My Apartment, First Floor

I've almost been in my new place for a month now. I've been moving around so much with work and vacations that I haven't made my new home mine all the way yet. I've slowly outfitted it with the essentials, from cookware to a hammock. It's getting better and that's all I can hang my hat on for now. It's a mess but at least I can cook for myself (which is synonymous with "feel good"). Check this place out!

This is my messy (I want to show you the REAL Austin) entryway/living room. There are several things to note here, first the hammock. I just bought that this last weekend and boy is it nice. Everyone should have one in their house. It's secured to my staircase and the window frame. Window frames here are pretty tough/strong, it holds me no problem. You can also see: my beloved bike, helmet, laptop, and all three backpacks I own (one of which is the wicker looking thing on the far right).

Now this is a photo where my back is to my front door and I'm facing into my apartment from my living room. Prominent in this shot is my staircase which I've turned into an improvised clothes hanger. You can also see my dining room table, more shoes, and way in the back is my favorite place, my kitchen.

Here it is. I spend considerable amounts of time here. Looks like a nightmare but it works alright. There's the propane stove and it's best friend Tank on the left. behind that back door is another room, half indoor, half roach and spider infested. I don't go out there much. If you look closely at the window, on the bottom right part is a piece of cardboard wedged against the screen by a vitamin bottle. Why did I do that? At first I was blocking hole, about the size of a pool ball, that I thought was letting bugs in. Turns out something bigger, with claws, uses that hole. I've had to replace that cardboard several times, it was knocked out once.

So, it's basic and there's no getting around that. The faucet is finicky and the sink has spots that wont clean. There's the pot I use to make...

Chili!

My open face cupboards. I have all the essentials and a ton of terrible other stuff. The terrible stuff includes packets of sugary drinks, sweet spaghetti sauce, Vienna sausages, mega-oily tuna fish, and banana catsup. The good stuff is beans, onions (blue bag), garlic (light blue bag), beans (green bags), spices, hot sauce, loose tea (dark pink bags, upper right), and my new very healthy kombucha baby (bottom right, covered with a piece of t-shirt).

Here's my ref. In the Philippines refrigerators are referred to as refs, the more you know!

Aww yeah, the bathroom. Only the finest of accommodations here, I have both a knee-high spigot, and a pipe that spits on my head! Actually, this is out of the ordinary, usually people use a tabo (small bucket with a handle) to pour water on their heads, so I've got it good. The above ground piping is nice too. 

Toilet seat? nahhhh. I like to imagine the people that lived here before me took it with them, rationalizing it as "well, we bought it" (they may have). Or,there never was a seat to begin with. This toilet has also lost it's ability to flush, so I have to pour water from the big green bucket.

From the kitchen facing the front of my apartment. This is where I live. It doesn't fit with my first idea I had of where I might end up in the Peace Corps but I'm not complaining. You take what you're given here and I was given an alright apartment.

Christmas In Sagada

It took 12 hours of continuous travel to get home from my Christmas vacation in Sagada. As long and drawn out the trip home was it was a return from a good time.

The trip there started on the Thursday before Christmas as I left Cabanatuan City for La Trinidad, just outside of Baguio. From work, I took my bags to the transportation terminal in town and was loaded into a hot hot hot van. The rule with the vans to Baguio is we don't leave until it's packed. Packed so much that the van owners have hand crafted seats that fit the gaps between seats, the gaps used for getting in and out. We waited for 45 minutes and pow, we were off!

Leaving any place at five in the afternoon has to be rough. Cabanatuan City is no exception, actually it's more the rule. Couple the time of day with the fact Christmas was two days away, traffic was dense and slow.

After about four hours, I was in Baguio for the first time. I found myself in a place where I don't sweat because I'm barely moving. The temperature was delightful. Thanks to my friend Ericka, I had a place to stay that night free of charge, so I made my way out of Baguio and went to La Trinidad right next door. I was greeted by Ericka and her old host family from training and fed all the food I wanted. We talked and quickly called it a day. We had to get up early for travel the next day.

Ericka and I rose early and left to find another friend and the next transport we'd use. It's worth noting that I left my pretty new tube of fancy toothpaste at Ericka's host family's house, oh well. Anyway, we found our other friend, Matt, and loaded into another van. Instead of going directly to Sagada, we had decided to see Matt's site. It's along the way and we were sure we could pick up a bus when we wanted to leave.

The van took off and started climbing the edge of La Trinidad and the next thing we knew we were driving along the ridges of mountains. The pictures I took barely give justice to how grand the scene was. I can't say how far up we were but I assure you, we were way up there. The sides of mountains were cut with shelves as if they were the physical representation of topographical maps. The shelves were where mountain farmers would plant their crops. I assume they're called rice terraces but I know that they grow other things like cabbage at least some of the time.

We drove through this beautiful and half-ways frightening landscape for nearly four hours before reaching Matt's site. By this time I was wearing the fleece jacket I left Portland with that I had assumed would not see use again til my return to home, the temperature was downright cold. Matt's site was beautiful, fitting with almost this whole experience. He's located at a place called Mt. Data (daw-taw), it's a small town that stretches along the highway, on the side of a mountain. He introduced us to his current host family and showed us some highlights of his community, including the school he works at. The views around his community were quite enviable.

Trash Hole: Not so Beautiful

Cloudy Mountains: Beautiful

When we got back to his house I was excited to see how Dinaguan (chocolate meat(pork stewed in pork blood)) was prepared. His host family was making it and had yet to add the blood to the mix. I've found myself excited about cooking recently (seen my cooking website recently?) and therefore wanted to see the process. I was particularly interested in the bucket of blood they had in the kitchen, how often do you see that? Dinaguan is actually a fairly non-outstanding dish, it doesn't have all that much flavor in my opinion.

Ericka and I were only allowing ourselves a short amount of time at Matt's site and we quickly grabbed our bags and began our wait for the next ride headed to Sagada. Matt was going to stay at his site while we went on ahead. Little did we know that we would be waiting a long time.

Three hours later, of standing, waving, yelling, pleading, and patience we were on our way again. At this point I was tired and just let my head hang and fell asleep, waking up to see the beauty and grandeur of the mountains we were crawling through. After another two hours, we were dropped off at the base of the mountain Sagada stood on top of.

We flagged a passing truck headed to Sagada and hustled into the bed. The road to sagada quickly turns from paved to dirt to scary. The scary parts were where our truck would be driving along a road that was closer to a ledge than an actual road. There would be quite apparent roadside deterioration that was coined as “slippage.” If any of the road had “slipped” anymore we would have fallen well past 100 feet. Thankfully that didn't happen, and we made it, finally, to Sagada in one piece.

Sagada is beautiful. It's picturesque, homey, cold, and interesting. When Ericka and I rolled into town we met up with the big group of friends who also had decided to spend their Christmas there and we all marched off to our vacation home. The house we were staying in was an apparently extra home of one PCVs counter-part. The walk to the house took us ten minutes away from the town by a walk and took us through a functional rice terraces. Inconvenience aside, I was truly grateful to have a free cozy place to sleep.

Ericka, Ebonee, Becky, and Gypsy in the Communal Cottage

The day after arriving, I got together with my long lost training friend Kaiti, along with her dad who was visiting, and we headed out early after breakfast for some exploring. We teamed up with my friends Becky and Ericka for a full party.

Kaiti's Dad (Daddy Joe as he was known), Becky, Kaiti, and Ericka

In Sagada there are several big attractions which include hanging coffins, caves, and waterfalls. We saw all three in a three hour tour with our friendly but quiet guide Benjamin. We started with seeing some hanging coffins from a long distance off, and yelling into echo canyon “SKYFLAKES” (a terribly popular saltine-like cracker) to the bewilderment of the other vacationers. We then went to the coffins, clambered down some muddy (slippery) paths, saw a small cave and crossed it's small stream, scaled a large rock, walked more muddy paths, crossed a larger stream, saw a much larger cave, climbed out of Echo Valley, and finally walked a long ways and downhill to a quaint waterfall. The water was delightfully cool, it would have been brisk if anyone of us had decided to dive in. There were some local kids who caught up to to us and dived in no problem, just in their skivvies.

Benjamin Our Guide

Hanging With Friends

I'm on a Massive Boulder Taking This Photo

One of the Caves

The Brisk Waterfall

Ericka and Becky

Also, it's interesting to note that this whole trip we were accompanied by a female dog with a lame back left leg. She was friendly and fairly unobtrusive, although I almost tripped over her once. After we made our way back to town she took off.

As far as Christmas goes it was very laid back. I woke up early and gathered breakfast goods (eggs, bread, oil, coffee, peanut butter, and love) for everyone and prepared breakfast. It was a plain breakfast but everyone seemed to appreciate the thought. It wasn't until far later in the day when we all reconvened that we did our Christmas celebrations. These included dressing up, making dinner, listening to Christmas music, and a gift giving game. I didn't bring a costume but my friends helped me into what I assume was an approximation of a hipster, I was dressed as such next to my friends the Jeepney, King of Peacocks, New York Business Woman, Jesus, Merienda, and Biker. Surprisingly I don't have any photos of these events.

In the gift giving I was the last to choose what gift I wanted to steal or I could take the last unwrapped gift. I saw that everyone was happy with what they got and although I would have preferred what they had in hindsight, I chose the unwrapped gift (kindness of the heart I say). I got a coin purse.

I had a great time, saw some great sights, saw my great friends, ate some good food, and felt cold for once in a long time. I recommend Sagada if you want a cool place to visit in the Philippines. By the time I was headed home, I was ready to feel heat again, I never thought I would have that feeling.

Merry Christmas!

Massive Cave. Maybe Thanksgiving.