I found Nemo!

He and a bunch of his friends are currently happily residing near White Beach, Puerto Galera, the Philippines.

Diving was just so incredible. Yes, I was a little freaked, but it wasn’t really scary at all.

Everyone says you always remember your first breath under water. Well, that part was a letdown for me because I didn’t think it was all that spectacular. I mean, yes, it was cool, but it’s not like I thought I was going to die and all of a sudden realized I wasn’t and was so enthralled with it. I mean, I knew I was going to be breathing.

The part I didn’t realize is that I was going to sound like Darth Vader, though. That part threw me, but I figured out pretty quick that it was normal. It just wasn’t in the manual that I’d read.

 

The drill for the open water dives is you read this book and/or watch some videos, then get kitted up. Well, before that, there was a “swim test,” which was kind of vague. I’d gotten to the beach on Easter, and it was completely packed. Like I think about a third of the area’s population was there, and there were all kinds of kids swimming.

The beach itself was just a small little area, with maybe half a mile of little shop fronts. There were a few dive places, but mostly just food and T-shirt shops. My dive place also had really good food, and had some tables and things sitting in front of the store front, all full of people. This meant that there was quite a crowd between the beach and the dive place, obscuring the view.

After I got suited up in an exposure suit, fins, mask and a snorkel, my dive instructor gave me the sketchy instructions of, “Go swim halfway to that boat and back,” as he waved his hand toward the beach. This was the swim test. I think the book said 200 meters; I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that, but it was kind of weird. And I don’t even remember whose boat it was. I mean, I was wearing all that stuff walking down this short beach, gathering all kinds of stares. Ah well. I do get used to that living where I live.

Look closely to see the tiny crab

Anyway, after the test and some further instruction, I then hit the surf again with the dive instructor for stuff like how to cope when you lose your regulator, mask or whatever. It wasn’t bad, but I kept getting distracted by all the cool things under water.

For the open water certification, your first run-throughs are supposed to be “confined” dives. In most cases, this is done in a swimming pool, so I was pretty surprised when we waded into the surf, but it worked out. I certainly got to see more fun stuff than you would find in a swimming pool.

I’d never seen a live sea urchin before. Apparently they’re really nasty critters, but I didn’t try to touch anything. I looked around once and I was in the middle of a school of fish swimming by. They were little eight-inch glimpses of silver – hundreds of them, swirling right by my head. Everything was just so amazing.

 

On the second day, I did more of the same in the morning, but in the afternoon we went by boat to a dive spot.

The boats are really funky. They have these little pontoon-y things for balance, only, unlike a pontoon boat, the thingies don’t normally hit the water. They’re on practically ALL the boats, from the 100-seater (loose term) ferries like on the ride over to the two-man canoe size.

While the boat is tied to the shore, little kids use the pontoon-y things as diving boards and just climb all over the boats. In the US, that’d call for some really close lawyering up, but in the Philippines no one blinked an eye.

So we set out for the dive site – the first one was a giant clamshell/reef thing – and then I discovered I couldn’t just enter the water with the “giant step” technique in the book. No, they wanted me to flip over backwards.

 

The first guy did it and then the instructor told me to go next. I was like, "You want me to do WHAT?" and had a mild panic attack and wound up going last. But the other two dives I did it just fine. I am just not a big turner of somersaults.

I did, however, bump my head coming up once.

All you can think of underwater is how amazing God is. You can sit and look at one reef and think you've taken it all in and suddenly something else will pop out of it, like a lot of baby fish or some kind of eel. It's ever-changing and some of the stuff is just so subtle.

On the second day of boat diving, we went to a shipwreck site – think jon boat, not yacht. The junked boats had turned into artificial reefs, with stuff living on them and in them. The instructor brought down some bread and we hovered and held it out. The fish gathered around and ate out of our hands. The only word I could come up with to describe it was “magical.” Big Nemos, little Nemos, friends of Nemos. It was just phenomenal.

At one point a little Nemo came right up to my mask and stared at me, and I stared right back. I’d like to think he was as impressed as I was, but I doubt it.

So now I have to figure out where to go next to dive again. That was just so much fun, and just a different world entirely. Peaceful and serene, except for the few bumps when you realize you just got kicked by someone else's fin.

SE Asia is really tops for diving, so now it's a matter of figuring where else I want to go. Thailand and Indonesia (not Jakarta) are great spots, and it's not like there aren't any more in the Philippines. There are tons. So I don't know. But I do want to do it again.

The culture is amazing and friendly. Diving people are accommodating and quick to help, which is good because the whole money thing did NOT pan out. Mind you, I had a plan, an alternate plan and two back-ups. I left owing money, after taking two trips into "town" and trying all four of the city's ATMs (!) and begging in person at both its walk-in banks. Western Union also would have no part of me. Envision also refused to reset my PIN number like I asked, which really, really ticked me off.

Fortunately, the instructor didn’t try and have me detained or anything, and I had $100 US, which was enough to pay for the hotel and ferry, airport tax and taxis. (Did I mention how cheap traveling in SE Asia is?) Everyone at the dive center was incredibly forgiving.

I also had issues with Western Union once I got home, trying not one or two methods of payment but FIVE. Fortunately, Daddy was able to take cash to a location in Havana and the instructor got his money. I felt so very bad about it.

This was where I stayed.

But overall I got home safely and I’ve already looked at a map to see where I can go again. I’d have no problems going back to the same place, but I will also look at alternatives. However, I don’t know when I will go. The rainy season is about to set in and it might be awhile before it’s worth it to even try.

Next weekend, I am pulling the trigger for Hong Kong Disney. It’s not a three-day weekend, but Thursday is a holiday and a friend and her family are taking off Friday as well. I am not, but I will meet them at the hotel Friday evening and go to Disney on Saturday. For me, it will be a quick trip, but I’m fine with that. Disneyland there is supposed to be small, so it should be enough time.

The family is coming back at 11 a.m. on Sunday, but I booked the train two hours later. In that time, I am hoping to either get a haircut or see a movie. I live big, I know.

We interrupt this fairly reliable posting schedule

Happy Easter!

The update today is there will be no update.

I am alive and breathing, albeit underwater. I am in the Philippines, trying to get up the courage to learn to dive.

Did my first lesson today, with two "confined water dives" that were in shallow water in whatever body of water this particular Philippine island is on.

I'm across the strait from Batagas, on a beach called White Beach. It is NOT "the" White Beach, more like the Redneck Riveria of White Beaches. I love it.

But no regular internet access. I just paid 50 pesos for an hour -- the minimum time I could get -- and am on just to check email and assure people (hi, Zippy!) that I am alive.

Exploring a little

Today I finally got out an explored, but was essentially shell-shocked and vowed never to do it again

Certainly, that will change but wow.Overload.

After a fairly ho-hum start to another weekend, it perked up on my way back from the grocery store, when I ran into a group of colleagues/spouses who’d headed out to dinner. I was smack in their path and got caught up, bag of groceries and all.

Just what my apartment needs.

We went to some restaurant in the same building where the grocery store is (can get there from the apartment by going outside for about 10 feet, back in the department store that on the six floors of our building, heading down two escalators, out the door to the underground paths and down a set of stairs). The restaurant was on the fifth floor.

The dinner was good, of course, not that I know what it was. I tend to go with the rice because I can never get too much rice, but the other stuff was good, too, although I still stay away from tofu.

The way it works at Chinese restaurants is, everyone orders something, but one person places the order and everyone shares. So the more people who dine, the more stuff you have to sample.

Yesterday, I ate the about three dumplings but didn’t pick up on the technique of how to do it right. The first one I ate was OK and made it into my mouth more or less intact. The second one dribbled a bit on my jeans (despite the napkin in my lap and the fact I was trying to eat it over a bowl) and the third one just exploded. Oops. At least by No. 3 they had cooled off and no one was injured.

I'll take three. Not.

After dinner, we went to one of the people’s apartments, where I got to see the view from the other apartment tower, which faces a completely different direction than mine. That side has a view of a little sparkling water show. Or it looked little from the 14^th floor, anyway.We guesstimated it was the size of a hockey rink.

And it was reiterated to me that I have perhaps the worst kitchen of all my colleagues. The couple whom I visited also has a three-bedroom apartment in the same complex, but the layout is totally different, and I am jealous!

Life sized bedazzled mare. Who needs it?

Now, I do love my apartment – I’m wearing the fuzzy slippers right now – but my kitchen is just so tiny.  Theirs, OTOH, was about *three times* the size of mine, and completely open to the living area. Mine’s in what is a small bedroom/overgrown closet. Theirs had a pantry! I was just so jealous. I’d swap a spare bedroom for some counter and storage space.

Inspired, perhaps, by the social hour last night, I decided to utilize my metro card and explore this afternoon. For whatever deranged reason, I opted for OneLink, which, I thought, was a giant store with “everything made in China.” That’s what my colleagues have told me about it. So I was thinking it was a Walmarty store of some sort. (I do believe we have a Walmart, as well as a Sam’s, but heck if I know where they are.)

But I got there, and it was just like one of the cheap Jakarta malls I’d been to. Seven floors of little stores that sold everything under the sun, with the exception of clothing. (I am grateful for the exception.)

There were sticker stores, earring stores, phone skull stores, bead stores, bracelet stores, pillow stores, cushion stores, flower stores … you get the picture.

As you moved up the escalators, the size of the stuff grew: rug stores, big-ass vase stores, footlocker stores, chair stores, bed stores …

Truly, I was horrified. I knew there was that much junk in the world, but who knew it could be collected all under one roof?

Once in a while, I saw something that might be useful, like a silicone ice tray shaped like Lego blocks. (Any silicone ice tray would be better than the non-functioning plastic thing I have right now.) However, not a single item in any of the seven floors had a price tag and I hate bargaining, plus I don’t speak the language.

So I just walked up and down and wondered who on earth bought that crap.

Stayed in town on a three-day weekend

Today’s a holiday. It’s Tomb Sweeping Day, which is a day when people go to cemeteries and tidy up the gravesites of relatives.

Like in the US, the holiday fell on Saturday but everyone gets off on Monday.

I’ve had a couple of three-day weekends so far and have spent them in Hong Kong. Since I’m leaving town in a couple of weeks, I decided to go ahead and stay in town for this one. I had delusions of taking the subway with my newly-acquired metro card, but that somewhat fizzled.

But I did get out an about a little, although I didn’t charge my camera batteries. Oops.

On Saturday morning, I went with two couples (one from work, one a friend of that couple’s) to this giant tea market. By that I mean, blocks and blocks and blocks of tea shops. It was flabbergasting. Every little storefront had a tea-related shop, each with oodles of different kinds of tea. Tea bags, tea cakes, giant baskets of tea leaves, sticks, flowers, pots, bags, tins, fermented tea, new tea, green tea, black tea  – just everything tea.

But no sugar or any other additions. Just pure tea, and lots of different kinds.

Both the men of the couples were tea experts. One was a higher level expert than the other, and it was just kind of sit and listen to how tea was made. We went to one shop and just sat there and tasted tea after team.

I can’t say I remember the kinds, but I do know two were horrible. One tasted like wet grass and the other diluted sticks. But the rest were fine and had varying medicinal qualities. I think one you were supposed to drink before you ate and one after. I forget why

Apparently you’re supposed to taste tea somewhat like wine, which means I’ve been doing it wrong for four decades. Southerners apparently are quite ignorant in the ways of tea. But I’m fine with it. And I do miss Sweet Tea.

I didn’t buy anything. Essentially, I was too overwhelmed with it all. I had no idea tea aged. Some of the stuff was 30 years old. Apparently the older the better.

So that was Saturday, and the weather was just fine. Sunday it rained. We’ve entered the monsoon season a bit late, but so far it hasn’t been bad. And Sunday I really didn’t have anything of importance to do, so I just worked out, went to the grocery store and then swam and hung out on the steam room. Rough life.

Today’s big event was hanging out with a colleague who’s a single mom this month. Her husband has been med evac’d and hopefully will be back at the end of this week. She’s had a rough month. Her kids are about 6, 4 and 6-7 months. All that in one big apartment, but no yard and bad weather most of the time. She was pretty stressed.

So I headed out there and had breakfast at their building (nice buffet, but I had only bacon and toast) and then played with Play-Doh and watched “Bambi” while mom ran to the grocery store.

We all hung out until about 12:30 and I hope I helped mom stave off madness this week. She’d taken off Thursday and Friday, and when I asked why take off two days before a long weekend she said since the kids have been at home with the housekeeper all week, she was scared the housekeeper would quit and therefore stayed home those last two days. She was *really* frazzled when I got there at 7:30 this morning. The kids really are good kids, but boy, that was intense. 

I am glad I didn’t bother with Hong Kong, but I do hope to go again in May. I’m still eyeing Disney. And those are the kids I want to take. We figure we can go, leave the 7-month old with their daddy and take the other two.

Maybe over Memorial Day weekend.