask, primarily because I really didn’t want to offend the poor girl with my feet as I am sure they are less than charming at the moment. I also hadn’t cut my toenails for a couple of weeks so I was sort of embarrassed about that too. But I worked up the nerve and asked if I could have a pedicure also. Now this girl, working off commission not wanting to pass up a job or offend me quickly came up with a good solution. She offered me a foot spa. Now there is a clever solution, she won’t have to deal with my feet not smelling like roses, she gets paid more from the commission, and I don’t have to be embarrassed about my feet not smelling wonderful. So here is how the foot spa works. First they put your feet in a vibrating tub of warm water with soap in it that blows bubbles on the bottom of your feet. Yippee for both of us, my feet get clean and she doesn’t have to deal with them until they are clean, I think this also helps to soften up the nails, but I’m not positive on that account. Next she did the pedicure making my toe nails all pretty. Now comes the fun part the scrubbing. She had a coworker come over so each girl could work on one foot; by the way I am relaxing on a couch with my feet resting on stools in front of me. Now I don’t have much, or rather I should say didn’t have much in the way of calluses because my feet stay in shoes most of the time and so remain fairly soft. But these girls managed to scrub and scrub my feet until they got about a pound of dead skin off my feet. Well ok the may be excessive, but they sure got more off there than I ever would have thought that they could. By the they time they were done scrubbing there were no sign of toughened skin anywhere on my feet, and I could tell because it was all very tender and felt like fresh skin, kind of like when you peal away dead skin after a sunburn. By the time they were finished with that, I was ready for them to be so. The next part was much nicer. They began by rubbing a lotion onto my feet and then up onto my calves and working it into my skin massaging my legs and feet as they did so. After they had finished working this lotion in they applied another cream but didn’t work this one in so much as just rubbed it onto my skin. They then wrapped my calves and upper feet in a plastic sheeting kind of like saran wrap, and just let that sit for a while until I started feeling a heating and cooling sensation at the same time in my legs. They then unwrapped my legs and the cooling sensation almost overpowered the heating sensation, though neither was unpleasant. When finished with this they began washing my calves and feet with warm moistened towels and finished by drying them off and propping both of my feet up on a stool. Now this being a place of pampering that couldn’t be the end, they did there best to adjust and fluff the pillows around me, and brought me magazines. I sat there about 5 minutes and thinking that I should pay them and be on my way started to get up. Apparently this was the wrong thing to do. First the girl told me just to sit back and relax and then sat behind the couch I was resting on just to keep and eye on me. Then after a few minutes I suppose when they thought I was going to try another get away they asked me if I would like some coffee or tea. Ok so here I am sitting on a couch barefoot having just had a manicure, pedicure and what amounted to a foot and leg massage, and all these beautiful women want me to stay for some tea. Weather this is just customarily what they do for all there customers or not, it sounded like a nice invitation to me. So I accepted a cup of tea. Now here is where I really think they just wanted to keep me for a few more minutes though (that and all the cooing and clucking they had done over me earlier), the tea was so hot I had to wait 15 minutes just so it wouldn’t burn my tongue. I don’t really mind this, I am quite comfortable and my feet feel so fresh, and clean that it seems a shame to walk on them, let alone put them back in the same ole dirty socks and boots. Now during this whole thing there had been a couple of odd moments where the girls would glance at each other and say something or giggle or laugh, and ask me if I was single or other little questions. But there was one particularly odd moment where three of the women were all looking at me and exchanging glances. Of course I couldn’t help but notice this as two of them were working on my feet and the third was sitting on a stool in front and just to the left of me. Noticing that I was watching them there was a particularly odd silence between them as two of the girls glanced away to avoid making eye contact. The third women (and if you ask me the most attractive) looked at me and said “you’re a very handsome man sir”. Boy did this boost my ego, or at least for 30 seconds. I didn’t know what to say and just laughed, after a few moments I wished I had returned the compliment because I did find her to be attractive, but the moment was gone. Anyways while I enjoyed the compliment I think the starring and cooing and clucking and womanly chit chat probably had more to do with the fact that I have a full beard, which seems to be something of a rarity around here. I must confess though, I did enjoy the attention. And attention and fussing or not it has to be one of the best $6.00 I have spent.

There are many children around the cathedrals selling candles for you to burn for as you say your prayers.  This little girl ran up to me and as many of the children do, offering her candles. The children are rather accustomed to being ignored or brushed off, or you handing them money. She however was not at all prepared for what I did. I simply stopped and bent down to her level. This being not what she was expecting or used to got scared, and started to run the other direction. Her mother being close by selling flowers saw this and laughed. I found it rather amusing myself. Just a second before she had been trailing, me talking to me (in Taglaog), grabbing or tugging at my shirtsleeves or pant legs to get me to buy her candles. So now when I stop and pay attention to her she gets scared and runs away. It took quite a bit of coxing from her mother and me to get her to come a little closer. I didn’t really want any candles I was just going to give her a few pesos and so I held it out to her. It took her a little while but she eventually worked up the courage to come and get it from me. This picture was taken on her slow scared approach to me.