On to Thailand

I arrived at Bangkok late on Sunday evening after travelling to Hong Kong from Guangzhou by train. The train ride was pleasant. The train ride was smooth and without event. I looked out the window and I could see all the various factories and apartment buildings between these 2 major cities. The pollution is quite bad in Guangzhou, worse than it was in Manila. In Manila it is caused by the traffic. In Guangzhou it is caused by traffic but also all the factories which are manufacturing products for the whole world. I got sinus problems after about 5 days there and it persisted until I got on the island. Shirley has had it since November and felt some relief when she got to Manila. I got to Bangkok late and got a room at Maxim Inn. I was not too crazy about the hotel or the area so I moved the next day to another area where many backpackers go and so the hotel are less expensive but my room was better. The hotel had a small pool and there was a variety of people staying there. I met Nick a young German who told me about Ko Phangan an island right next to Ko Samui but is less commercialized. So I made plane flight arrangements and tentative hotel plans. I proceeded to Wat Po a Buddhist shrine which hosts the Reclining Buddha which is 150 long and 45 ft high and it really is the Buddha reclining. Quite a different religious connotation from someone hanging on a cross. I took lots of pictures but the art work and buildings are amazing. I decided to get a picture of myself here and recalling my picture taking in Newfoundland where I had come across an iceberg without a camera and got a couple to take my picture after I took theirs and then asked them if they would take a picture of me and send it to me. Which they did. So I ask this couple if they would take my picture and they did and then I offered to take theirs. I detected a German accent and mentioned my name is Schumacher and I am of German descent. I do this with the many Germans I have met in Philippines, China, and now Thailand. He responded with my name is Schumacher too! He proceeds to take out his id to prove it. We have a good laugh and we take some more pictures of us shaking hands. Him and his girlfriend Ulma had a good sense of humour and so we went off to dinner and drank beer like good Germans or something like that.
The next day I flew to Ko Samui and then took a boat to Ko Phangan which is a smaller less commercial island. Everyone rides mopeds and many people are into diving or snorkelling which I do. I went out on a combined snorkelling and diving boat trip and the first place was not a good site. Poor visibilibity and not much coral or fish to see. The second site was great and I spent 1.5 hours snorkelling around. Schools of fish, a wide variety of fish, a beautiful coral. I had a little adventure when I noticed a fish caught in an old abandoned fish net. I tried to free with another snorkeler by tugging on the net. I saw its snout stuck and so as tried to push it out I poked my finger into a spine sticking out and cut my finger plus it stung like a bee sting. The fish was freed and I forgot about the hurt. It was an intereting day. I met people from Switzerland, Belgium, England, Greece, and of course lots of Germans. I got to know Joseph then a bit and more later because he is in the room next to me. He is a Swiss baker who moved to New Zealand 26 years ago and recently sold the bakery he and his wife ran for 26 years. He has an extra house he rents to tourists throughout the year. So now I have a place to go if I go to New Zealand which I have heard many great things about.
Yesterday I hiked up to the highest point on the island and went to a huge beach party here. Today it rained most of the day so here I am on the blog. I was waiting for a day like this.

Visiting Yi's family in Forshan

I keep posting because it continues to rain here and I am concerned I am going to lose what I have written. The meal was great and it was topped off by numerous toast of Hennessey Cognac. Yi's family were as helpful, welcoming, and gracious as he is. I learned Gon Bai which is probably spelled wrong but means delicious in Cantonese. We made our way back to Guangzhou that evening as I had to be up the next day to leave China via Hong Kong to Thailand my next destination for 8 days. My working time had come to an end after 7 weeks and now I would be on my own and on vacation for the next 3 weeks in Thailand and then again in China. I have been fortunate to have had such wonderful hosts for my time in the Philippines and China. It will be interesting to see what it will be like on my own without people looking out for my needs.

More on Guangzhou

It was interesting in Guangzhou because I spent a fair amount of time with Harold who spoke fluent Mandarin. He has been in China close to 27 years in the last 34 years mostly teaching English but also working for a few years as a translator for a Chinese manufacturer in addition to being the Director of the CIIP office in Guangzhou. I spent this week teaching so I did not get to counsel or really even see any of the Chinese clients who use this service. When I was walking around with him we went to the shoemaker and the seamstress who were both set up on the street. I got a new zippern installed on my fleece jacket for less than $3. You can see by the pictures that there is a mixture of the old and new in Guangzhou. Over the course of the week I got to see a lot of the city although at first I just got familiar with the area I was living in. A little further to the east of my hotel when I was out for a walk I discovered it was a combination of Middle Eastern and African cultures. As a result there were ethnic restaurants catering to the groups. This is a big city and it attracts people from around the world. Guangzhou and other cities between here and Hong Kong are the major manufacturers of the products being sold through Walmart and practically everything else that is manufactured. There is a lot of building going on here. The second day I was here Harold and I went to Shamian Island which is really a few small bridges off the mainland but a world of difference. It is very colonial style buildings built at the turn of the century by mostly the British. Very lush and somewhat quiet compared to the rest of the city. At the Starbucks I noticed many North American couples with Chinese babies. At the White Swan hotel many couples coming to China to adopt do it here. I must have seen 50 or 60 couples walking around with their new babies. All girls of course because with the one child per couple policy the girls are given up with the hopes of getting a boy. As a result there are too many young men around which is one of the reasons Yi is planning on immigrating to Canada. He had spent 3 years at St. Mary's University in Halifax, the same school as my niece Lindsey. He loved it there and although he is an only child he plans to emigrate.
The other really interesting thing I did in Guangzhou was go to Yi's family home in Forshan which is about 30 miles from Guangzhou. I got to see a traditional Chinese village where many of the buildings were over 100 years old. This is not like some of the ancient places I will see in China in the coming weeks but it was interesting to see there lifestyle. You could see the hole for the wok in the stone stove which could be seen when you went into the small kitchen. The houses were very close together. We also went to Yi's high school which looked like a small university with about 4,000 students and residences for the students who came from out of town. It was a public high school. The students were out playing sports and so Iwent over and borrowed some paddles and played ping pong on an outdoor court. I had to play ping pong in China! We then went to his parents home which was quite beautiful. It is located in a gated community and there is a nice hotel visitors can stay at. The house was very large, 4 stories with marble floors and balconies on each floor. You can see by the pictures which hopefully get posted how green and pleasant the surroundings are. They had large pools with the colourful Choi fish in them. These are expensive Carp fish which are good luck for the Chinese. We had a great dinner of Peking duck, chicken, and tofu.

Guanzhou, China home to 10 million people

I spent March 1 to 8 in Guangzhou. I went to the Guandong International Hotel for my lodgings. A much different hotel from the Somerset in Manila. This is a much larger hotel, it has 60 floors. I was on the 48th floor. The staff were friendly but not as conversant in English as the Filipino staff were. I had some funny experiences with their misinterpretation of my words. I asked them if the interned was free and they heard the word internet and put me in touch with the internet provided. Then the internet provider had to call them to ask and then called me back to let me know it was free. It was a roundabout way to get an answere. Another time I ask if I could get an ironing board and iron and they said there was none at the front desk. I go to my room and one of the housekeeping staff show up with some additional bath soap. Then I explain to her my need for an iron and a while later she comes back with it.
I had an interesting week in Guangzhou. The staff were very friendly especially Yi Liang who arranged for one of my airline tickets and invited me and the Goldins to meet his family and have dinner. The training went well and each night I was out eating. I went to a Lebanese restaurant, Italian because I wanted a traditional salad and it was the only restaurant I went to on my own. Yi, Harold, and I went to both Northern style restaurant which was quite good I had eel for the first time with eggs. It was delicious plus some duck, tofu, shrimp, and some different types of fish. We also went to Sichuan place which is spicier food and was delicious. Guangzhou which was formerly Canton is known for its cuisine. Many people commented that this area has not culture:art music etc they just love to eat. So I fell in line with the culture and ate my way through the week. We went to a Japanese place and had many different kinds of sushi which I also loved although I had only ate a little of it in Toronto. Drinking the saki probably helped. I also met a Canadian who had been teaching in China for over 20 years currently in the MBA program. I am going to publish this because it is raining in Ko Phangan and the power has gone out about 8 times today.

Goodbye to Manila

Well it is actually March 7 and I am on Kho Phangan island in Thailand but I am going to record my experiences from memory. I was unable to access the blogspot in China, I guess it is being censored. I left Manila on March 1 after having spent 43 days there. I had gotten quite used to being there with my various routines of going to the gym which was rarely used by others at the hotel although there were a few regulars like Yossi a Japanese businessman I always shared a few comments with. The buffet breakfast was also excellent and my room was comfortable. I said goodbye to the other counsellors and staff on Friday. They presented me with some food and a t-shirt with Manila written on it. I gave them cards and some books which were work related. I had gotten to know all of them quite well. I had met Jeri's and Kit's spouses, Kit's aunt, her brother also plus many of her close friends in Laoag. I got a few pictures of the staff and myself leading a group at the office. I enjoyed my time there and believe I made a valuable contribution to their organization. The last week there Harold and Shirley Goldin had come to visit for a week and I went to Hong Kong plus on to Guangzhou when I left. They are both American although Harold is also Canadian and spent some time growing up in Windsor. Shirley is from Baltimore. They met on Vista project in the inner city of Baltimore. Shirley is an African American and Harold is Jewish so it makes for interesting mix of religions and race. So now I knew who I was going to be working with for one week with when I got Guangzhou. Harold is the director of the China office in Guangzhou. I was going to be providing counselling training for 4 days when I got there.

North to Laoag

I went to Laoag in North Luzon with Kit one of the counsellors at CIIP. This is the town where she is from so she takes whoever comes from Canada to visit with her to get a sense of a rural area in the Philippines and a chance for her to visit friends and extended family. Laoag is situated on the South China Sea about an hour flight north of Manila. We flew up on Friday evening where Rhoda, her friend who is a professor at the local college, picked us up. I was dropped off at the Fort Illocandia Resort where most of the people there were Korean or Taiwanese. The Taiwanese come for the gambling casino. Many Koreans come to the Philippines because it is inexpensive and they can practice their English. The grounds were beautiful as you can see from the picture and the food was okay but the price was right for less than $50.00 a night including a buffet breakfast.
To put the trip in perspective there was good news and bad news. The beauty contest judging did not happen and Kit did not exactly explain why but some other people I met who were aware of "The Fiesta" in Laoag said the only beauty contestants left to be judged by the weekend were the transvetites which they said were pretty good and you may not detect they were men dressed as women. Despite its pervasive Catholicism they seem to be okay with the men dressing like women. The good news is I got to play tennis, go snorkeling with a marine biologist, go body surfing on another beautiful beach, and see some interesting places along the way. I was picked up on Saturday morning by Kit's brother-in -law who proceeded to take me to the Ferdinand Marcos museum where Marcos' preserved body is supposedly lying in state ( I think it is wax) in an air conditioned mausoleum like a shrine to his political exploits despite the fact he was overthrown and it is generally accepted he stole a small fortune from the country. He was dictator for 15 years from 1972-1987. There was no eerie music which I told was normally played. There were quite a few young students wandering around. He is from this area and his son is the governor of the province here. We saw an old church then eventually made our way to Saud beach where I went swimming and body surfing. The waves were strong and crashed a little too close to the beach as I was getting dragged along the sand by the waves at the end of the ride. Afterwards we went to visit Kit's ancestral home and her 88 year old aunt who lives there with her maid. She was very frail but could speak English still despite it being her second language. The day was beautiful and I also got a chance to play tennis later with 3 other Filipinos which was arranged by Kit's friend Jaime. We played on a public court and I had fun. 2 of them were in their 20's and one was an adolescent. My partner played well except he had on flip flops and at the end of the game I found out it was all he could afford. Before I left on Sunday I ended up giving him my racket and tennis shoes which I was thinking I was going to give them away because I didn't want to carry them all over China. He was happy to receive them and I was happy to give them to him.
The next day we went to Currimao where we met some other friends Kit had made at the college.Willy had taught at the college for the last 26 years and agreed to go snorkeling with me because the diving group he was leading had been delayed until the afternoon as it was too windy where they were going to dive. So I got to follow him around in about 15-20 ft of water where there was some pretty interesting coral reef and exotic fish. We stopped a few times and he would talk about what is happening to the reef as a result of climate change. The reef is deteriorating because the sea is becoming warmer and due to the pollution of additional shipping in the area. He said he had actually trained some local politicans in diving so they could experience the underwater world and as a result they are willing to act to take steps to reduce the pollution in the sensitive areas. I burned my back again as I did in Boracay because I forget my back is exposed while my head is facing down in the water viewing all the sea life. Afterwards we went on a 3 hour ride into the mountains to visit a priest friend of Kit's who lives in an area where there is no bridge so we had to take a little boat to cross the river. The picture I am showing is upstairs in his rectory. We had a very filling lunch and you can see the driver, his friends, two friends of Kit's who also wanted to see the priest, Kit and Father Gil. The church and grounds were well maintained although the area was not very well off due to the isolation of having to take a ferry to get there. It was an interesting trip.

Another side of Manila

On Saturday evening I met Tom Lee who is a cousin of Melinda, Mike Pucci's Chinese American girlfriend from San Francisco. Tom was born in the Manila but moved to California when he was 15 and lived there and other places until he was 50. He returned to Manila with his mother who wanted to live the end of her life there. He is divorced with 4 children. He had served with the U.S. Navy for 7 years and then worked in various companies related to Silicon Valley before returning to the Philippines. Now he lives "with the poor" in the Guadeloupe Viejo district of Manila where he runs co-operative business making soap, sausages, and other things while providing a bank of computers for people in the neighborhood in his living room. I went out with him on Saturday night and he showed me a few bars, one was a Japanese style karaoke bar and another was a salsa bar run by one of his friends. I met him the next day and we wandered the back streets not far from where I live to his district which was quite a contrast. I live in the high end high rises of Makati city and he is in a barrio like area where the jeepney drivers, those ex US jeeps and lookalikes, live. I took some pictures on the way there. A couple are of the back streets where the diner was right on the street and the other is a family eating out on the street. The street is more like a back lane. Another picture is of a make shift building where a new apartment building is going up. The makeshift building is where the workers live while they are working on the small apartment. Another picture of the manicured lawns is not 300 yards from the other area of people on the street. It is Rockwell and you could have dropped the shopping mall down from any suburban area in North America with Banana Republic, Office Depot, The Gap etc. There is not much distance between these areas but its clear who belongs where. There is usually lots of security around an area like this one. We kept walking but nightfall happens quickly here and by the time I got to his neighborhood it was dark. I took some pictures at the Church, which was built in 1645, where there were a group of kids running around who became particularly animated once I pulled my camera out. It was not clear if they were waiting for their parents or just kids on the loose from the immediate neighborhood. I got a movie of them but I am having difficulty getting it posted. The last picture is with Tom and his girlfriend Celestine in their kitchen after we just had dinner. The main dish was the chicken sausages they make and sell to hotels and restaurants. Tom says he provides about 10 jobs to people who may otherwise have difficulty making a living. Afterwards I took a "tut tut" which is a small motorcycle pulling a sidecar. We were going up and down the hills and I didn't think a few times that he was going to have enough compression in the engine to make it. He left me off in a transition area between the old section and the newer highrises and office buildings of the my hotel area. He turned around and went to where we had come from. I returned to the safe but somewhat deserted business district leaving behind the small back lanes full of people and the goings on of people going about their daily business.