Monday, July 31, 2006

Oh! Oh! Oh! One more thing! I took this picture today. It's the very same manhole I fell in over a month ago, and they have finally done something about it. Sort of!!! :)

I have a cock.

It’s a big cock.

When it gets aroused, it swells up angrily to an even more intimidating size.

It’s an aggressive cock, and it always goes in for the kill. It’s merciless.

My cock weighs in at between 1.8-2.4 kilos of raw cock meat, and it has a mean look to it. It remains chained, for the safety of all things around it. It doesn’t like other cocks either. In fact, it will go out of its way to terminate the life of any other cock that might cross its path, and I’m damn proud of it. It’s a good cock. It’s quite territorial, too, and beats down heavily on the females to which it belongs, just to keep them in line. My cock is a champion cock, born of a lineage of champion cocks before it. When it is called upon, erect and pumped, sometimes emerging bloody and throbbing from the action, it never fails me. And the action itself is pure art. Regardless of whether it takes it’s time, almost playfully feeling the other party out, or whether it goes in directly, relentlessly ravaging the other party, it is an awe-inspiring sight to behold. You have not known fear and you have not felt humbled until you have seen my cock.

Below is a picture of my cock.



Hahaha, I’ll explain in a second. When I last left you guys, which was quite some time ago, I was learning how to surf and having a kick-ass time about it in La Union, far up in the northern Philippines (it was a two-day journey from Manila that included countless jeepney, bus, and tricycle rides – don’t ask). After that, it was time for me to head to my childhood hometown of Davao City in Mindanao to the south to truly revisit my roots and see family whom I haven’t seen in ten years. Perhaps you have heard of Mindanao. It’s one of the places in the Philippines that usually catches the headlines in the news. Usually it has to do with the problems they have there with Islamic separatists, from the Abu Sayyaf group of simple thugs to the now-pacified Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and its breakaway faction, the very much alive-and-kicking Moro Islamic Liberation Front, also known as – don’t laugh! – MILF (for those who didn’t catch on, see what this acronym can alternatively mean here). So, considering the danger areas that exist in certain areas of Mindanao (Davao City, however, not among the hotspots), it shouldn’t be too surprising that Jacob decided to remain in La Union while I ventured southward.

The trip to Davao City was largely uneventful. I thought I was pretty shrewd in choosing the Superferry over one of the numerous airlines that service the Manila-Davao route in order to save money, but what I hadn’t fully appreciated at the time was how long it took to reach my destination, which was a full three nights. Plus, there really was not much to do aboard the ship other than eat and sleep. And eat. And sleep. However I did meet some nice people. I shared my cabin with a just recently-retired army officer who was in Manila to collect a financial one-off retirement package that the government had offered soldiers in his position, only to be told there was no money in the coffers. That says much about the state of affairs in this country. Well, the guy was getting tired of going toe-to-toe with better equipped rebels in the jungles of Mindanao, and even more tired of the underhand deals his superiors would often make with the very same rebels, bribery and corruption being as much a part of Filipino life as the rice we eat with every meal. Heading back home, he took the ‘no’ he got with a shrug and a prayer - Filipinos being religious people - as he hoped for the best in starting a civilian business of his own. For the moment though, his long-term dream of one day running a tuna air-freight business would have to wait indefinitely.

Then there were the two girls, Anabel and Julie, who joined us at our table for a round of videoke fun. Now, the practice of singing along to songs is not exactly commonplace nor all that popular in Denmark, but this is what they do here in Asia. The people get big kicks out of massacring the songs they know, hehehe. Well shiiiiaat, when in Rome, do what the Romans do, right? So we got those vocal chords running and had a great time and had our shits and giggles, and quickly became friends. Anabel worked in a factory in Manila but came from the south and was heading home for the first time in years, and Julie was an OFW – Overseas Foreign Worker – who was based in Kuwait and had also been granted a vacation. It was good to meet them as we later hung out together in the (almost) two weeks I was in Mindanao. Ana was my travel buddy on my plane trip home, too.

Don’t worry, I’ll get to my cock in a minute. I did a bunch of stuff in Davao, not least see my family in the Philippines who are largely based here. Besides aunts and uncles and cousins, this includes extended family that I’m sometimes completely clueless about, if one were to ask how we were related. I stayed at what I consider to be my childhood home during the first four years of my life that I spent in the Philippines, which was still exactly the same as I left it, pleasingly enough. See the pics below I took on my brand new phone (a Motorola RAZR V3i) – the pictures you have seen so far were taken by Jacob’s camera, which he kept with him while I was in Davao.







Ana took me to see her barangay (village), Datu Salumay, in the spectacular mountains some 100+ kilometers north of Davao City, where it was as cool and crisp as Denmark on a clear autumn day. I had a hysterical time riding horseback, and riding water buffalo! Fuuuck, I never though simply riding in a saddle (or, in my case, simply an empty sack of rice which served the same purpose) would hurt that much. It was ridiculous, and you bareback horseriders out there have my respect. Also, one would think riding a water buffalo was easy considering how wide those fuckers are, but it ain’t so easy when the thing has a fondness of breaking into a run all of a sudden while trying to spear your legs with one of its horns. I challenge any of you to try, at any rate.

I went to malls, hung out with people I cared about and hadn’t seen for such a long time (who were impressed by how much I had grown, yay me!). Ana and I took a trip down to see Julie at her seaside home where we all went swimming and I tried the evil, local alcoholic beverage, which is coconut-based and goes by the name of Tuba. Imagine vinegar, alchohol and rotten fruit mixed together in a delightful brownish elixir, and you have a very… interesting cocktail.

I went out drinking with my cousins and the girls, and I got the chance to see one of the Philippine national pastimes up close, something deeply ingrained in our culture – cockfighting. It’s lethal, bloody, and the Filipino’s love it. Here’s where my cock comes in. Now, I grew up with this cockfighting thing – we always had fighting cocks at our house, and if there’s one thing I connect with my childhood home, it’s the incessant cock-a-doodle-dooing that these birds do, ALL THE FUCKING TIME, EVERY HOUR OF THE DAY! Nah, in truth I’m used to it, I can sleep all morning with those birds bursting their lungs outside. Most people couldn’t do the same, though, I think. At any rate, my uncle took me to a cockfighting arena one Sunday and I saw how these fights take place (I never went to a cockfighting derby as a kid), and how people gamble on them. It’s really quite an experience. Animal lovers will no doubt find it sickening, but for millions of Filipinos, cockfighting is the only pleasure they derive from their lives which are otherwise spent fighting tooth-and-nail for every meal they can put on the table for their families and in many cases their extended families, all living under the same roof. Putting these social injustices side-by-side with animal welfare concerns is no contest whatsoever. To me, at least. Besides, these animals are wired in their brains to kill each other, cannibalism practiced as early as six weeks of age.

But I’ll leave my thoughts on the subject at that. I saw all manner of cockfights, from fights that were over in five seconds to fights between cocks that just wouldn’t quit, and would keep on at it long after I thought they didn’t have any blood left. Spectacular aerial clashes, seasoned groundfighters, cocks who quit and ran away from the fight… no fight was ever the same, and I must have seen over thirty of them that day before I got hungry and left the shouting crowd for some lunch. Yes, I had chicken.

And my cock? You see, my cousin actually rears fighting cocks on his farm, which is a plot of land where he has more than fifty of them. Of these, around four or five are being prepared for a cockfight derby later this year. Its no small thing – after two years of rearing, preparation for a fight takes up to 90 days, and includes an intensive feeding regime, wing and leg exercises, and body conditioning which includes the use of medicines and steroids to improve performance on the day. Sometimes fighting cocks are given adrenaline prior to a fight. It all comes down to the day when a razor-edged knife is attached to one of a cock’s leg spurs, and two cocks battle to the death in the middle of an arena. MY cock will be one of those, come later this year. I have agreed to sponsor one of my cousins fighting cocks and finance its prepping, which is the most expensive and crucial period in rearing a fighting cock.

This should be fun. Multi-millionaires can buy their racehorses and jockeys can go ahead and think themselves as athletes for sitting atop their mounts and spurring them on. I have my cock, and this is where it’s really at. Below is a movie clip of what a cock fight, a non-lethal one, looks like. I recorded it on my cousin’s farm.



Until next time, people. My traineeship begins tomorrow and I’m excited. I’ll have another update here soon – I’ll be uploading the pictures of what Jacob saw when he was up north in La Union.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

OMG OMG OMG surfing is so damn fun I could pee in my pants and I’m really good at it and I was riding waves after like my fourth wave and Jay isn’t so good at it and had been surfing a day more than I had before I decided to try and still wasn’t standing up on the board and I kick ass and he sucks and I can stand relatively easily on a board except my elbow is now fucked up and no more surfing for me so that isn’t so cool but this place called San Juan north of San Fernando is real cool with the chillest beginner waves and the local surfer dudes and dudettes are awesome with names like Lemon and Angel and I’m a regular at Angel and Marie’s place which serves the best Oreo cookie milkshake and Lemon took us out to meet his foster father Uffe who is Danish and used to be the UNICEF director of Europe but has now retired to the Philippines on his UN pension and has a sweet set-up now where he is head of what originally started as an orphanage of sorts and looked after Lemon and like thirty-six other orphaned kids so the guy has a real big heart and the household is huge and Ma they are opening a new surf resort in January so you should definitely check it out and talk to him for your travel agency plans and well I’m going to keep enjoying this place until I leave alone on Thursday leaving Jay behind here to swallow some more saltwater while I trek down to see my family in Davao in the south so that should be cool but I don’t know what to do about the six hickeys on my neck because the place we’re staying has a go-go bar and putting that many band-aids on would definitely look ridiculous so while I mull about that I’m going to leave you guys with some chill photos and then I’m off to enjoy more sun and fun WEEEEEEE…!!!

Here are the pics. First up, you guys need to see what they use for public transport around here besides the tricycles I showed you earlier. These are jeepneys:









The view from our resort, and since I did some pics on the fauna here, here are some flora pics as well:











Heeheehee, and this is Jay doing a sweet wipeout:













Finally, me looking (insert adjective here) in a wetsuit, and in the water:







Monday, July 03, 2006

These are from the trip back north again. 1) Our bus. 2) Inside the RoRo (Roll-on-Roll-off) ferry, they were transporting Carabau - Philippine water buffalo, which are used to plow fields. 3) A sunset. 4) A sunset with Jay in it. 5) Artsy picture of us both. 6) Sun is really setting now. 7) Very artsy sunset photo.













Parasailing!!!













More boating pics. 1) Our boat. 2) Me and another boat. Notice the boat's name. Do you get it, huh? Huh? Do you get it? :) 3) Me catching some sun. 4) Me fucking around in the water.







Boating trip pics. 1) The locals have bodies I'm quite envious of :( This is a coconut salesman that approached our boat. He takes his machete, chops off the top part of a coconut and you have both a refreshing drink and a tasty snack. 2) This dude caught some good-size looking fish. 3) Jay on the boat we shared with Koreans and Chinese. 4) View from the front.







These are from the boat trip we took. 1) Me, chilling before our ride came to pick us up to bring us to our set-off point on the eastern side of the island. 2) We're under way. Jay in a rare photogenic moment 3) I love my side profile. Not.





A few daytime pics.