Saturday, December 28, 2013

Avast, ye scurvy dogs!

Please pardon the pirate speak.  We are slowly recovering from a four day diving trip on board the MY Bunmee II, a liveaboard diving ship.

Our cabin on the boat
Even after a couple of days off the boat, we're still getting our land legs back, and feeling the effects of four days of diving four times a day (especially in our ears, which constantly feel like they need to pop).  I've been sleeping very well, since it was difficult to get any sleep on the boat, but when I wake up, I have to be very careful walking to the bathroom, as everything feels like it's swaying back and forth.






Send-off ceremony with fireworks

Chillin on deck

Me and Mathieu (he's probably finding something I did wrong)
The trip was amazing.  We were nervous about committing to four days on a boat with people we don't know, but we got lucky and got a group of interesting diving travelers who were mostly around our age (and, thank Poseidon, no kids). The dive staff was also great.  Our dive master was Mathieu, a cool, reserved French guy with a lot of expertise and experience.


One of the staff preparing satay and other treats







As usual, the local staff were friendly, helpful, knowledgable, and relaxed.  The food was excellent, with big English breakfasts and Thai lunches and dinners.











The schedule was basically "eat, sleep, dive, repeat", as we dove at 7am, 11am, 2pm, and 6pm daily. It was EXHAUSTING, especially when you're trying to sleep on a boat.  However, it was worth it, because we got to see some beautiful dive sites in the Similan Islands, Koh Ban, Koh Tachai, Richelieu Rock, and the Boonsung wreck.  After 14 dives (more than any previous trip), I'm up to a total of 40 and am now an "advanced" open water diver with enriched air certification!
Eel hiding in some rocks
Turtle eating
Me getting ready to punch a fish that was looking at me funny
We are now relaxing and recuperating in Khao Lak, eating and drinking too much and waiting for our ears to heal and our equilibrium to return.  The weather is Thailand perfect, and we hope to be fully recovered and rested by the time school starts up again next week.  I hope everyone is having an excellent holiday season.

The only time we touched dry land for four days on one of the Similan Islands


Sunset on the Andaman Sea

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Well the weather outside is...

...pretty nice, actually.  I'm in Khao Lak, Thailand, about to get on a boat for four days to do some diving in the Similan Islands.  I just wanted to say happy holidays to everyone before I leave, and remind you all that I have this blog (since I haven't updated in quite some time).  I'll get an update on here sometime in the next few weeks.
I hope everyone is doing well.  Let me know what's going on with you this season.
I'll leave you with this creepy Chinese saxophone department store Santa:

Saturday, April 6, 2013

April Showers Bring...

...well, I don't really know yet. but they do have some serious April showers here.

This morning the weather is actually beautiful, sunny and a little chilly.  I just had a little "wow, I'm in China" moment on my Sunday morning run.  I decided to take a turn I hadn't before, and I noticed some big metal structure in the distance, which usually means a park.  I made my way over, dodging cars and bikes and slow-walking groups of people, and found myself on a sidewalk path by a river, with little duck boats and paddle boats in the water.  The path was lined with impressively straight rows of trees, and there was a great deal of foot traffic.  Over the sound of my own music in my earphones, I could hear some Chinese music from somewhere.  I rounded a corner, and bang: I'm in the middle of 50 women doing a synchronized dance routine.  As I continued on the path, I came on groups and groups of them, everywhere the pah widened, some with fans, some with pieces of costumes, and some who looked like they were just walking by and said "hey, I'd like to join that dance."  Little moments like that keep me excited about being here.

Last night, we were invited to the wedding of our school's graphic designer/[fill in one of the 40 other things she does for us].  It took place at a beautiful restaurant complex, across the street from another park with dancing water fountains.  It was a pretty western-style wedding, but with some interesting Chinese twists thrown in.  My favorite part of the evening was probably people watching.  The styles of dress here are incredibly varied and interesting; people really spend some time creating unique looks for themselves.  And the shoes...  Right before I left for China, I really started getting into shoes for myself, and since I've been here, I'm constantly being surprised and delighted by all of the different varieties (yes, I feel a little weird about admitting this).

The wedding was beautiful, and it was fun to see all of the staff from work dressed up, hair done, having a great time.  During dinner, we got to see a video of the traditional ceremony that had happened the night before.  The groom and groomsmen have to break through a wall of bridesmaids to get through to the bride, showering them with confetti and bribing them for entry along the way.  The groom, one of the nicest guys I've ever met, really hammed it up for the video, too.

Thursday was the Qing Ming festival, which I hear is meant for the sweeping out of ancestors' tombs. I didn't see much going on that day, but we got a day off of school.  The week before I was in the Philippines at a beautiful little resort in Dauin.  Only did one day of diving this time, but it was a perfectly relaxing holiday.  I feel ready to buckle down and finish off this school year.  This week, we have a whole mess of professional development scheduled during school with an English language learning strategist, so that should be interesting.  We also have third quarter reports to finish, and student-led conferences to get ready for.  I got a little ahead of the paperwork/planning game on my vacation, so I'm ready for new things.

Only a couple of months until the end of school, and most likely a trip back to the states.  I'm looking forward to seeing the family and friends again sometime soon.

Peace,
Jon

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Jonder the Sea

To finish off about the last trip, we dove on three different days, and it was pretty nice.  On our last dive day, we got a group together with an Australian couple (the woman also happened to be a teacher in China), a European guy, and Walter, our divemaster, and headed out to Verde Island, which is a marine sanctuary that was about an hour away by boat.

Walter was really into Nudibranchs, which are these little colorful slug things that we'd pretty much had enough of by the second dive.  Anyway, he was great at spotting things, and we saw a whole lot of fish that we would have swum right by if not for him.  The "electric clam" he found was pretty special: it was some kind of creature that had weird moving bioluminescence when under his light, that looked like electricity running around in a circle.  He said he'd only ever seen two in the area, so he took divers to them whenever he could.

Anyway, Verde was pretty cool.  We did two dives there and on the last one, we ended up in a really strong current that took us by beautiful coral walls.  It felt like we were flying, and was probably the most fun I've had on a dive yet.

Ok, so here are a few pictures from our dives:

Sea Snake!

It was THIS big!

Crazy color changing octopus

Lionfish

Scorpionfish?  Rockfish?  I don't know.  These guys were pretty hard to spot because they have great camo and look like rocks.

NUDIBRANCH!

Puffer fish

another lion fish

Electric Clam

Giant Clam

Feeding the Butterfly fish

Feeding some other crazy fish

The rest of the time was devoted to relaxing and reading, and we got to eat some really  good Filipino food.

Other than traveling, things are going very well.  I've been tinkering around with Lucy(fer), my bad-ass gaming computer that I started building in an after-school club with some students.  Check this out:

That's right, she's a beast. She could eat your computer for breakfast.
I've also been running about 5K most mornings, and I'm getting ready for my first ever 10K charity run next weekend.

We found a hidden vegetable market right across the street so we don't have to go to a crazy Chinese grocery store for vegetables anymore.

A rat chewed through my router's power cord last night, so I need to go to the computer market and get a new one.  I think he's still living in my air conditioner, so I hope he's not chewing on anything in there.  I guess I'll find out when it gets hot again.

Be well, do good,
Jon

Friday, February 15, 2013

Van van plane car boat

Yasterday started out with a taxi ride to the hotel in DG where we caught a van go the hong kong airport. It was a very easy trip withthe lightest traffic ive seen bec of the cny holiday...

Ok, so much for trying to write a blog on my phone, here it goes for real:

On Saturday morning, we took a taxi through mostly deserted streets to the South China International Hotel, where we were picked up in a nice little van.  We took about a 40 minute ride to Hojie Town, where we had to get out and wait for a van with dual license plates for the trip to Hong Kong.  Since we were in a small vehicle, we were able to cross the border without getting out to  go through customs.  Since traffic was so light, and we had planned pretty well, we got to the Hong Kong airport with a ridiculous amount of time to kill before our flight.  We sampled what the restaurants had to offer, did a little shopping, made fun of crazy people, and finally got through and on our way to Manila.  The plane was easy, and we were met at the airport by a Filipino driver, who took us on a long, bumpy ride to the coast.  At the end of a dirt track, past an oil refinery and a flour plant, we got to a crumbling cement dock, and waited as our driver yelled out into the darkness.  Eventually, there were some grumbles and splashes, and a boat slowly reeled itself in. We loaded up in a boat that seemed very big for just the two of us, and started a choppy roller coaster trip across the bay to the island of Mindoro. When we got away from the lights, the stars were stunning; we enjoyed them for awhile, but were also very ready to reach our destination at this point.  We pulled in to a little bay at around 2am, and were greeted by 4 or 5 locals who helped us carry bags to our room, where we crashed for the night.

I'm only writing this down because this day was interesting to me.  We were traveling from 9:30 am until 2 am, and it was never really stressful.  Everything happened the way it was supposed to, most things were even easier than we expected, and we got where we were going with very little hassle.  It felt like there was a small army of Chinese and Filipino people there just to get us to our hotel room. People we didn't know were ready for us at every leg of the trip to carry us forward.  We paid a bit extra for the luxury, but it was definitely worth it.  Public transportation (at least in a country like the Philippines) is for suckers!

The next day, we took just to get our bearings.  We didn't sleep very well, but got up, and met all the dive people, including Armand, who was a sort of fixer for the dive shop.  He would turn out to be a truly amazing resource for the rest of our stay - the kind of guy who could figure anything out in about five minutes. The shop was on a small beach with room for about 20 boats; Armand seemed to know what each one was doing at all times, and could arrange anything you needed by yelling a few words out over the water in his high-pitched voice.  We walked around the town, and in the afternoon Armand arranged a boat to a small beach nearby. Our skipper, Christopher, grilled up some delicious chicken bbq, with salad and fresh pineapple, and told us about his daughter Chrisabel (also the name of his boat) and his pregnannt wife. We sat there until the sun set, then got back and had a nice Filipino meal at the restaurant in front of the apartment where we're staying, then called it a night.
View from our apartment on the first morning.

Slept in a bit the next morning, and missed the first dive, but then went out at 1130, and again at 3.  The visibility here is better than it was at El Nido.  We saw some lionfish, jellyfish, lots of colorful little things, and some eels and sea snakes, too.

I'm going to post this just to post it, and save the rest of the trip for later.  More soon, with pictures (we rented an underwater camera!).

Peace All,
Jon

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Philippin' Awesome

After a half day of school full of holiday activities (I was the school's Santa if you can believe that), we took off for Guanzhou airport, got through the always pleasant Chinese immigration process, and took a short flight to Manila.  It was late, so we got a dingy hotel room for the night.

Woke up and had breakfast at the hotel, then walked around and did a little shopping, then took a long ride down a few blocks through Manila traffic back to the airport.  We were over an hour early for our flight, but they had overbooked, so we were stuck in Manila for another day, which would have been ok, except that they took the rest of the afternoon to arrange our hotel and transportation.  After a long, frustrating day sitting around the Manila airport, we got to a nicer hotel, further from the airport, but close to the water.  Dinner, a little walk, and got up early to go back to the airport.

Got on the flight to Busuanga, postcard views of green islands and blue water out of the windows the whole time.  The airport there was one of those cool little out of the way deals in the middle of nowhere.  Hopped in a van and headed for Coron through the countryside, where we saw white cows and lots of beautiful scenery.  We got into the hotel and decompressed a bit. The room was on the third floor right next to the rooftop bar, with amazing views of the bay, so we relaxed there and had a drink or two.  Just for something to do that afternoon, we headed over to the hot springs and had a soak.  Later, we had dinner at the hotel and walked around Coron.  Coron was strange because it didn't have any beaches in the town, and it was sort of a place you would expect to have beaches.

The front desk guy at the hotel (aptly named Angel) hooked us up with a private boat for an island-hopping tour the next day. We did lots of snorkeling, saw many interesting tropical fish, some jellyfish, and some amazing coral.  One highlight was the twin lagoons, where we had to swim under a rock to get to this lagoon where the salt water mixes with fresh.  Besides the difference in composition, it was also two different temperatures, with warmer water coming from the bottom.  When you swim through it, you mix the two different types of water, and you can see waves of temperature differences where they combine.  Very strange.  After a long day on the boat, we headed back to Coron, and arranged for a boat ride to El Nido the following day.
Some beautiful spot near Coron
Some beautiful rock near Coron
And a not-so-beautiful monitor that decided to join us for lunch
Up early, packed all our stuff, and headed to the port, where it didn't really seem like anyone knew what was going on.  Eventually, people started moving in the general direction of the water, and we followed, ending up in an outrigger with about 12 other people, plus the crew.  This turned out to be an 8-hour trip, and the scenery was stunning the whole way, but the seats were supremely uncomfortable.  By the time we pulled into the bay at El Nido, we were ready to get on some dry land.  We humped our luggage around the waterfront looking for a hotel that wasn't completely booked, and somehow randomly ran into Nanette, who had a huge beach house which happened to be available for the night.  We were tired of looking, so we paid a bit more than we wanted, and settled in.  It was a great house, with a huge porch right on the beach full of heavy teak furniture for lounging.  After going out for drinks and dinner on the beach, we relaxed on that porch and listened to the waves until we were ready for sleep.
Hello El Nido
In the morning, we got breakfast and did a little bit of looking around for another place to stay (Nanette was booked for the rest of the week), and ended up with her neighbor, Chelo, who owned a souvenir shop and a couple of rooms next door.  We took the upstairs family room, which was sort of thrown together, but in a great location, with a window looking out onto the bay and beach, and the sound of the surf constantly in the air, along with the musical voices of a group of Filipino girls who played in the alley outside.
View from Chelo's place
Once we were settled, we stopped by Palawan Divers to arrange our PADI certification course, including some classroom work and 3 days of scheduled dives.  Took a tricycle (motor bike with a sidecar) to a nearby beach an relaxed, played in the waves, and studied for my certification tests.

The next four days were devoted to diving, except one where the weather wasn't great.  There was a small typhoon somewhere nearby and the coast guard recommended everyone stay in.  On that day, which happened to be Christmas, we took off down the shoreline until we ran out of path, and then kept going a bit until we got to a small abandoned beach, where we spent the afternoon in the sun.
Our private Christmas beach
Diving is a great experience.  The book learning was annoying, as most schooling is for me, but I really enjoyed getting all geared up and getting in the water.  It took a couple of days for me to start feeling comfortable, but then it becomes really freeing, just floating around down there in a totally alien world.  My favorite sort of eureka moment was when I realized that I could swim vertically with my feet above my head.  Usually, we swim so close to the surface that that doesn't work, but once I figured it out, I used that position all the time to look at things on the bottom.  One of the other cool sensations was figuring out neutral buoyancy, which is using your breathing to hover in the water.

In case you were wondering what a certified diver looks like
The visibility wasn't great for any of our dives, but I did see a few pretty exotic fish: I caught a flash of orange on one of the early dives that turned out to be the fins of a scorpionfish, which is one of those that blend in with the bottom and look like a rock.  If he hadn't been swimming, I never would have seen him.  We also saw a couple of lionfish later, who have big protrusions all over them with little flags that wave in the current.  Also, tons of smaller, brightly colored tropical fish.  We didn't see much that was very big, so I'm looking forward to things like sharks, rays, and turtles on future dives.

Our last day in El Nido we hired a boat to take us out to nearby Helicopter Island for some serious beach chillin.  We took snorkels, but ended up reading and napping most of the day.

Next day was taken up with the long boat ride back to Coron, and getting to our hotel.  Our room was already inhabited by a huge spider.
Bo, our vigilant Filipino spider friend
I think this was new years eve, but I was exhausted so I didn't really go out.  We had new years day in Coron as well.  I was getting that depression I sometimes feel at the end of a weekend or a vacation, so I wasn't into doing much, and I was also kind of getting ready to be home.  After El Nido, Coron seemed like a much less special place.

Then it was back in planes for a much smoother journey back to China....
See you later, Philippines
and we've already booked another trip in February!

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