Goodbye, the Philippines! Hello, New Zealand!

It's always a weird moment when you realise you're going to sleep in another country from the one you woke up in.

A quick round-up of my time here.

Weird foods tried: 3

Facebook friend requests accepted: 38

Number of friend requests I accepted out of guilt because I have a hard time remembering people's names: 13

Mayors' hands shaken: 1

Celebrities met: 1

Events where a lechon was present: 3

Events where I was forced to have a picture taken with a lechon: 3

Money stolen from me: 100 USD

Massages had: 7

Dentist visits: 3

High fives received: too many to count

Hours until I'm back in New Zealand: 17.5

It's been real, you guys.   We should do this again sometime.

manila, again.

When you're trying for a 'window effect' in a hotel room with no windows, wouldn't it be much better to have a scene from the country you're actually in?

goodbye pizza, and remember me.

it's so BIG

 My last full day in Cagayan de Oro saw a farewell party complete with massive pizzas, speeches from several people and a certificate signed by all the people I've come to appreciate during my time here.  One guy wrote his in Cebuano - get your mum to translate it - the last sentence is in Ilocano, I had to ring my Dad [who is currently in Saudi Arabia] to figure out how to write it.  Sweet.

The party continued from the Engineering Resource Center to a karaoke bar; I've been pressured into it by several groups of people for the month that I've been here and finally gave in - a trip to the Philippines without karaoke isn't a trip to the Philippines at all - and we spent far longer than I expected singing and laughing with each other there, with the men in my company choosing a hilarious amount of songs that I recognised from The Ultimate Chickflick Soundtrack (Volume One). 

Songs in Cebuano, too - one guy crooning and holding my hand while the others bickered between themselves to translate for me line by line ('why did you come into my life now - why did you come into my life when I was with someone else - why are you late - why... are you late.')

AND THEN: late night trips through the red-light district of the city to get to a 24-hour eatery to try 'RM', or 'Remember Me'. 

'You can't come to the Philippines and not try Remember Me.'

'What is it?'

'A soup.'

'What's... in it?'

'We can't tell you until you've eaten it.  But afterwards you will remember it.'

When we got to the eatery I looked up at the board and laughed when I saw 'Remember Me' as the title of a legitimate meal.  We all got a bowl (the German volunteer in our group staunchly refusing more than a spoonful) and the rest of us tucked in.  At first I'd only drink the soup - which was delicious - but was warned by others the more soup you drink, the bigger the meat gets.

I saw what they meant, although by now I started having an inkling as to what it was that I was eating.  The German's recalcitrance eventually got to me though (get AMONGST IT, frick) and I defiantly finished the whole bowl.    

Then more conversation, more laughter.  The boys walked me back to the hotel.  It's strange, goodbyes that are forever.

Umbrellas drying out at the back of classrooms on another rainy day.

mano emano.

Dropped by to see the Mayor the other day.

My favourite bit about this photo (apart from the fact that I'm sitting in his chair) is that this, for him, is smiling.

greatest compliment I've received here.

"You look like a foreigner, but you act like a Filipina."

I feel ready to go home, now.

keeping up with conversations.

I went to a conference a while back with the heads of the various research units here at the university.  When they spoke they switched back and forth between English and Cebuano and I tried my best to keep up.

At one point, one of the men started speaking.  A lot of it was incomprehensible, but I managed to get one sentence: 'something something something Jesus Christ something something something sexual experience.'

Last time I had a hold of the conversation, we were talking about the consolidation of research units at XU, and I was bewildered.

fear factor friday.

eating balut from a street vendor in night cafe.  not my greatest moment.

noel cabangon.

One of the neat things about being here is being blissfully unaware of their pop culture.  Like last night - I scored comp tickets to see Noel Cabangon ('he's the Philippines version of Damien Rice!').  It was a sweet deal, but all of his songs were in the local dialect and I had to rely on my friend next to me to translate the meaning of each song.

On account of being Foreign, I got to meet him and have brief chats afterwards via some sort of backstage set-up, where people crowded at the door and tried to take pictures through the glass.  It was bizarre: just outside the door were people screaming his name and hoping to get within arms reach of him, but to me he was just some guy who happened to be a decent singer.

'I liked your performance', I told him. 'But I think I only got about half of your jokes.'

'I didn't make any jokes', he replied.

uniformity.

pretty easy to tell the difference between the foreigners and the filipinos.