Philippines Part 2: Sabang

:)

With the 3 days I had left me and my friend, Dan, decided to go and explore Sabang. We originally wanted to do El Nido but the 6-8 hour bus ride dissuaded us given that we'd only get a day there. 

I'm so thankful we opted for Sabang instead. The 2-3 hour bus ride back to Bahay Kalipay (where we left our stuff) was complete misery. Also it's was probably made worse by the fact that I was getting sick and Dan was recovering at a sloth-like speed from his terrible food poisoning. 

Thoughts on fancy resorts:

Let me set the stage a bit before I describe why I feel how I feel. 

On the beach shore of Sabang you can see all ranges of socioeconomic status within a 15 minute walk. There are the really cheap hostels you can stay at for 500 peso/night ($11.50 USD), there are the super fancy, super ritzy Sheratons and further down is the local housing which is impoverished to say in the very least. Peppered in between these housing options are pop-up massage parlors and the occasional cow grazing.

Daluyon

• My friend stayed at the Daluyon hotel. This is one of the two really fancy places on the beach (the Sheraton is the first) but I take no issue with staying at this resort. It's won a million awards for being eco-friendly and giving back to the environment and community. It's also a carbon neutral resort, which is awesome. 
• Yes it's fancy and a clear dividing line between socioeconomic statuses but it also serves a great value to the area - it provides jobs for so many locals and brings in lots of money from tourists. 
• Then there's the Sherton.

• My god.
• Here's a picture of what the locals have to see every single day as they walk to work or walk home (since getting to local housing requires you to pass this hotel). 
• On either side of the hotel there is incredibly poverty. What really makes it bad for me is that there is this narrow little dirt road that all people must walk on, and right along this road the Sheraton set up fancy couches and chairs for it's residents to relax on. So these incredibly impoverished locals who don't have flushing toilets so much as a pair of Gucci sunglasses, have to walk by these foreigners, mostly white and Arab, lounging around and flashing all their wealth. 
• If you're wealthy I'm not saying you should live in the slums when you visit third world countries - of course not. You're got lucky in life, might as well capitalize on that luck. 
• But please don't flaunt your wealth in the eyes of those who can't even afford to dream about having the things you have. As I would walk by the Sheraton the stark juxtaposition of wealth disparities just hurt. 
• My only request for all people of the world, when you travel to places where owning an iPhone is clearly not the norm, please don't wave it around in front of people who you know work paycheck to paycheck just to put food on the table, it's just a pretty messed up thing to do. 

Thoughts on supermarkets: 

• It was pretty crazy to consider that while shopping at a supermarket and buying things at very reasonable US prices, we were surrounded by the wealthiest 10% of Filipinos. 
• I didn't even realize at first, it just all looked normal to me. Later it clicked though, most people go to the street markets, where air conditioning and customer service and even electronic cash registers are just not a thing. 
• Filipinos eat so unhealthy. I was about to say that it's way worse than America but honestly I can only speak for the Bay Area, which is this relatively happy, healthy, eco-concious bubble. I figure somewhere in the deep South wouldn't be too different than what I saw in the Philippines. 
• Just lines and lines of packaged and preserved foods that are pumped full of chemicals and sugar.

"Health and Wellness" = canned corn and canned fruits?
.... interesting and very Filipino
Besides my meditation retreat, it's nearly impossible to
find even remotely healthy food

'Hiking' up to Ulong Rock ... it was cool for sure, but
it was a hike in the sense that a newborn kitten is a ferocious
killer

Zip-lining!
It was nice, I opted for the 'Superman' position and
it was just a nice relaxing decline downwards. But I'm
also a bit of an adrenaline junkie, so I think that
other people might appreciate the zipline more than me.

Going to the Underground River!

Grabbing some rice for the road

Monkey's are all over the place, they are
so sneaky too. This one monkey very quietly
came up to a girl and sat next to her.
After he had gained her trust and while she
quickly turned away to speak to a friend, the
monkey opened her backpack, stole a bag of
snacks and bolted away like it was on fire.

A local massage hut in Sabang. These are all over the place.

Mmmmm, fresh fruit smoothie

This stray (there are scores of them in the
Philippines) followed me around for the day

Interesting choice of decorations for the gym
at the hotel

More pretty infrastructure of the hotel

YESSS DURAIN <3 <3

Walked into the Sheraton to look around, saw this cool chess
set

Philippines Part 1: Spur of the Moment Meditation Retreat

Flying with the rising sun <3

I was in Korea, a week away from flying out to Palawan, an island in the Philippines, with no idea what I was actually going to do there.

After a FaceTime interview for a finance position at Apple, of all things, I was inspired to do a yoga and meditation retreat.

Hmm.

I googled 'yoga meditation retreat philippines' and the first thing that popped up was Bahay Kalipay. To my great fortune it happened to be right in Palawan!

I spent the next couple of hours combing through their website and through TripAdvisor reviews before deciding to go ahead and book myself into their 7-day wellness program. It's about $400 USD which is well worth it considering you get a week's worth of world-class food, housing, field trips, yoga & meditation sessions.

I was in the Philippines for a total of 10 days, so my blog posts will have 2 parts: Bahay Kalipay and then what I did for the three days not at BK.

Here's my TripAdvisor Review on the place:

Everything here is top notch and I highly recommend it.

People working here: Amazing human beings. From Jenny who runs the front desk + many other operations to Daniw and Pi (the owners) to the awesome chefs and even Ramil the van driver – everyone is just kind and good and an utter pleasure to be around.

People not working here: If you want to meet people from all corners of the world with an impressive plethora of knowledge and experiences – this is the place. I’ve met some very unique and awesome people here, and made some unlikely but certainly enriching friendships.

Food: Oh my god the food is ahhhh. Seriously world-class raw vegan food. I think the entire week here, with 21 meals and 14 snacks, I ate salad twice. They can make everything from samosas to cheesecake to hearty and filling soups. If you love cooking like me you can ask to help prepare a meal and learn their magical ways!

Physical living space: Beautiful. You can see the love that went into building up this entire retreat and everything is just tikki-esque and you truly feel like you’re living in a tropical paradise.

Yoga & meditation: Amazing. I had the incredible pleasure of having Ezzie as my yoga instructor for the whole week (often having 2 sessions with her a day) and her love for the practice just radiates throughout the entire space. She’s a superstar yoga instructor so I’d definitely keep my fingers crossed for her! Bhante (monk) and Nilhs (Tai Chi and Qui Gong) led our meditation practices and I loved those as well – very eye opening. 

Toilets: When I first read that the toilets here don’t flush and they don’t have toilet paper (it’s a water bucket system) I put on my fancy princess dress and said no way in hell am I going to deal with that. I will buy toilet paper from the airport and do my business as I’m used to. Well I forgot to buy my own toilet paper – and honestly, I’m glad I did. It’s really no big deal and this system makes you realize how wasteful we truly are. Plus in the heat using a water system is pretty refreshing. 
Yes it sounds gross and disgusting at first – but seriously, it’s not. 

Spiritual-ness: I’m not a spiritual person and honestly I was a little worried that coming here would surround me with blissed out yoginis floating away in la-la land with the great power of the heavens guiding their mystical rainbow essence to nirvana. Or something like that. To my great surprise I found people who are very down to earth but also, unlike most people in my normal life, in tune with the earth. They understand the environment and try to work with it as opposed to just having it in the background. My eyes have definitely been opened and now yoga is much more than just a workout. 
However if you are spiritual, this place is also great for you.

All in all this place is for literally everyone, except those with closed minds. But even then, come here and hopefully it’ll open your mind. :)

Cool tree

 

Loloy (one of the locals who works
at Bahay Kalipay) is amazing with
building pretty much anything. He
built this tricycle from scratch!

On one of our field trips to the beach near Maia
Absolute and utter paradise. Perfect weather, perfect
water, perfect sand, nearly no one else there
Just magic

More shots from the beach near Maia

Some of the people who live in Maia
(A completely self-sustaining village)

Two of the coolest and most good-at-heart
kids I've ever met in my life

Tricia is this awesome lady I had the joy of meeting
She just randomly started up a game with these local
kids and taught them how to play hopscotch and lots
of other games
(Also she owns a Bed and Breakfast in New Zealand
and is voted #1 on TripAdvisor - so check her out!)

Beautiful sunset at the beach near Bahay Kalipay

Another view from Maia

Front desk area

Bhante, the resident monk

Korea Week 6: The Grand Finale

Korea was fascinating. Remember how I said if I had to be an expat in any Asian country it'd be Korea? That's still more or less true, but I would be slightly less eager to do so now.

*Take everything with a grain of salt because I spent 90% of my time in Seoul, so I have a very narrow understanding of Korea and Korean culture since there is much more to the country than just the capital. (But also I did talk to a lot of Koreans (15+) about their opinions on things, so my views have some basis).

Why I Love Korea

• The expressiveness relative to other asian cultures
• The beautiful landscape and marvelous juxtaposition of city and mountain
• The tech-savyness 
• The overall kindness of most people and the warm and friendly reception to foreigners (for the most part)
• The fashion sense here - seriously very snazzy
• The collectivist culture
• This has both good and bad parts actually. Spending so much time in Korea has made me really realize and understand why people prefer collectivist societies. 
• It's safe
• People don't steal from you
• People don't try to hurt you or kidnap you
• Everyone tries to help everyone else out
• A true sense of togetherness
• However I still prefer more individualistic societies, I just don't respond well to pressures to conform to uniform values and I'd rather not be ostracized just because I'm a weirdo 

Korean Cultural Nuances that Don't Really Appeal to Me

• The focus on beauty

• If I don't see at least 3 girls on the metro doing their makeup it's a strange day. I find it so silly, they are already so beautiful, it's completely unnecessary. But I have no right to judge, I wear makeup sometimes too and I get it, it makes you feel better.
• Although let's be honest, no amount of makeup could fix my face
  
• The traditional values
• One Korean straight up told me "There aren't gay people in Korea" and after I looked at him incredulously he said "Okay, there are but they are far less than in America because it's not widely accepted here"
• Of course that's silly, social acceptance will not make straight people gay or gay people straight. You're born the way you are and it's a shame when archaic religious values force you to stifle yourself. You've got one life dammit, do what pleases you.
• Everything here is for couples. If you are over 23 or so and not in a serious relationship people will consider you hopeless and never to be married. It's not as prevalent anymore in the younger generations but my friends have literally had their parents, grandparents and aunts & uncles tell them "So where is your boyfriend? Why don't you have one yet? You're going to be alone."
• I feel like men and women are socially groomed to fit their stereotypical roles - but I also feel like this is really getting better and more individuality is accepted with the younger generations.

Things I'm Neutral About

• Old people reigning over the country
• This doesn't bother me but old people are quite rude here. I've literally been pushed off the sidewalk (and so have my friends) by middle-aged and elderly people just so they could get through.
• No 'excuse me/sillyhamnida' or even a tap on the shoulder to let me know they're trying to get through. Just an incredibly rude shove.
• Also on the subway stations, not only do they cut in line but they again will push and shove without so much as a single comment or even attempt at caring about myself or younger people around them.
• But honestly, it's no big deal, it's all balanced. When you're young you get pushed, when you're old you get to push
• One religion
• I have nothing against Christianity at all but I feel like there's no religious diversity in Seoul! I see churches everywhere (can count 8 from my rooftop alone) but I have never seen a single mosque or synagogue. I bet at least one exists, but yeah, never seen it. 

Had the incredible joy of being surrounded by some seriously great people, only some of whom are pictured below:

Sweet Potato Tart

Ice cream waffle!

Goodbye Korea :/

Clever!

Poop shaped pancakes with red bean inside

:)

Corn ice cream?? Pretty good actually.
Only in Asia are beans and corn considered
a desert

'Smile'

Korea Week 5: Sushi Inundation, NANTA and Communal Bathhouses

Sushi Inundation:

Went on quite a journey to reach a sushi buffet in Sinchon that ended up being closed. :(

So then I just searched for sushi buffet near Sinchon and a I found a blog that brought us to a Sushi-O in Hondgae. 

I hadn't eaten anything all day in preparation for this so at 8pm I inhaled sushi. It was a beautiful time.

For the next hour afterwards however it was rather painful as my intestines strained in protest at my lack of self control. 

But this experience made me realize that I really should make a blog post just about good places to go and eat around Seoul with screenshots of map locations.

So stay tuned! As soon as I get some free time I'll try to make a list of some of my favorite ones.

**Regret: If I could go back in time and start over I would have placed a 'star' next to every location I ate at with Google Maps.

I ate about a million of these rolls YUM YUM

NANTA:

This was really cool and surprisingly hilarious. It's a show where people dance and make awesome musical beats with cooking tools. 

I never knew cooking could be so much fun. Really tempted to do some insane cabbage chopping after it.

KUISC (the program I'm in Korea with) paid for the tickets which average about $50USD. The show is definitely worth $50 though, something truly novel and unique but thoroughly entertaining. I had tears welling up in the corners of my eyes from laughing so much. 

Top of Seoraksan

Hiking and Communal Bathhouses:

Sat on a 2.5 hour bus ride that was really 5 hours -__- to get to Seoraksan, which is a stunning mountain/temple hike.

We went to the town of Sochko, arriving far later than initially anticipated. Ended up starting our summit around 3pm and finishing around 7pm.

We hoped to get 2-3 hikes in that day, so it was unfortunate we only did one, but that one was worth the journey there. 

Unable to find even remotely affordable housing we opted to spend the night in a jimjinbang (Korean bathhouse) and while I'm not sure if I would choose to do it again (it was way too crowded and very difficult to fall asleep) I'm really glad we did do it! Truly a cultural experience and an awesome view into the differences between collectivist cultures like Korea and individualistic ones like the US. 

The whole concept of the jimjinbang is something that just wouldn't fly in the States. 

It's a bunch of people (separated by gender) washing themselves and in steam rooms and saunas, totally naked. I saw women massaging each other (in a completely non-sexual way) and overall embracing the mutualism and cohesiveness of female communities. 

Later everyone gathers at night and sleeps in a shared room where men and women can be together (clothed of course - they provide everyone with a t-shirt and shorts). 

You can buy food and drinks and just spend time chilling there with friends and family.

Most delicious bimbimbop I've had in Korea!
And very ironically it was in a Food Court at E-Mart

Holy moly...this guy is carrying that massive
pack all the way up the mountain.
Seriously insane.

Jimjinbang hat

I feel like a lot of people who did this are locals and so they probably have homes to sleep in, but they choose this experience and choose to sleep in this massive collective room just for the experience of being with lots of people they care about at the same time. 

This also makes sense since most Korean homes, especially in the cities, are really small so having sleepovers with friends or even inviting another family over for a day is just physically not possible. In general I feel like Koreans don't do a lot of things at other people's homes and instead they go out and visit a noribang (karaoke) or dvd-bang (like karaoke, but you just watch DVD's with friends). 

Kings of the North, East, South and West that guard
the temples

The next day we went to Osek to hike the highest point in the entire Sochko region but it was pouring rain and we decided not to do that hike because (1) probably pretty dangerous and slippery and (2) we wouldn't even have a view because it would be so cloudy. 

After last night's jimjinbang we didn't really feel like going to the hot springs, so we just head home early to study and prepare for final exams. 

RAIINNNN

Casual Christmas Tree in the shared room