Chapter 5: happy birthday Daddy and the Waitress with Dirty Teeth

32. I was born at 8:++ pm on the east coast of the US on April 18, 1979. As you all know the Philippines is a day ahead so technically April 18 here in PI is only 364 days since my previous birthday. So I tried explaining to my wife an in-laws that my real birthday was on the 19th here in PI which would make it the 18th back in the states. We argued about it and eventually decided that we were both right and I would have 2 birthdays this year- one on the calender day April 18, and one to officially mark the 1 year after 31. I'm right but I couldn't pass up 2 birthdays. So here is a picture of me about at 31 and 364 days old.

Pa took the Family to Carpacio, the best Italian restaurant in Manila. It was really good. It was the Gervasio, Arellano and Facciolo families. Sounds like good mob families names right! Mason was a handful and made sure the waitresses worked twice as hard to keep us happy and him out of trouble. He covered every square inch of the restaurant twice. He would not sit still and all 15 of us played hot potato with him.

Where is Waldo?

Robbie and Luis take their turn. Batang Lilaki's. That's young boys in Tagalog. I'm almost fluent. Now i just have to work on my english

Towards the end of dinner Mason had all the waitresses wrapped around his fingers...until he looked at one of them who had braces and said "Dirty teeth, Dirty Teeth!" He didn't know what they were so that's what he thought I guess. She was so embarrassed and ran away. All her co-workers laughed.


Heads of the Gervasio and Arellano Families. Don Tito Benj and Don Tito Arturo.



Lolo and Lola and the little man.

Who knows? Maybe we have a future bull rider in the family.

After the Birthday Dinner we went to watch Anna's cousin play their last gig before he left for Boston College of Music. Pa joined us young kids along with Tinchu's Mom and Dad. Tita Nina and Tito Nards are without a doubt the funniest Filipino's on the planet. Tito Nards had us laughing from start to finish and I tip my hat to Tita Nina for putting up with such a character. I was glad to meet them. Tinchu's Band stayed consistent with the way concerts go. We were told they started at 11pm but there were 2 bands before them and they didn't play to around 1am. Then we all went out to "The Old Swiss Inn" for post concert drunk comfort food. We rolled into the house about 2:45pm with bellies full of beer. Special recognition goes to Don Arturo for hanging with the young bucks.

Tito Nard and Tita Nina had never been to any of Tinchu's live shows because he plays so late. They made sure to see his last show bc they were leaving with him for Boston in 2 days and didn't have to work. Tito Nards was joking about being old and it being ages since he'd been to a concert. He was saying he should "bring some grass" since it was a concert and did his best to comb his hair like Justin Beber. That should explain the insinuating hand gesture in the picture. Tinchu's band was really good. They were like Jamiroqual.

The next day we all slept in but it was Mason boy who seemed to need the most rest. Here he is is his standard stroller pose taking a nooner.

Mason loves balls and this one caught his eye. But he seemed a little intimidated by it's size. He would get close but was scared to touch it. And on the right he does his Wizard Merlin impression from King Aurthur.

DanDan had her birthday just a few days after me. Mason seemed more excited to wish her a happy birthday than when it was my birthday. Smart boy!

Chapter 4: Buco's, Aso's and Balut in Pagudpud

      

Pagudpud is at town in the Ilocos Norte province 12 hours north of Manila. It is nicknamed the "Boracay of the North." It's remote and mountainous, there are reefs, and the sand is not fine like Boracay so I'm not sure how it got that nickname...but I like it a lot. As you can see from the pictures it share similar geography to Hawaii. I read about a resort up in Padugpud called the Kapuluan Vista Resort. Check it out on the web. It has a Tahitian surfer vibe to it and although this was not the season for waves, i wanted to go check it out anyway.

By the way... Buco, Aso and Balut are Tagalog words. Buco is coconut, Aso is dog, and Balut is a fine Filipino delicacy. Google Balut if you dare!

We arrived at Terra Rika in Suad Beach around dinner time and got right to drinking. San Miguel Lights and this aweful cocktail drink called Sling were on the menu. It seemed like something you would find at a frat party. Just a bunch of cheap liquor mixed with Hawaiian Punch. We drank the whole pitcher anyway. Ma won't let us waste anything. The food was good as usual and there was a band playing. We turned in around 10:30pm for what we thought would be a good night's rest before heading to Blue Lagoon Beach and Kapuluan the following day. The Kapuluan Beach resort was booked because of a wedding so we planned to go for a day trip. What Anna and Ma didn't tell me was that when we got the room, they offered us an upgrade but warned us that it was a bit loud when the band was playing. This was very true and I was serenaded to sleep with Lady GaGa, Black Eyed peas and No Doubt cover songs until 2am. Awesome!

The next day we had breakfast and then spent the morning at the beach. I broke my back and got sunburned building a sand castle with a tunnel for Mason. No shovel.  Just as I finished and admired my prize, some little bratty Korean tourist kid came down the beach with a giant inflatable soccer ball and sat right next to us. Mason had no interest in the sand castle once he locked in on the ball. So I sulked for a while and gave the 5 year old Korean family stink eye for the next hour. I did get some satisfaction when I saw the Korean dad make a really shitty sand castle for his kids. It wasn't even close to as good as mine and he had a bucket. I guess he had a manicure or something and didn't want to ruin his pretty hands. But as karma would have it, just has I was beating my chest as the alpha male, my tunnel collapsed and my castle turned into a hole in the sand. I cried for a little and then started drinking San Miguel's to ease my sorrows. It was 10:30am so that was late enough.



We packed up the car and headed out on a 30 minute drive up over the next headland to Blue Lagoon and the Kapuluan. You come in from the east side (back side) of the mountains in the background of this picture so you don't really get to peak at anything until you drop down into the lagoon. It was a pretty pleasant and surprising view when we got there. Just beautiful beaches and well maintained farms.

  

this reminds me of Kauai

believe it or not there would be 2-3 foot sets that would roll through here

 

Anna pretty much fell in love with the resort right away. She wanted to get married again I think. We sat down and eat an awesome lunch. The place has a killer restaurant and grows all their veggies orangicly on the property. After lunch we just walked around and I probed the resort staff for information on the surf and other breaks in the area. Anna took 200 pictures. Mason played with his new friend Ziggy the puppy. Ziggy was teething and liked Mason a lot.




While dad surfed Mason nabbed some chick at the pool. He was a gentlemen in true form and followed the bros before h*s creed when he ditched the babe to showed dad the fresh water rinse-off buckets after the surf.

 



Mason scoring some older woman on the beach

the wave comes in and breaks right on a seaweed covered reef shelf. I can't wait to come back when it's in season with some size!



I found out from Anna that they rented boards there. A guy walked by with a longboard to go surf. I followed him out to gauge if it was only longboardable or if a shortboard would work out. It didn't take me long to go back and sort out a board. It was thick, dinged up and heavy but the closest thing to a fish and it worked out fine. It was just an Aussie guy named Troy, the Filipino longboarder named Mike and me. Turned out that Mike was the owner. He and his Filipino wife did a surf trip here several years ago and kept coming back. When the land went for sale they bought it and started the resort. Seems to be working out for them as the resort is full a lot. In the back of every surfer's mind is a fantasy about finding some cool surf spot not so well known and opening up a surf resort. I admired this guy's vision. He bought it when he was 25.

hollow and off-shore but just a little too small to grab a barrel

After the surf and a few more San Miguel's we packed up and headed back to Terra Rika. Tomorrow we would leave after breakfast and drive 10 hours back to Manila stopping in Vigan and San Fernando for meals to break the drive up. It sucked bad!

Chapter 3: Vigan and the Kalesa Rides

                                

Mom, Anna, Mason and I headed up to Ilocos Sur to the town of Vigan after Bagio with our driver Roy.Vigan was founded by Conquestadors in 1592. It became a big trade post for the Orient and many of it's old buildings and churches were spared during WWII. It's definitely got an old world feel to it.  We arrived at dinner and check into the really cool hotel called Vigan Plaza Resort. We quickly went out and walked the brick/stone streets to Cafe Leona where I had the best Pork Adobo ever. It should be on "No Reservations" with Anthony Bourndain. We walked the street shops and then went to bed early to wake up early and do some sight seeing.




This is a Kalesa or a horse buggy. They are used in Vigan just like cabs. Around the Salcedo Plaza there were about 50 of them waiting for passengers. It's also a quick way for tourists to see the city which is basically comprised of very old churches from the 1500-1700s and really good restaurants. Some of the churches are visited on pilgrimages by Catholics in the Philippines.

 

We stopped by a pottery factory. This is one of the profitable industries in Vigan. It's a pretty primitive factory as you can see and the keep the overhead down by employing a Carabou to do all the dirty work.



Notice the concerned father always keeping an eye on the 1.5 ton beast with horns behind his family.


After the pottery factory we went by a small zoo and Mason took the girls for a test drive in a sportier Kalesa. He also cried enough for daddy to buy him a toy snake. Later on we forgot to take it out of Pa's van when we got back to Makati. He had it cleaned and the 2 guys at the car wash thought it was a real cobra under the seat. 1 guy screamed like a woman and the other one ran down the street. That's my boy!

       



We did a little shopping after the kalesa ride and had lunch before heading up to Ilocos Norte ( the far north western part of Luzon ). I got word that there might be some waves out there. So after lunch the team set out for Padugpud to hang out on the beach, eat and drink, and hopefully catch something worth surfing.

Chapter 2: Dynamite Strawberry Horse Rides in Baguio

After a quick few days of rest we took 1 long trip to Baguio, Vigan, and Pagudpud. Baguio is in the central part of Luzon up in the Mountains. It's about 5-6 hours north of Manila. Manny Pacquiao was up there training for the Mosley fight because it's nice weather and high altitude. I offered to be his sparring partner but he said I was too handsome and he didn't want to make me ugly. That was nice of him. Baguio reminded me of New Hampshire for all you East Coasters or Big Bear for you Westsiders.

                                              
                                Mason has some fresh Strawberry Icecream


We went to Bagio with Anna's Mom's part of the family...the Gervasio's. In all it was 15. We shared a 5 bedroom condo and eat/drank a lot. The highlights of Bagio were the strawberry fields, the horse rides, the active mine that we visited and the zip lines.

Mason had fun picking strawberries from the fields but he is like his mother. Why pick strawberries when you can eat strawberry ice cream. He ate the whole thing and then cried for more. He really enjoyed the horse rides with mom and dad but not as much as his cousin Enzo who cried all the way back to the house wanting more horse rides.



check out the "shootem up" hand gesture from the little cowboy!



I assumed the mine I found in Lonely Planet Philippines would be like something you would find at EPCOT or Disney. It turned out to be a real mine. On google maps it seemed to be right down the hill but the steep mountain decline and the road switch-backs were not shown or anticipated. It was a scary 40 minute drive in a family van with 15 people in it. Our driver Roy kept signing the cross and praying to himself the whole way down. When you're on the fence about whether this was a good idea or not, that doesn't really build confidence. The roads were poor and everyone was quietly thinking to themselves how bad it would suck to break down as the van was not suited for the intermittent off road conditions. When we discovered it was a real mine that only made us more uneasy. All of this was my idea. I questioned our ability to make it back out with the car and now I had 15 distant family members and my own at a real mine where we were instructed to suit up with hard hats and boots, load into 2 rail cars and descend deep into a dark and poorly lit mine for a tour where they would blow up dynamite. Obviously I felt a little uneasy. But before we could change our minds they had us loaded into the cars and on our way into the mine.

Anna was the first to try the drill. This is what they use to drill holes in order to insert the dynamite. A couple minutes later and deeper into the mine I was handed what I thought was a prop for instructional purposes but soon found out that I was holding dynamite. They then light a fuse...not connected to my dynamite.... about 3 feet from me and displayed how even when submerged in water it would not go out. I kept thinking how the safety and liability issues of this tour would make it impossible to have in the US and also about how strange it was that they had me holding dynamite next to a lit fuse. Was this a normal or safe practice? And why out of all 15 of us did they hand it to the white boy? Was it planned or are Filipino's smarter than me? Then they took us to a fork in the tunnel where they were recently mining. It had been shored up with donnage and the blast left a hole about 10 feet deep. Thankfully that was the end of the tour and we reversed and went back the way we came in the rail cars. About 100 feet before exiting the tour guide then calmly said..."ok, now we will detonate the dynamite." We all expected a count down but as soon as she finished the sentence.."BOOM!" and were were all hit in the face with a shock wave of pressure. We were all stunned and she told us that was just 1 stick for instruction purposes but that they normally blast with 30 sticks. We all made it out of the mine, into the car and said enough prayers to make it back up the steep windy road in a 15 pax van not suited for off road conditions.


Our Last day was spent at the zip lines. The rides were okay with the superman being the most exciting. Anna is not the adventurous type when it comes to rides and took it easy on the canopy ride. I tried the free-fall but the guy before me was more fun to watch.