Archive for December, 2007
Tomorrow I begin my epic journey home… Dumaguete to Manila, Manila to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Heathrow and Heathrow to home. Not counting the weird going back in time thing, it will take me around 30 hours of travelling door to door! (I had to leave plenty of layover time in Manila and HK to allow for the Cebu Pacific effect - think Asian EasyJet)
I’m excited about seeing everyone, drinking pints of beer, cheese (as opposed to Cheeez), food from Waitrose and shopping in London. I’m less excited about the temperature difference… according to my weather widget, on Sunday Sheffield will reach a sunny high of 7˙C compared to 29˙C in Dumaguete. I can’t imagine what 7˙C feels like! I’m not sure my fridge here even gets that cold. I had to go on an emergency mission yesterday to buy trainers and jeans.
Top tip: Always not the name of the big flashy hotel next to your hidden little pensionne. This way, you won’t end up wandering the streets of Manila at night wondering where you are and trying to find a taxi driver who knows where you’re going!
Brian left to go back to the States for Christmas today, so last night we went to Hayayay for some farewell beers and rhum. Wednesday night is the ever-popular ‘Reggae Night’. Last night the band played a set including Dusty Springfield, Save Ferris, Sting and the Police (“I’m a Jam-ai-can in New York….”) and the Sesame Street theme song. An interesting interpretation of the theme!
Today I had to move house again. It seems like a regular occupation of mine! I’ve been sulking about moving, because I loved the apartment I was in, and had just got to that familiar stage where you can walk around at night without needing to turn the lights on, and can place your hand on switches without fumbling about. Sigh.
After saying she needed to move today (instead of tomorrow, as was scheduled), Weird Korean Girl wasn’t even around to move her stuff. She expected our landlord and his helpers to move everything for her, the place was a mess and she hadn’t even made any attempt to pack things up! Grrrrrr. So after spending two hours helping to pack and move her stuff and clean the place, she now has my nice apartment, and I’m stuck with the new one. Which is still nice really, but not as nice as the old one. Sulk.
P.S. I’ve been reading Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days - It’s fab. You should read it.
The uni area of Dumaguete is always covered in banners like these, announcing lectures, congratulating students who have won awards or graduated, welcoming guests etc. Garry had just been made an adjunct professor at Silliman University, so yesterday he gave a professorial lecture, worthy of a banner of his own. It was the most unbelievably formal lecture I’ve ever been to! In addition to the lengthy and profuse introductions, we had to stand for the Philippine National Anthem and then a prayer, and after the lecture we stood again to sing the Silliman song, which was a toe-tapping anthem straight out of the ’50s.
Loyal will we be to Silliman,
Here’s a cheer, boys, three times three:
Silliman our Alma Mater,
Silliman beside the sea…
Hilarious. Garry gave the same lecture in Townsville, and there we just had a free bar and nibbles. Ma’am Emily asked if he would like the JCU hymn to be included in the programme… so we’ve been having a lot of fun trying to imagine how that might go!
I can’t believe it’s December already. I still haven’t got used to Christmas in the tropics!In fact, time has flown past so quickly my visa expired last week. Oops. Luckily the Bureau of Immigration were very laid back about the whole thing, and just fined my 500 pesos and told me not to outstay my welcome again.
Becks is a marine ecology PhD student, living in Queensland (Australia), Dumaguete (Philippines) and London (UK). Marinegirl is her online alter-ego. She dreamt her up as as super-gorgeous superhero saving the underwater world (if you've seen Captain Planet, you get the idea). She is not, and never will be, in the marines.