Cebu, Philippines - December 18, 2005
Another night in the Philippines. Last night, near the hotel, I found a great restaurant/bar called 'The Winelist'. Great music, great food, great atmosphere, yet seemingly in a place in Cebu that you wouldn't expect. I keep comparing things to Seoul, but the surprises here in the Philippines are quite astounding. I feel more like I'm back in the U.S. when I'm actually within businesses. The streets are still kind of poor and everything else, but business-wise, things remind me much more of being in the U.S.
While at the 'The Winelist', I thumbed through many of the newspapers and magazines. Most things are in English, and feels really accessable to be able to look at used car prices, property prices, and read entire articles and ideas and opinions all in English once again. Many Filipino writers seem to constantly compare and view themselves as Filipino-Americans, which made me wonder if quite a few Filipino-Americans end up coming back to the Philippines and get all the interesting jobs like journalism, opinion pieces, and so forth.
From 'The Winelist', I made me way across the street to a live music venue. The place was basic, with a pool table, and some really good live acoustic music. The man singing, seemed really down-to-earth and a bit hardcore as well. He could really play a mean acoustic guitar as well. Then after a bit, they had a gorgeous filipina come up and she started playing the acoustic guitar and singing to it. It really fulfilled my expectations and met something of an ideal for me - watching a gorgeous woman playing an acoustic and singing a song. As she was playing, one of the staff asked me if I wanted to request a song. I just told them, 'yeah, how about anything by Jim Croce'? as it seemed to be something they'd probably know. Later the guy played "I just had to say I love you in a song".. wow, great performance.
I also kept thinking how comfortable this country and city is here in Cebu of the Philippines. Sure, there is also a lot of poverty and everything else. But the good things really make up for the bad things overall. In addition, I'm using the internet right now for 20 pesos (40 US cents) per hour.
Today, I'm going to the airport to pick up my girlfriend. I also have an invite for a tour today from the same guy that helped me out with the taxi from the airport the other day. Not sure if I can take him up on that offer or not though. We'll see. In addition, might be meeting my girlfriend's aunt here today as well. In short, should be yet another interesting day no matter what happens.
Continued journal entries in the Philippines:
December 19, 2005
You can email me at:
Wintermoon2@yahoo.com