So far my first week in the philippines has been an interesting one. Our first full day was comprimised of going to the mall and collecting goodies to make our house a home. We asked for a blue blender, got a red one. we asked for red speakers and got white ones. I asked for a blue fan, and got a pink one. With the pink coloured sheets that are on my bed and the light purple curtains and now my pink fan, my room is looking increasingly pink and girly. For those of you who know me well, you will know that under no circumstances am i a particulary pink kind of girl. It turns out that i am surrounded by it. The bright colours in my room (even if they are pink) make me feel that little bit more at home however. As do the photo's I have stuck up around my walls :)
To set the scene of our new home you need to understand that Quezon City (where i live) is very much a university area. There are 3 major universities right near us making the area unlike the real philippines. Instead we are surrounded by American influence, absolutely everywhere. Katipunan Ave (the big highway we live off) is lined with McDonalds, KFC, JolliBee (fried chicken), Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and a myriad of other such American takeaway. It's insane. Everywhere here also delivers to your house, including McDonalds and even Bubble Tea from our local 'Ninja Tea'. Talk about being too lazy to walk 100 meters down the street for tea. I will be interested to explore more outside of our area into the real philippines.
Living in the house has been interesting, with only cold water, showers (even in this heat) take a minute or two to become used to the temperature, and the unfortunate incident of waking up to a cockroach crawling on me in my sleep. Every morning we are woken up the people on the street sweeping their drive ways, or selling icecream and other such goodies, or honking their horn at the bright old time of 6am. It's a killer!! Why would someone want icecream that early...who knows!
We have also learnt that leaving ANYTHING out for long enough will become mouldy due to the constant moisture in the air, as well as the Filipino's are (to my delight) obsessed with aircon, however I have found myself to be freezing cold when entering a bus or shopping center after about 5 minutes.
My house mates, Cathy, Erin, Tania and I have spent a nice amount of time bonding over dvd's, shopping and having copious amounts of smoothies. To date the best flavour has been Peanutbutter-choc-banana. It's deliciousness all combined in one amazing drink!
We have made a few local friends (mostly thanks to Tania imposing her happy personality on locals) including Henessey, the lady who works at the bank. We have also been down to the university several times to meet the other international students, The education abroad office workers, and to get lost. The place is like it's own suburb, its HUGE, and mostly surrounded by what looks a bit like a jungle and old buildings.
The Philippines are relatively safe thanks to security guards being EVERYWHERE, and even on the trains there is a carriage with security that is only for eldery people and women. They definitely take safety seriously here, but again I have learnt that there is reason to.
Thanks to another Aussie student, i have learnt on campus to avoid what is commonly known as 'rape alley' and also to not be on campus late at night by myself if i would like to keep my kidneys, or else have them sold on the black market. Is anyone else reminded of Charlie the Unicorn right about now???
Definitely instills you with a sense of confidence. Ofcourse this is still quite rare, but safety must come first, and now that we are aware of this we will take extra precautions!! For a class that finishes at night, all three of us who are studying will wait in the library for each person to finish and then taxi it home together. I am quite fond of my kidneys, they come in handy from time to time. :)
But don't fret all, Belle and Joy at the education abroad are very protective and lovely and keep a good eye out for us!
As for classes, we have enrolled in those that are required by the university, and I have also enrolled in 'Introduction to Shakespeare'. I am exceptionally excited to learn about Shakespeare interpretations by another cultural perspective, that and i am a nerd really.
Cathy and I will also be taking part in dance classes at the university a few mornings a week, and are looking into Yoga classes that are local.
One Korean student that we have met has commented on how much we laugh, and quite possibly thinks we are crazy, and even asked if we ride around in kangaroo's!! I am wondering if they will understand the concept of drop bears, or whether the language barrier will be lost on her? hehe.
The work load of each university subject is said to be incredibly intense and other RMIT students who have come to study at the philippines have said they rarely had any time to travel the country while here, so our household decided to go away for a few days before the craziness started to Puerto Galera, off one of the islands. It was a beautiful beach, where we stayed to Jetski (so much fun, i forgot how good adrenaline felt) and snorkel. The snorkelling was AMAZING!! so many beautiful and brightly coloured fish, and interesting corals. I would love to go Scuba diving off the islands some more. I managed to scrape my foot pretty badly on some coral though, OUCH!!
On white beach we are harrassed by locals wanting to sell us massages, hair braiding, pearls and other pieces of jewellery. It was hard to turn them all down, because it is there income to sell their products. We made a few local friends (again to Tania's enthusiasm) and took some tricycle rides around. We had two of our own personal tricycle drivers who we would sms and they would come pick us up.
After our first day it began to bucket down like crazy and we waited in our room for the storm to pass. It was amazing to see the lightening across the bay.
That night we went to a local Pizza restaurant that was reccommended to us, called Luca's. The Pizza's were MASSIVE!!! insanely huge, but delicious all the same. After being told that the cheese here was to be avoided, we learnt that it was actually ok to eat cheese here, you just had to pick where u ordered it from, nowhere dingy.
We asked for our leftover pizza to be bundled up and gave it to our lovely tricycle driver Robert to share with his friends.
The local's here love to burst into song randomly, which i love. We started singing 'to the left, to the left' to which our driver burst out singing 'everything you own in a box to the left'. Life really is a musical here. love it!!
The next day we went out in the pouring rain to get a few beach trinkets and sarongs, and ended up back at the beach to get some massages as our muscles ached from the jetski's. For about $6AUD you get an hour full body massage lying on the beach. It was the most amazing massage. I was able to look out across the shore, to the rain falling on the water, and the sounds of locals chatting amongst the sound of the waves. What I loved even more was that my masseuse was wearing a tshirt advocating for child sex trading to be stopped. I wanted to ask her about it when our massage finished but our boat decided to rock up early, and we had to run to get it, so we could make it back to Manila. The boat docked at White Beach briefly where we went to get a smoothy, and this beautiful old woman with no teeth and a big smile that made her entire face crinkle came up to say hello. She spoke no english and we spoke no Tagalog, and we immediately wanted to buy anything she was selling, she was just so cute! Turns out she usually sells mangoes, but had sold out and just wanted to come say hi. I think she was quite intrigued by Tania and just wanted to hold her arm and smile at us for a while. We immediately wanted to shrink her and put her in our pockets!!
I almost forgot to mention one of the funniest things that i have seen for a long time! In our hotel room we had two trundle beds. Cathy was mentioning how she was worried that her bed would fold up and close on her like in the movies. about one minute later she moved on the bed and it engulfed her that same way!! a laughing fit ensued - So funny!!
We are now back home in Manila and are ready to start classes tomorrow aswell as celebrating Tania's 21st birthday, possibley with a bit of kareoke..hey why not do as the locals do!!!
The biggest and hardest part of the adventure begins tomorrow! Stay tuned!!
Much love xoxox
P.s. I have been trying to post more photos on here, but it appears it doesn't want to work for me currently. So here is a few :)
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