The Real Life

After getting married, then preparing for another wedding, getting married AGAIN and a longish vacation we finally settled down. We choose to rent a condominium in Cainta. We choose this as our first home because it is near our church, it's furnished and it is relatively nice residential complex near commercial areas. Now the real life of married couple begins...

Our first few days was really not normal, we were still not recovered from our vacation mode so we still wake up at 9 am, have breakfast at 10 am, lunch at 3pm and a very late dinner. This mode lasted, well until now... Josh is working from home so he doesn't have to rush to wake up and get ready and drive to work. He just simply gets up, take a few steps to get a shower then another 4 steps to go to work. Speaking of work he did go back to work the day after we arrived from Bangkok.

I know how josh can be obsessive with things, especially with work and books (he has warned me about it before and i heard a couple of warning from his friends as well) so i have my heart prepared for that, but being with him in actuality makes the all difference, i underestimated his obsessiveness, my expectation failed me... Josh, the minute he gets his hand on his computer will work restlessly like the energizer bunny... he can stare in his computer without looking away for hours, he is perfectly fine watching tv shows in his ipod for hours while working, he watches tv shows intensely without moving, so still that i can sketch his profile and he can read books while doing other stuff or in very extreme conditions (e.g. while a boat is being shaken forcefully by waves). These are some examples of how josh can be obsessive. It was hard at first to adjust to this obsessiveness because I on the other hand am Josh's exact opposite... i have a hard time paying attention to a certain thing for a long time. I get bored easily, so i find myself doing other things to amuse myself (e.g. drawing while listening to a lecture at class, or just simply fidget ing with things). My friends even jokes that i have ADHD, but that's just a joke there's nothing to be alarmed about.

We are in the real life now, beyond the long distance relationship and holidays. We get to live with the flaws and imperfections of each other. While talking before we have our expectations set that living together will not be all fun, we know that in our case there will be major adjustments and conflicts will arise. And being two different people living together certainly creates friction. We know it is foolish and selfish to expect someone to change just to conform to ones temperament. Knowing our differences makes us learn how we can balance each other... So i provide josh good distraction and he helps me to have structure and help me endure boredom. We learn that we can easily hurt each other if we will be just focus on our own temperament so we can learn how to serve each other well.

Bangkok

Bangkok was a really nice change of pace. Where Hong Kong and Macau felt a little hectic (and we were getting to the tired stage of long vacationing), we were going to be in Bangkok for a while and the famous Nikolaiev ability to work out amazing details had put us in amazing housing for several days as we checked out the city. While in Bangkok we took some boats around to a really big wat (temple),



we saw a museum on royal barges,


and we went by the temple of the reclining buddha which was truly epic in proportion.



We did a nice bit of shopping in bazaars, most impressive of which was the weekend market. that market is big enough to lose a couple football fields in and sells everything from clothes to furniture to food to souvenirs to pets including all the regulars: dogs, cats, bunnys, guinea pigs and a rather interesting selection of live chipmunks.



One evening while eating dinner I caught this shot on the street. This is really a good image of Bangkok.


As always we ate some really good food, at truly amazing prices. I think for living expenses Bangkok is really the best place I've been to so far when it comes to stretching your dollar.

We also took a package trip out of the city to ride elephants,



we also rode on rafts,


crossed a rope bridge


and played in a waterfall. A rather nice outing.






All in all Bangkok was a really nice end to our post-wedding vacationing. But the time ended and we all had to go back to our lives in America... except for Joy and myself. So the rest went back to America and Joy and I stayed in Manila and got settled into our apartment.

Hong Kong and Macau

The remaining group (Matt and Rachel Nikolaiev, Erik West, Fuad Loutfi, Joy and I) flew into Manila and then out to Hong Kong. We were met at the airport by Edwin and Lilly Chow my friends from school. They had gotten us set up to stay at the YWCA. Which is essentially a clean dorm room with shared bathrooms which is reasonably priced by Hong Kong standards and nicely located near major public transit stops and not too far from major city stuff.



While we were there we toured around the city catching the ferry around the bay,

We went up the worlds longest escalator, really a series of escalators that allows passage up the long incline to the richer area of Hong Kong.



visiting the zoo,


and taking the tram up the mountain to look out over the city.



Of course we also spent some time sampling the food. Dim sum was incredible and reasonably priced and We ate soem truly amazing food at a restaurant that Edwin's mom was at. This was Szechuan cuisine rather than true cantonese fare but it was quite tasty.


We also ran across something that came across an enormous gathering of Filipino ex-pats working in Hong Kong.




This came to be a running joke that Joy can go anywhere in Asia only speaking Tagalog and she would be fine because Filipinos permeate Asia's service jobs. One of Joy's Aunts actually was working in Hong Kong so we went by her work and visited with her for a little while.



On an amusing note, Fuad ran across his much older chinese beard twin and got a picture with him. Although neither could understand the other their beards were a communication beyond language :)


After our couple days in Hong Kong we parted ways with Edwin and Lilly and took the ferry to Macau.

While waiting for a pickup from our hotel Joy gets into a conversation with a Filipino working as a porter for the hotel. Filipinos really are everywhere.

Macau is the Las Vegas of Asia with oversized super-extravagant casinos throughout the island.

Macau was actually originally a portugese settlement with some remnants from the early days and some of the picturesque narrow winding streets common to Europe.




Edwin had told us that portugese egg tarts were a must-try on the island and he was truly correct. We stopped at a dessert shop, each got a tart and then immediately got back in line for several more. They are truly addictive and really tasty. So we spent the day wandering the city and a little time playing around in a little fitnesse themed park next to our hotel.

That night we visited the two of the most well-known casinos on the island. The Sands and the Venetian. The Sands was really nothing that great but the venetian was truly amazing. It was part casino part theme park. With indoor canals with people on boats punting through the canals and an enitre mall of top brand stores and really nice restaurants. Its the sort of place that offers the most efficient transfer of money from your back pocket to the casino while distracting you with a twinkle in your eye.



We only spent about 24 hours in Macau but unless you are planning on gambling its pretty well enough for the island. We then caught a flight out from Macau to our next destination, Bangkok.

Boracay

Boracay: The day after the wedding Joy, myself and the Americans headed off to Boracay. Boracay was once a sleepy little island with amazing beaches but it got a lot of press as one of the nicest beaches in the world (and it is the nicest beach I’ve ever seen), and lots of people developed it, now it’s a bit of a haven for Europeans and Americans. And can get very crowded on holidays. Holidays like New Year’s Eve… the day we were traveling to Boracay. We waited too long to make arrangements at Boracay and Joy worked really hard to find us a place to stay together. We finally arrived at spending the first two nights at a place called Dalisay Paradise Nest, and the next two at Casa Fiesta. It turns out that the first choice was a bad one. But more on that later...

When we got there, Joy, Heidi, Cairo and myself got to Boracay first. We verified with the lady from Dalisay who was meeting us that there would be someone to meet the next batch of people, she assured us that there would be (the first of a long string of lies), and we went on. When we got to the hotel it was very much in disrepair, but we were so glad to be at the beach that we just dropped our bags off and found a restaurant (a nice restaurant run by an older Italian guy) and proceeded to relax. The others got there later and it turns out that they weren’t met, they came by themselves and got scammed by people at the airport to pay triple the amount you should pay to get to the ferry. One of the things you learn is that in Asia if you don’t have an inside connection you are likely to pay the “white” tax.

So we finally connected, spent some time at the beach and getting settled into our rooms it became clear that this was a really bad hotel. Lots of things didn’t work (water, doors missing handles, suspicious stains, etc.) So we decided that we would look for another place to stay tomorrow. We had already paid for the first night up front and the receptionist asked for half of the second when we checked in… we did it but it seemed fishy. Well, we put that out of our minds and wandered around checking out Boracay and found a nice place to watch the fireworks show. There was a place that served food and drinks at the beach on low tables and bean bag chairs and actually had a decent guy on a guitar singing American songs. So we hung out and relaxed for several hours, some of us occasionally falling asleep. It was good that we got a place early because Boracay was full of people. And starting about 11:30 PM and going till about 12:30 AM the fireworks went off. From places down both sides of the beach and once place right next to us so that the fireworks seemed like they were right over us. It was really a quite impressive show.

When it was done we went back to the hotel and found that the front open restaurant area had become a karaoke club, and there were some truly scruffy individuals (as in tattoos on shaved head level of scruffy) at the bar and the worst singing I have heard… truly like cats fighting… coming from the karaoke area. Amazingly we got to bed, though some of the guys stayed up in their rooms making fun of the singing, because it was so bad that it was actually entertaining.

The next morning we got up early to search for another hotel. Staying in that hotel was just not a good option. So Erik and Neuanda found another hotel, And I went about trying to get the money back for the originally proposed second night, and hopefully a bit of a refund back for all the badness that was the first night. Thus began a tug-of-war that lasted most of the time at Boracay… I would show up asking for money, the receptionist would say that she can’t do anything, I’d ask to speak to her manager or the owner and would be given promises that the owner would be there soon. I finally got the money back from the unstayed second night, but never did see the owner. It got so bad that near the end of the trip Joy and I were walking down to that end of the beach to retrieve something she left at the second hotel and the people in Dalisay saw me (spoke quickly to one another and when we walked back they had gone into hiding). I had kept the keys from our rooms to encourage them to actually find resolution, but the owner or manager with some small amount of say never did show up so I kept the keys and gave them to the other people as a souvenir of the worst hotel in Boracay

We stayed another five days in Boracay and stayed in two other hotels that were quite nice. Heidi and Annie left in the first couple days, and Matt Jennings and Dan and Jenny Crank left at the end of the time. But we had quite a bit of fun during the rest of our stay, eating great food, going to a wonderful spa (the Mandala), hanging out on the beach and attempting to skim-board, Dan and Jenny rented a sea kayak at one point, the guys went out snorkeling (though the water was a but choppy) and to an island with interesting caves and a little castle. All in all it was a great time, though the first days were a bit rocky.