No Worries Mate

The Best Laid Plans…

Well, sometimes things just don’t go as planned.

After spending three days in Sydney, mostly in a very nice neighborhood called Double Bay where I spent my time power shopping in the many boutiques, we rented a car and hit the highway. Before we left we made a daring raid on the Saturday market in The Rocks, the home of my favourite silver ring maker.


Our plan was to drive to Melbourne along the coast road. After a couple of hours into the trip we realized we were never going to get even close to Melbourne. Driving on the main highway was so boring and we were keen to get off on the back roads, so we did. Our first stop was Kiama, a waterfront town about 120 km south of Sydney, where there was so much to do we stayed for two days. The clincher to our decision to abandon our trip to Melbourne was when we discovered there was a place called Minnamarra where there is the remnants of an old growth temperate rainforest. It is now a park and you can walk through it on a great board walk which winds its way from the ground way up to the forest canopy. The drive from Kiama to this place was also awesome, through a backroad up Saddleback Mountain which has the most amazing views of huge rolling farmland and the coast.

The fresh air was so very welcome. It is a perfect time to visit – it’s spring and mid 20’s C. Totally off-season, so no crowds and great value. From my balcony of our motel, I watched the sun setting over the mountains on one side, rugby players in the field opposite and surfers on the beach beyond. On the hotel television sets, out of about 20 stations, almost half are sports channels and two are rugby stations. The remaining stations suck.

The street this motel is on is called Bong Bong Street, which I thought was very coincidentally appropriate. Bong Bong is the name of Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos’s son who is a congressman. (His actual name is Ferdinand Marcos Jr., but is known as Bong Bong). He also happens to be the former tenant of our new condo in Manila.

When we checked in, I asked the maid who was cleaning the rooms where I could get some ice. She couldn’t understand what I was saying. Then the penny dropped. “Oh, you mean OYCE!” So when I went into the gas station (the petrol station), I asked the guy for “a bag of oyce” and was immediately understood perfectly! I was laughing so hard on my way back to the car I could barely walk in a straight line. I found out later from our waiter that night that "oyce" is also a word for crystal meth. Maybe it wasn't my accent at all that was the problem. Maybe she was completely gobsmacked by the sight of ME trying to score!

The rest of our time was spent enjoying the cool spring weather, the fresh air, the scenery and the very different wildlife and especially the ability to go for long walks outside - something we can't really do in Manila. We stayed in three different places for a few days in each, before returning to Sydney. Two on the coast and one inland on a river.

Life's a Beach

Pelicans outside our hotel on Bateman Bay

Wild parrots

Collecting seashells - catch and release

Spring flowers - tons of wisteria, a real treat for me as I adore it and it doesn't grow in our Ottawa climate. (Actually this is a cheat shot - this wisteria is actually located in Victoria B.C., in Cordova Bay, and although the Australian vines were fabulous, this is still the one to beat).





Wild kangaroos at Pebbly Beach (click on the picture below to enlarge to see them feeding). This was so amazing to see them in the wild, where they seem to be as plentiful as our deer - also plentiful as road kill too!










I also found a new drink in Australia. At first, as a dedicated bourbon on the rocks lover, I was quite appalled, but then, oh what the heck. I’ll try anything…and do!


We're back home in Manila now. Our shipment has arrived and tomorrow, after living in hotels for exactly three months, we are moving into our new home in the sky.

Off to Oz: First Impressions and Away We Go – Road Trip!

We’ve been living in Manila now for about 6 weeks and we are about to decamp from our hotel and head off to Australia for 11 days. What a time this has been! There is so much that is familiar, quasi-familiar, different, weird and just plain incomprehensible. This is so much a discovery.

Here are some of my observations – with the proviso that if there is anything that I do know, it is that I know nothing…

1. Lets get the priorities right - it’s all about the shoes

I now totally understand Imelda and the shoes (see earlier post). In the hundreds of miles of malls in this town, there is shoe store after shoe store after shoe store, filled with amazing shoes. Wearable works of art.

Someone had told us before we got here that if you are a woman wearing more than a size 8 (Canadian/U.S.) you can’t find shoes here, so for the last weeks of walking through the malls, I only had my nose pressed against the glass, drooling. The other day I decided to test that information and found it WRONG.

Don’t believe everything you hear!

2. Something is rotten in the state of...

Our recent Canadian home brewed corruption scandal – a few millions of some kind of advertising thing – well let me tell you we’re absolute pikers compared to these folks. Every single day without fail the papers are full of one scandal after another. The editorial commentators are all over it, to their credit, and, I might add, bravery as I understand that journalists have been shot from time to time. A recent poll said that more than 54% of Filipinos believed their President, Gloria Arroyo be corrupt and more than 70% believed her husband to be corrupt. It’s hard to describe, or even to understand, but this really is a small town, where the ruling/business class is concerned. The former president has been under house arrest for the past 6 years and the verdict on his "plunder" trial is due on Wednesday. The current scandal is about a broadband contract with the Chinese where it is alleged that there is a $138 million kickback to the top officials of the department that negotiated the contract – the very top people. Perhaps that explains all these Pucci/Gucci/Versace etc…boutiques in all these malls throughout Makati and Ortigas.

3. The Air That We Breathe

This is a tough town. I think that the worst air in all of Makati must be outside our hotel. There is a concrete overhang between the door of our hotel and a very popular mall and all day long cars pull in to let their passengers out. The exhaust fumes build up with nowhere to go and by 7:00 or so when we go out to dinner, we literally hold our breath to walk (run) from our front door to the mall (22 steps).

This probably explains the mall culture. Inside there is the illusion of fresh air, as well as air conditioning. In our new apartment we are advised to have our air conditioning filters serviced monthly, and we may even want to look into additional air filter units, perhaps in the bedrooms.

But, you know what? It’s all relative. Someone told us about a woman who lived here for many years and has now been posted to Beijing. When she returned to Manila recently she said she gratefully breathed in deep – the fresh air!

4. The continuing saga of the dishwasher

I have talked about my insistence on finding an apartment with a dishwasher. Not an easy task in a place where everyone with money has a maid or two. Homes are just not equipped that way.

Our new apartment has two kitchens. One is very North American in style (which was the selling point for us) and the other is basic, windowless and is called the 'dirty kitchen". The service area and maid's room are off of this one. We've been joking about the large kitchen being "for show". Well guess what - no joke! The previous tenants have moved out and the landlord's people are in the process of fixing it up for us. I was over there the other day and took some pictures, chose the paint colors and did a visual inspection. We sent in a property inspector to check it out thoroughly and when we got the report back I laughed and laughed. The dishwasher was not hooked up!

I interviewed a potential maid on Saturday. When I told her there was a dishwasher in the new apartment, she repeated "Ah, a dishwasher" and glanced over at her husband. There was no mistaking the delight in her eyes. A girl after my own heart.

5. New Friends

It is SO easy to make friends here.

Before we came here I asked Christine, who has spent many years abroad in a number of countries, what advice she had for me. She said “Accept all invitations. See and do everything, and then later you can decide who you want to spend time with.”

In that spirit, I’ve been having the most amazing time. With the most amazing people! So far I've met people from Canada, U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Viet Nam, India, Japan, Korea, Bhutan (had to look that one up on the map), Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Ireland - and I'm sure I'm missing some. For the past 4 weeks since we went "social" I've been out to lunch (lots!), gone to dinner parties and cocktail parties several times a week plus enjoyed a memorable Friday afternoon with a few gals at the pool bar of the Polo Club over a pitcher of margaritas. Of course the other side to this is I'm on the treadmill every morning!

My new friends are not all expats, however. I have a great new galpal who is Filipina - lives part of the time here and part of the time in Vancouver. I had the wonderful pleasure to be invited to lunch at her home, where I met her family, sisters, brother, cousins. It was fascinating and judging from their questions of me, I was probably also a focus of fascination. My new friend has taken it upon herself to be my "cultural advisor" - I tell her she is also my "security consultant" as she is super-conscious of security and is always giving me advice.

6. Exploring the world

Tomorrow we head off to Sydney for a few days, after that we will rent a car and head along the coast to Melbourne. This will be my second trip to Australia and I never imagined I'd be back so soon. In November we're going to Laos with a side trip to Angkor Wat in Cambodia to see the sunset over the temple ruins.

Then home (Victoria) for Christmas. No doubt there will also be some short trips outside of Manila as well.

So far…I have to say that I love this new life – having the time of my life.

Come visit!