Trying to sleep on the bus

Sorry for the long silence, was away on assignment to a ruggedly beautiful place called Aurora Province. How rugged? Let's just say that trying to get some sleep on the bus once in the province is close to impossible. More to come soon.

Easter Treat: Guest Photographer

Now this blog is about me and my writing and my photography but this being Easter, Happy Easter everyone, I've decided to let selfishness take a back seat and share the works of another photographer with you.

I expectingly bumped into her during lunch in Singapore and was immediately surprised when she started picking up my camera and taking pictures of the people around us. Sidney, who is eight, is actually the daughter of my good friends in college and here are her shots;

Turns out her favorite subject was her sister who did not want her picture taken, so she did anyway paparazzi style, good enough for any gossip magazine;


Still no luck



If you can't beat them, join them, Ela turns photographer herself.



Best shot of the session, Ela's portrait.

Ela's no slouch either, when she was taking a picture of me and her mom she asked the waiter behind us to move out of the frame "I don't want you in the picture" she said. Like a pro she considers even the background.

Singapore Refreshed

I've been to Singapore several times, once for work, once for my honeymoon and a few more times for vacation. I know, I know, sounds like a lot of times to go for such a small place (you can go on a road trip around the country in two hours and be done) so I wasn't really too excited when my latest photo project brought me to this tiny city state.

A few hours in Funan IT mall, my defacto hang out place kind of reinforced the fact that I was bored with this country. After realizing that I already have all the gadgets I needed (not wanted though) and that all the cheap but unnecessary photo equipment in the nearby Cathay Photo shop was also now unappealing I was wondering what else I could do in the country. I'd taken portraits of all the individual birds in Jurong bird Park in an earlier trip and going on the night safari again and on my own seemed kind of sad.

So I decided to contact my friends who were either in the country for vacation or who had moved here for work and that was my saving grace. Here's a quick run down;



My first night out was with R & P who were gracious enough to bring me along with their Singaporean friends for dinner. Never say "no" to a local who wants to take you out to dinner since they know all the great places to eat and boy were we treated to great dinner. The after dinner walk around the Esplanade through to the Fullerton Hotel and then ending up in Clarke Quay was something I'd never done before so that was great.

On another night out with my ex-HSBC officemate we ended up in Emerald Hill, a charming street with converted shop fronts bars that served some of the best food around. Sorry no pics here but it's near Somerset MRT station.

Then there was a great lunch with my college friends and their kids in Dempsey Road, a quaint neighborhood. More on that at a later post.

And talk about catching up a college friend of mine who I hadn't seen since . . . . .graduation saw my facebook status as being in Singapore and so we caught up over some great Indian food.

On Sunday, hung out with my cousin who took me to their Marina Club on Sentosa for a slice of the high life. Super great place with swanky facilities, like a plexi glass pool and a bay for my as of yet non-existing yacht.

Also got an invite from another ex HSBC officemate who has made a new life for her and her kids in Singapore. This time, no swanky bars, no over crowded restos, just a great home cooked meal care of her mother in their apartment. It was great catching up and meeting her great kids (who will no doubt soon become global citizens since they're enrolled in a local school and are picking up Mandarin quickly).

The real treat for me this trip though was just catching up, whether it was while having breakfast with my cousin in the Marina, or talking tsismis to my ex officemate about our past colleagues or whether it was talking about the future over a home cooked meal. Thanks everyone for taking the time out to meet up with me.

Elusive India

Holy Week is coming up and in true "Sleeping" fashion, we have left travel plans to the last minute. Actually, we had cut it down to the wire but it would still work out. Our plans were a "tour" of India which consisted of the usual tour triangle of Delhi, Jaipur and finally Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Then, in what has become a standard practice with my wife and I, I'd get left behind to explore a bit more and take pictures. There was the added bonus of me hooking up with my Indian friend in Bangalore who had already promised to arrange the "exploration" part of my trip.

Then along came a job that I just had to take and all of a sudden all those well laid out (hasty) plans came crashing down. Vinodh, my friend even gave me a call to ask when I was coming and to iron out the details of my visit and so with a heavy heart I had to tell him that I couldn't make it after all.

Nontheless, this has just bolstered my resolve to get to India within the year and hopefully with a more extensive and better thought out plan than before. Until then . . . . .

Those Crazy Men with their Amazing Flying Machines

Man is generally a land creature. We don't do well long term in a aquatic environment and do even worse in the air but when I got an invitation to try sport flying via an ultralight I couldn't resist. If you don't know that ultralights are, the name should tell you a lot. Although the term is now broadly used across a wide range of aircraft, at its most basic it is a pair of chairs strapped onto a pair of wings covered in tarp all propelled through the air by a big hunking engine with large propellers.

In the Philippines, the Angeles City Flying Club (www.angelesflying.com) is the undisputed Mecca of ultralights. Its airfield near the base of Mount Arayat literally buzzes with activity with ultralights landing and taking off or just flying in the sky like some giant dragonfly.

My first time up is with Marc, a member of the club who decides to take me up in a Quicksilver, basically the aircraft I described above. In the air it's noisy and scary, you can feel every dip and rise of the ultralight but it's one heck of a view. I look to my left, beyond the seat I was tightly strapped into and saw nothing between me and the ground.

The second time I go up is with Chris who owns a sleeker S-12, at least this aircraft has a cockpit. It's faster, more agile and a little bit more stable than the Quicksilver. I know bcause Chris let me fly it when we got to our cruising speed of 500 feet. A nice 90 degree turn to the left, perfectly executed followed by an overly aggressive 180 degree turn to the right which made me feel like I was going to fall out on my side of the ultralight. Chris took over last minute.

I strongly recommend that you guys try this out. The Club is situated about an hour away from Manila (follow the map on the website) and the guys at the club are very accommodating. An introductory flight costs around PHP2,500 or you can choose to learn how to fly it on your own over a number of sessions. Members that are finally certified to solo fly can take out the club's different aircrafts for a spin, I believe they have 4 different types.

Come Follow Me

If you've ever been in trouble with "Big Brother," then the following may frighten you a bit. Me, I'm happy to say I haven't been such a bad boy and so I don't mind people seeing where I've been. I recently bought myself a GPS device (that's a Global Positioning System for you non-techs). It basically uses Uncle Sam's network of satellites to pinpoint where you are on the planet.

Used by engineers to plot out their next projects, search and rescue teams to map out their search patterns, truckers to find the easiest route to their next destinations or suburban moms in America who can't be bothered to remember the fastest route to their favorite nail spa, GPS has made life easy. Not sure which category I fall under but unfortunately there are very limited maps you can download into a GPS device that will give you accurate data on the Philippines. This is porbably because they change the street names and one-way traffic flows so often. Nonetheless , one can download waypoints (coordinates) that have been gathered by charitable GPS owners that don't mind sharing.

Me, I like using the GPS to map our where I've been. It gives me a good geographic idea of the place I just visited. The above image for instance is an accurate trace of each and every step my wife and I took while we were in El Nido, from the kayaking we did in the Big and Small Lagoon to the dinner we had in Monkey Island. Even with my great sense of direction (my wife on the other hand is perpetually lost) I kind of lost my bearings with the number of boat rides we took. It's also a great tool to show people just what to expect when you go to a place, for those not paying attention I did mention that you weren't stuck in one resort in El Nido and this shows the extent of our frolicking in the sun.

Best meal in town

A 15 minute boat ride through the dark seas, a candle lit dinner on a remote beach, a gourmet cooked meal served by a waiter who was waiting on the only table around - ours, and a cool breeze to boot. All of this was included in what I call my best meal so far. Of course, celebrating my wife's birthday had a lot to do with it too.

Our romantic and secluded dinner was arranged by the resort on a very secluded beach not so romantically named "Monkey Beach", if the dinner wasn't so affordable I would have made a suggestion to the manager that for marketing value they should rename it "Lovers Cove" but what can you expect for the bargain basement price of PHP3,000.

I tried to keep it a secret from my wife who I think had an inkling already and so at the pier I finally told her where we were headed for dinner. The boat ride unfortunately was not as romantic as expected and like with anything else slightly risky, the wife was deathly afraid during our trip. I'm not sure if boats really don't have headlights but our guide spent the whole trip in the front of the boat guiding the boatman with faint waves of his flashlight which I was afraid would lose its charge any minute leaving us in the dark ocean.

Luckily for us we finally made it to the beach where we sat down to a great full meal with soup, salad, the best tasting fish fillet with lemon grass butter I ever tasted and desert. At our beck and call were the guard, boatmen, waiter and chef which made us all feel a little "rich and famous" Robin Leech style.

We talked about our future, we talked about our past but when the wind picked up and the waiter had to stand beside us and hold the umbrella which had a good chance of getting blown away we talked to the waiter instead.

After dinner, a quick stroll down the beach and the sand bar which extended a good 50-75 meters into the water. At the end, the water was glistening in the little moonlight that was there making the dark sand look like it was actually deeper than the water and when we realized that this was not a good place to get caught in when the tide came in we quickly (but romantically) sprinted back to our table.