THE PHIPIPPINES AND BORACAY OPEN 2016

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I'm not sure what the true story is on how this all came together, but the gist of it is there's a well-known beach tournament in the Philippines every year, and Doug told me about it and how awesome it was during my time in Japan. I showed interest in going and making a vacation out of it, so long story short, that's what happened. Two weeks off and a trip to the Philippines. Ohhhhhhhhh yeahhhhhhh.

Pre-Trip

The week leading up to my flight was pretty busy. There was a good bit of work coming through from Portland regarding some side-by-side testing they want done, and all that in conjunction with presenting my test concept to all the managers for the overall project I'm working on in Stuttgart made for an action packed week.

Friday was pretty good, but I was anxious to get going. I came in a little early with the plan of leaving around lunch time. After saying "see ya" to my coworkers, I headed home for some last minute details and then I was off.

Living in Karlsruhe is actually pretty slick, because it is a quick 1 hour train ride directly to the Frankfurt Airport. The train stops literally at the airport. I got to the station in Karlsruhe, and to my surprise I crossed paths with two frisbee players! We chatted it up waiting for our trains, and one joined me on the way to the airport.

Frankfurt through Hell and eventually to Moalboal

Arrival at FRA went off without a hitch. Honestly, it's always going to be sentimental being at FRA, because of CBYX. It's where we started and ended our year with a bang, and I'll never forget it. But I got checked in, squared away, and ready for a vacation!

Boarding on my Turkish airlines flight and all that stuff went fine, until the captain came on the speaker saying there was a mechanical problem, and they'd fix it quick. Thankfully there was a nice entertainment system in the plane, so I hunkered down and watched The Good Dinosaur. It was a pretty good movie. No Toy Story, but Pixar always puts out a good product.

Although I was glued to my movie, the lack of updates from the captain was a little unnerving. Two hours later, we were still sitting at the gate with one announcement after that first one that said we'd leave in 15 minutes. After 45 minutes people were wondering wtf was going on. We even stopped one of the stewardesses, asked her "can you tell us what's going on?", and she literally turned around and walked away. Fucking useless.

By some stroke of a miracle, we eventually made it off the ground to Istanbul, but with virtually no information from the Turkish Airlines staff. The flight was fine, I watched Spectre after The Good Dinosaur and thought it was also a good flick. Unfortunately, because we were mysteriously three hours delayed, I knew I missed my connecting flight, which sucked. When we landed (02:00), I had to get things squared away at the transfer desk for a rebooking (03:00), finally got things squared away (04:00), and got to my hotel for a short nights sleep (05:00). This was my first exposure to Turkey, Istanbul, Turkish Airlines, and the like, and I was extremely unimpressed with all facets of things (I'll touch on this at the end). But I got to my hotel and called it a night.

The next day turned out to be much better from the start. The shuttle guy that came and picked me up to get me back to the airport was a pretty funny dude. He kept saying, "like business class", as I was the only one in the shuttle. He gave me some mints, talked to me about Germany, and shared some stuff about Turkey. Fun Fact: there are 20 million people in Istanbul, with 15 million on the Europe side, and 5 million on the Asia side. I was pretty amazed at the lopsidedness of that distribution. The overall number didn't really surprise me though, with all of the traffic on the way and the sheer number of people I saw all over the place.

One of the reasons that this travel day turned out to be much better was because Turkish Air was no longer involved. My rebooking put me with with Singapore Airlines, which was a very delightful experience. My end goal was Cebu rather than Manila, and since my itinerary was originally to Manila, that's where they rebooked me. But I was helped by a super helpful gate agent who capped my trip off in Singapore, so I could fly directly from there to Cebu and skip Manila. Then I had another helpful agent from Turkish Airlines explain why I didn't get a refund of my travel because of the delay. Overall the morning in Istanbul was enjoyable and relaxingly stress free contrast to the night before.

I did a good bit of walking around in the airport, which is nice before a long flight, and has become a new habit of mine when I'm in an airport on my own. I get to get my legs moving, explore somewhere, and put my waiting time to good use. I eventually made my way to my gate, read some Guns, Germs, and Steel, and then randomly met this nice Filipino guy named Edgar. He was headed to Cebu as well, and we talked about Cebu, America, his work in the oil industry, and how Norway is balls cold in the winter, and of course all the fun stuff I should do in Cebu.

We chatted all the way through boarding on our Singapore airlines flight, and right away, I could see that a) there's a really high chance I'll like the Philippines and the people, and b) Singapore airlines is a much better airline. One thing that was a nice cherry on top was a stewardess who was just straight beautiful. There was just something about her...

The flight to Singapore went pretty well. As flights are now pretty much the only time I watch movies, I put on Spotlight, which was a really riveting flick. To wash it down, I dined on some lamb stew, which was delicious, then got actual ice cream for desert! (I've never had that happen before). And as a bonus, I got a second lamb stew, because dayum it was good. After a nice 4 hour nap, I put on The Big Short. Although it's a great movie, it made me hate the financial industry and Wall Street even more, what douchebags.

As the flight was wrapping up, there was a really cool moment when we were coming into Singapore. We descended just under the cloud level over the water and saw just a parking lot of cargo ships. All of them had their night lights on and were lined up nice and orderly out in the water. It was really quite cool!

I got into the airport and had to transfer to TigerAir for my flight to Cebu. I napped in the terminal, then hopped on the flight, which wasn't bad. I was dead tired the whole flight, so I slept for most of it, and then was itching to get off the plane when I was awake. Eventually we dropped below the clouds and I got to see the Philippines for the first time. It was a little cloudy, but cool nonetheless. The whole approach I got to keep the island of Cebu in sight and it made me really look forward to the upcoming trip.

Landing, no problem. Baggage claim, no problem. Money stuff, no problem. All set and strapped in, I got in line for the taxis with the rest of my plane and everyone else at the airport. It didn't take all that long though, and before I knew it, Kenky was giving me a ride to town.

Well, Kenky wasn't as prepared as I thought he was. Not halfway to my destination, at an intersection in the middle of a highway, the car dies. He tried repeatedly to get it going again, but no dice. I definitely wasn't expecting to have to push the cab out of the road and find another one midway through my trip.

My second cab got me to Fort San Pedro. I decided to do a little sightseeing before heading to Moalboal, so I found the main stretch of sights and got my feet a-movin.

Fort San Pedro is situated right near the harbor (although you can no longer see water from it), and was the original fort in Cebu established when the Spanish moved in. It was much smaller than I would expect a fort to be, but pretty cool that you can walk along the ramparts and see some of her cannons still there.

From there I walked down Osmeña Boulevard. There was a Basilica I wanted to check out, and didn't realize I was upon it until I saw a giant mass taking place in the basilica, it's courtyard, and the surrounding streets. The place was pretty packed to the brim. Not wanting to disturb anything, I admired for a bit, the moved on to Magellan's Cross, where the original cross Magellan planted in the ground is allegedly inside the wooden cross that's currently standing on the pedestal. Pretty cool either way.

After walking through the basilica courtyard, I headed for the bus stop. Walking through the streets of Cebu was pretty interesting though. Although I should have, I didn't mentally prepare myself for traveling in such a different country than the places I've been in the last few years. The Philippines, although absolutely beautiful and friendly, is a very poor country. This was pretty evident walking through Cebu, as it's definitely a pretty dirty and smelly place, much different than anything I've seen since Honduras. I never really got acquainted with this fact, and it hung around for the whole trip, which I'll touch on later.

I walked a little through a pretty long street market and admired the commotion and commerce all over the place, I nodded and said hello to many a charming passersby and received the same in kind, I debated with myself if I should indulge in some of the street food but decided against, and then somehow happened upon a lively court with some sport. Unsure of what I saw through the gate, I crossed the street and decided to take a peek.

I'm not sure if it was 100% volleyball, but if it wasn't, it was volleyball's cousin. There was a pretty intense 3-on-3 match going on, so I joined in the revelry for a hot second. While there I met a couple local kids and enjoyed the fun match. After a while though, it was off to the bus station.

Cebu Court Sports

I tried to walk through the bus gate, but the security guard immediately turned me away. Thankfully they had some signs once I got in the building, but nothing for Moalboal. At the end of the line I asked one of the vendors which bus I should jump on, and he pointed to the one right behind him. Naturally I was a little skeptical, but it ended up being the right one. Window seat with the window down, I was ready to go.

The bus ride was pretty normal, I guess. If normal consists of using your horn with at least every other breath, which was also the case with the cabs. But yeah, the ride was pretty ok. Slowly working our way south along the island and passing some pretty good views in the process. To get to Moalboal, we had to cross the mountains on a windy road, and that turned out to be pretty pretty.

Until the bus collided with a motorcyclist. That changed things up a bit.

We were going around a mountain bend and all of a sudden there was a giant thud in the other side of the bus and everyone started looking around. The motorcyclist was laying in the middle of the road under his bike a little dazed. Long story short, the guy looked fine, him and the bus driver were talking things out as to who was at fault, and eventually the cops came to measure out the crime scene (with a literal measuring tape) and get things squared away. After about 45 minutes we were on the move again.

Until we had to change buses. I'm not exactly sure why, but after about 10 minutes into our continued journey, everyone was told to get off and wait for another bus on its way. So we did. After a helluva long day and an extended bus ride, I got to Moalboal. But was still not quite there because the place me and Doug were staying at was at Panagsama Beach, a short 4km trike ride away. At long last, I made it. So me and Doug went out for dinner at the lovely place called Cockonuts, had some sizzling seafood and beers, then called it a night. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to finally be done traveling.

Monday - Canyoneering Day!!!

The next morning, after some delicious mango pancakes, we were getting ready for our canyoning trip, and I realized I paid an extra cost during my trip. My beloved nalgene was no longer in the water bottle pouch of my backpack, and is gone forever. I was and still am super upset, as that bottle has been with me since freshman year of college. So much history and traveling and steady hydration, all of a sudden gone.

In Memoriam
2009 - April 11, 2016

A little distraught, we got ready and joined our canyoning tour group. It was a little big, with a good sized group of Filipinos from north of Manila, a father and daughter from France, and then me and Doug. We got suited up, jumped into some jeepneys, and made our way to the canyon. After checking in at the wildlife office and getting a cool Eco-tourism stamp, we got to the drop point, suited up, and headed down.

Not gonna lie, I don't know what I was expecting from the adventure, but it definitely fulfilled all expectations and blew me away. The start was a short 4m jump in, and then we started floating around and enjoying the views. The highest cliff jump of the journey was off to the side of the first pool area, so both me and Doug made the plunge from about 13m up. What a hoot. Throughout the journey, the jumps were quite exciting. And honestly, I definitely surprised myself with how gung-ho and not so scared I was of the jumps. Normally it takes me a while to coerce myself into it, but this time was pretty simple with all of them. And it was a helluva lot of fun!!!

The scenery in the canyon was absolutely gorgeous. It felt a little like jungle book I guess, with high rock walls, stalactites, and vines every where you looked. It was just gorgeous the entire way through. Unfortunately my glasses were more of a hindrance than a help, but it was gorgeous to take in all of it. Luckily, my waterproof camera bag did a pretty good job and got at least a couple good pics of the trip! (Thoughts with that later)

The company we went with (Cyan Adventures) was definitely the best company to go with. All of the guides were super cool and chill (shoutout to Elmer!) and we took our sweet time wandering through the canyon. They were also patient and helpful at every turn, and they did a great job with everything from start to finish.

Unfortunately, it all went by super fast. Before we knew it we made it down to the public area, and were at the last waterfall, which by far had the best and tied with the highest jump. The water was extremely blue, the sun was shining down, and it was an overall awesome experience.

At the end, after the short hike to the main road, we de-wet suited and had an awesome dinner watching the sun set. Delicious food, an awesome day, and an overall excellent adventure. Shout out to Cyan Adventures for the great experience!!!

We got back to Moalboal pretty late, but headed out for some dinner at the "#1 rated restaurant on tripadvisor" in Moalboal. The food turned out ok, but unfortunately I sat us down next to the overly talkative owner and his apparent retiree or scuba buddies. They were nice, but a little weird and too chatty for my tastes. As I said though, the food was pretty good, so we ate up. After dinner, we played an absolutely horrendous game of pool at another bar and left as soon as we were done. From there, we called it a night and hit the sack.

Tuesday - Biking Day!!!

The next morning, I woke up super tired. I slept ok, and I don't think jet lag or exhaustion from the previous day's adventure were really that prevalent, but I was just beat. We got up and had breakfast, another round of delicious mango pancakes, and I was planning on joining Doug at the scuba shop to snorkel while he dove, but decided against and grabbed a little bit more sleep instead. Definitely the right choice.

It was hard getting out of bed, but I eventually forced myself in the name of 'quit being a lazy ass and go out and do something in this vacation paradise' to get up, get ready, and go get a bike for some riding. I got to the bike shop and was (not) greeted by some very unhelpful and brash people. Eventually I got myself a bike and hit the road. I was intending on finding some nice single track to make for an adventurous day on two wheels, but that unfortunately didn't end up happening.

I followed the main road to Moalboal and then one of the main roads up to the mountains. The whole way was really pretty, and entirely uphill, which made for a great workout. But yeah, the views just kept getting better and better the further up the road I went. On the flip side, I think I ended up sweating every bit of fluids in my body during the ride. It was strenuous (32km and 550m vertical) but awesome.

As I said, I was looking forward to jumping on some single track and having a mountain-bikey good day. But, the trails that I did jump on were definitely not meant for bikes. They ended up being just the footpaths between villages/huts and not cut out for either my bike or my biking skills (probably my biking skills). So after my short ventures on trails I decided to stick to the road and save the headache of trying to navigate.

Along the way, it was interesting to see the many houses/shacks with people hanging out, kids playing around, and animals galore grazing and dozing off. See below for a commentary here...

Once I got closer to the top, the views opened up further and it was beautiful. I didn't realize it til I got there, but rode my way up pretty much to the ridge of peaks on the island. And from there I got a great view of the half of the island, the straight of water between the next island, and the many features in between. It was just gorgeous, and the sunny blue skies shining over everything put it all in a great frame.

After getting to the top of the trail/road, and enjoying the panoramic views along the way, I was really running low on fluids and water and Gatorade to replenish said fluids. Thankfully, downhill is a helluva lot easier than uphill, so to prevent any dehydration or heat exhaustion, I decided to head back and refuel and cool down.

I got back to town, returned the bike, and then grabbed some mediocre Mexican food for lunch, then headed back to the hotel to shower off all of the sweat and cool down for a bit. Me and Doug got to hang out a bit between his dives, but I then took a quick nap after he left for his last dive of the day.

Once I snapped back to reality, I walked through town and plopped down on the beach to enjoy the pre-sunset and enjoy the scenery. It was super relaxing just to sit there and enjoy the surroundings. It was a bit cloudy, and there was some activity along the walkway behind me, but it all made for a very peaceful time.

After a while, Doug randomly showed up, and we headed to the chill bar right on the beach to really enjoy the sunset. With a few San Miguels down the hatch and a beautiful night air all around us, we headed back to Cockonuts for another go at some delicious seafood. Mission quite easily accomplished.

Wednesday - Motorcycle Day!!!

Wednesday began with our normal mango pancake breakfast, and as always it definitely hit the spot. From there, Doug went and got prepped for his scuba dive, and I got myself prepped and ready for some snorkeling. What a great way to start the day!

Screen and camera bagged up, I headed down to the dive shop and met up with Doug before his dive, snagged some fins from the shop, and gots some tips auf Deutsch from the scuba instructor. As they dove in, I strapped my flippers on and started my little adventure.

Unfortunately, it ended up just as I imagined. Mustaches completely prohibit a pain-free snorkel experience. Not two minutes underwater and I already had salt water in my nose and eyes. NOT a fun experience. It took me a while to figure out some tricks to make things work, but eventually I found an equilibrium and got to see some cool looking fishes and get stung by a few jellyfish. Pretty cool!

Eventually I was tired of the salty discomfort, so I headed back in and somehow timed it up perfectly with Doug. So we got all squared away with stuff and he got his advanced dive certification signed and stamped and official. From there we headed back to the hotel to prepare for the rest of our awesome day.

A backpack packed for a day of beachiness, we picked up our schnazzy little motorcycles that would make this awesome adventure move. Locked and loaded, both of us had a nice quick crash course on how to ride a motorcycle, as it was both of our first times doing so. But dayum we had a good day in store.

First stop was White Beach, just a few km north of Panagsama. To get there though, we had to go all the way to Moalboal, then take the next road up that went in that direction. That worked out though, because it gave us a little bit of time to get used to the bikes. The road to the beach pissed me off a little bit, as there were two tourist huts that made you pay to get through. It was dirt cheap, but just the fact of getting nickel'd and dime'd for driving on a bloody road was irritating. After that though, we made it to the beach.

And oh boy was it beautiful! There were a good number of people at White Beach, but we went a little away from the crowd and found ourselves a nice little place to chill out. Needless to say, the beach definitely lived up to its name.

Lots of sunbathing, lots of chillin in the water, lots of laying around, and a lot of relaxation was had at White Beach. After a good while though, we decided to keep the bikes moving and head down to another beach, supposedly a bit more off the beaten path. Lambog Beach was a couple towns down south of where we were at. Geared up and ready, we hit the road.

Off the beaten path is a great way to describe Lambog. I had to consult the map a few times, but we eventually made it down there, parked our bikes, and were a little surprised at what we saw. The beach was a lot smaller than White Beach, and a good number of people there (local hangout spot with inclusive ambient terrible karaoke!). We walked up to the north side of the beach and found a nice calm spot and hid behind the shade. We were feeling the burn, so shade was a nice new friend of ours.

Hello from Moalboal!!!

We continued our program of sunbathing, chilling, and laying around. We chatted it up with a number of French dudes that strolled on by, and I got to try on one of the guy's snorkel masks, which I think might be the answer to my bearded snorkeling problems. This is the mask and it was awesome. Granted, it was a short test trial, but it worked great. No water leaked through my facial hairiness. I might have to invest...

I'm not sure how this happened, but I'd never had a fresh coconut before. There was a hut down the beach that was selling them, so Doug went down and got us two for our beachy enjoyment. Surprisingly enough, I didn't like it at all. I'm not sure why, but it just was not my cup of tea. So I gave it to Doug and he was a happy camper.

Lambog turned out to be a great beach. Both of them had their selling points, and we had a super relaxing time at both. Eventually, however, the sun said it's slow goodbye for the day. We packed up and rode out to the jetty to watch it go down.

It was an interesting time getting back, because Doug's bike didn't have a working headlight. But we all made it back safe and sound after refilling the tanks. A super successful day on some motorbikes.

When we got back, I went to get my water bottle out of the fridge and out of the corner of my eye I see a blur then hear a splat. I look down on the floor and what do I see? A friendly but skidding gecko that jumped out of the cool confines of our mini fridge. Before I could say hello, however, we was gone and out of sight. Quite the surprise!

We had a pretty lowkey night, but made it awesome with our last dinner in town. We went to this really family-style place and CHOWED DOWN. I can't remember what exactly we all got, but it was all delicious, especially the seafood in the garlic butter sauce. WHUH. It was absolutely delicious, all of it. And their Mango Juice was delicious.

I think the best part of the place for me was when we were leaving though. During our meal (I was seated facing away from it) the whole family that ran the place was eating together as all of the other tables were wrapping up. I was really impressed and happy to see the whole family coming together and eating, even with a restaurant to run and service. What a cool way to show some family unity. That definitely made my night.

Satiated and drowsy, we headed back to the cottage for a good night's sleep before our journey to Boracay.

Thursday

An early rise got us another meeting with some mango pancakes before we jumped into a car to get back to the airport. The drive was gorgeous, another beautiful day on Cebu. The journey back was much less adventurous and hectic than the journey there, which I was ok with. And a quick three-ish hours later, we were at the airport.

We got lucky, because as we got to the airport, we saw that there was an earlier flight leaving to Caticlan than the one we originally booked. We killed time a bit while waiting for the call for standby, but we snagged the last two seats on the flight, which got us in a whole half hour earlier than planned. Whoopee!!!

The hour-long plane ride went by really fast. It was gorgeous too, with giant clouds and islands all over the place. Coming into Boracay was pretty unique, as we did a loop around the island, and I got to be on the inside, checking it out the whole way around.

A safe landing and u-turn on the runway got us into the gate of the tiny Caticlan airport. Thankfully both of our bags made the journey, so we grabbed them and headed out. A 10 minute walk got us to the ferry, where we were forced to put some foam blocks they called life vests on as we ferried over to the island. Upon arrival, Doug hailed us down a trike, and we were off to check in and start the Boracay adventure.

I recognized this before arriving, but once we got to Boracay, I could tell it was a world away from Moalboal. There were a TON more people there, things were not nearly as cheap, and it was just way more touristy. That said, it was gorgeous, and stayed that way the whole time. There's a reason why Boracay is so popular.

Shortly after getting squared away, a contingent of my team and a few other frisbee teams went up to this place called Spider House. I wasn't sure what I was getting into, but it was AWESOME. The entrance to the place is through a cave and small grotto, but once you get to it, it's a bunch of patios on a cliff. We did some hard core chilling, with some daiquiris and pizza to boot, and watched the gorgeous sunset on the water.

We eventually headed back to the hotel, aka the tournament headquarters, and joined the registration party. First, JBDF (Japan Beach Defense Force, my team) met up to get some pizza together. Then we went over and enjoyed the free beers at the party. I worked on my mingling skills and met Mike from Milwaukee (GO PACK GO!!!), Murley living in Kuala Lumpur, Asha from Australia living in Bangkok, and a few other people from all over living all over. Right from the start, I got a good feel of how unique the sub-culture of Asian Ultimate is. Needless to say though, everyone was super awesome. I ended the night with beers on the beach and headed to bed in preparation for the first day of games!

Friday - Pool Play

Rise and shine for the first day of frisbee! Free breakfast at the hotel was definitely on island time. It took quite a while, but ended up being pretty good. Fed and ready, it was time...

We had our first game against The Breakfast Club (Manila), and holy shit it was hot out. Thankfully we had some shade on the sidelines, but it was burning up. We won a well fought game (they were low on numbers but Gali played pretty much straight through the whole game. Beast.), and then did our spirit circle during our dip in the water after the game. Holy cow did it feel AMAZING.

It was super fun hanging around between games. Just chilling around and watching some other fun games on the beach in the Philippines, not a bad thing to have on the to-do list for a weekend.

Our second game of the day we ended up losing, to a bunch of high schoolers. Well, to a bunch of really good high schoolers. They were one of the 6 or so teams that Boracay entered in the tournament, so they pretty much grew up on the beach. Their familiarity with the beach and notable advantage in fitness really took over. Overall it was a really well spirited game and they were fun to play against. I found out I assisted on 5 of our 6 points in the game. Also not half bad.

After our games Doug surprised us with a hellishly long walk to some place down on the other side of the beach. It turned out to be a fruit shake joint and coincidentally totally worth the walk. The fruit shakes were dooooope. I got two mango pineapple and they were delish.

A long, this time a little cooler, walk and we got back to the hotel and drank some chill beers. A little more mingling happened, then I taught a few from my team how to play In-or-Out box. It was good to sit people down and teach them then to go play. Trying to teach the game on the fly is not ideal, as there's too many rules and interconnectedness to keep people's attention for that long.

It turned out to be awesome. We played In-or-Out Box after sundown with a gorgeous backdrop and everyone seemed to love it!!! It made me really happy to be playing the game again, no less on a beach with great people. Being back in the box took me back to some great frisbee times. There's a reason I'd been trying to play it every where I've gone, and it was such a pleasure to teach these guys how to play it. The cherry on top, they really loved it!

For some reason my voice decided to peace out. I was feeling a little sick/something when we were in Moalboal, but the first day we were in Boracay, I lost all sense of a normal voice. I felt completely fine though, no cold, no sore through, no exhaustion. The only thing different was that I was speaking like my balls hadn't dropped yet. This lasted for a couple days, and I had some fun with it. Because why they hell not, it sounded pretty hilarious.

High-Pitched Nial

TL;DR for the rest of the night, as per my notes:

Dinner was amazing

Party was dope

For dinner, we went to the fish market for a feast. We didn't actually eat at the market, but what a lot of the restaurants around the market do is, you buy your food at the market, then bring it to the restaurant and they cook it all up for you. Sababi was our restaurant of choice, and they helped us go through and organize a feast for all 16 of us. HOTDAYUM was it delicious.

We truly had a feast, and it was all absolutely yummy. Stuffed and satisfied, we worked our way slowly back to the hotel, and then made our way up to the party. Summer Place was the place for parties for most of the weekend. Friday night was awesome, because they had a bar set up on the beach and a dance floor on the sand. Drinks were flowing, dancing got crazy, and all in all it was an awesome night.

Saturday - Pool Play

In short, it was super hot again, but we had two really well spirited games to fulfill the day. The cherry on top was that we won both of them, which was awesome. So that set us up in the semi-finals of Pool C. Not half bad.

After the games I went to the market and got myself a throw away tank for the party and beers. One of the teams from China, a bunch of Expats out of Hong Kong had reserved a party boat and parked it right off the beach. So I swam out there to drink, hangout, and watch the sunset. My mingling was weak, but I met a few cool people out there, including Pierce, who's living in Borneo working with Orangutans. Crazy.

Dinner was had back at Sababi like the night before. We took a smaller contingent this time, but it ended up being as good, if not better. We got a shit ton of food, and I did some mad work on the mussels we ordered. So yummy.

The party this time was at Area 51 on the other side of the island. Theme - Holi Fest. Hence the shitty tank I got earlier in the day. It was another great party, with lots of drinking and dancing and shenanigans. In my opinion, it was not quite as good as the night before, but still pretty awesome.

While at the party, I got a compliment from Lena, one of my teammates, that I'm a good player and she really liked playing with me. I'd honestly never received a compliment about my play like that and was a little surprised. It was really cool to hear though, and it made me super happy. Shoutout to you Lena. Thanks for the compliment! I look forward to playing with you again soon!

Sunday - Bracket Play

Our first game on Sunday was Semis. Turns out we got to play on the main field too, which meant our game was shown on the local TV network and live-streamed on Youtube. Pretty dope. The game was really good spirited and well fought on both sides. They had a bit of a controversial name (Hymen Breakers, whoever approved that has some cajones), but were great players, great throwers, and it turned out to be a good game. We came out on the winning side, and punched our ticket to the finals! Wahoo!!!

During our break, I got the chance to explain a little frisbee to a Russian guy wandering by. He was hanging around by one of the fields and started asking a few questions. So I gave him a quick rundown of the sport, how to play, where it's played, and why it's so awesome. It was a really nice exchange, and I ended up seeing him hanging around by the Pool A finals, seems like we gained another fan!

The finals for Pool C was held on the main field again, and we were matched up against the youngest team from Boracay, think middle schoolers. It was another well spirited game in the finals, but we unfortunately lost by two in a close game. We started off really strong up 7-5 at one point, but I think think the heat got to us and later on we weren't quite as crisp. It was a good game, and a great finals. Overall a great way to wrap an awesome weekend of playing at the Boracay Open 2016.

After we were all cooled down, fed, and done with our games and playing weekend, it was time to watch the Pool A finals, which turned out to be a pretty intense game. Of the teams that made it to semis in Pool A, three of the four were teams from Boracay, and finals ended up as two Boracay teams. The Dragons went up by five at 12-7, then the other guys came back to lead 15-16, game to 17. But with two breaks in a row, the Dragons pulled it out. What a game.

We all hung around afterwards for the awards ceremony. Pretty dope that there was free beer during the whole thing. By a complete surprise to me, I ended up being named Pool C MVP. It was not only surprising but fairly awesome. And I got this cool wallet compatible safety knife. I honestly knew I played decent all weekend, but was definitely surprised by the MVP award. I gotta admit, a pretty dope feeling.

Then, we got our little trophy being 2nd place in Pool C! We had some fun with it, turing the trophy into our drinking chalice. BAUS.

To celebrate, we planned on grabbing burgers together. But when we showed up to the burger joint, they were "all out of burgers". Not sure how that happens, but we had another journey to find dinner, where we ended up still getting burgers that were actually ok.

We triked back to the hotel and at some point all ended up chilling in Dougs room, hanging out, and having some great chats about the weekend and stuff. Honestly, it was such a great time hanging with all of them and in a capping off an absolutely awesome weekend together. Shoutout to all my JBDFers!!!

The Sunday party was a big change of pace to the last couple of nights, as in not raging and not free alcohol, but it was a really fun party. Everybody was chilling outside of Summer Place, drinking, chatting, and being merry. I had an awesome chat with a guy named Ying, learning how extremely diverse his background was. It made me question some things about myself, but I really hope our paths cross again sometime soon. I got tired kinda quickly though, and thankfully the stars were gorgeous on the walk back to the hotel.

Monday

Post tournament on Monday, it was a pretty low key morning. I gorged myself on some pulled pork eggs benedict and a thing called a Wonut at the Sunnyside Cafe. It was way too much but unbelievably delicious.

A little spur of the moment flight and hostel booking rounded out breakfast, then we followed that up with a little parasailing adventure. We found a company to do it through, then jumped on a transfer boat, which took us out to a floating island of boats and jetskis and a whole ton of other stuff. We got on the island, then split up into groups to head up into the sky.

What a cool and peaceful experience. Floating 100m above the water with just the wind blowing right by. It was a beautiful sight with the islands all around and with boats all across the water.

In-or-Out box followed and we had another a fun time. Again, it was so cool to be able to finally play the game again. What made it even better this time is a few stragglers and frisbee passersby joined in on the fun. I loved it!

After a lazy break we jumped on some sailboats for a sunset cruise. We ended up going up to Puca Beach on the north side of the island and hanging out for a while. The second boat caught up to us there, and we had some fun on the beach. We drank a bit, had a nice cheers to a great weekend, scored some free stuff from our boat guys, and overall had a merry, chill, super relaxing, and beautiful time.

The boat ride back to the beach was absolutely beautiful. It was really dark and really calm out on the water. Since we had a sail boat, it was really quiet, just riding with the wind down the way. All was quiet and the moon was out, and it made for such a peaceful time.

Sailing seems to be quite the meditative activity. It was super peaceful being out on the water and cruising along. For the most part, the power is out of your control, all you can do is take what nature gives you and go along with that. Overall, it was really cool being out on the water in such a chill fashion.

From there some people were drunk and a little annoying/belligerent but we played some more In-or-Out box then went and grabbed dinner. We all went to this place a little ways up along the beach, and although there were none at our restaurant, there were tons of fire dancers at a restaurant next door. So with our dinner we got a free show. It was pretty touristy, but kinda cool nonetheless. Satiated and beat, back to the hotel for sleep.

Tuesday

The day started off with another feast at Sunnyside. Holy shit was it delicious. Me, Doug, and Max went family style and split two types of pancakes, chorizo mac and cheese, and an omelette... Whuh, so much absolutely delicious food.

Unfortunately, after breakfast, it was time to say goodbye to the rest of my team. I was staying a little while longer, but they were all headed back home. It was sad to part ways with everyone, but we had a helluva weekend together. JBDF, I look forward to seeing all of you again soon!

I then took a quick nap and shifted to my new hostel. Me and a number of the other stragglers then met up to go to Ariels Point. We got all loaded into boats and took the short ride to the other island for a day of cliff jumping, paddle boarding, kayaking, and some relaxing hanging out.

As for the cliff jumping there, they had a 3m, 5m, 8m, and 15m. I started with the 3m and slowly worked my way up. I was hanging out with a few people next to the 15m watching everyone else jump off the other spots. I was toying with the idea, and one of the worker guys there was like, 'go for it'. So I did, and was the first to go off. I'm still surprised at how easy-going I was with the jumps. It was a helluva lot of fun though, definitely looking forward to the next time I get the chance to do it!

The Ariel's Point people set out a great lunch for everyone, and that was followed by a lot of sitting around and chilling in the afternoon. Eventually though, we had to head back to Boracay. The boat ride back was pretty fun and wet. As the rum got low, the bartender did a little spin the bottle to see who got to finish it. Sure enough, it landed on me. So I had to kill the last third of the bottle. Wahoo. Shoutout to Louisa for the sly help.

We got back, hung out by the pool, showered, then got some dope burgers. A nap by the pool came next. Julia came out and woke me up to come lounging around the Panda room before heading out to a bar. We stragglers met up and played some drinking games. Another successful day in paradise.

Wednesday

I started off with a slow morning. Eventually I got a move on and got out of bed to go get breakfast, and stumbled upon a small group of the Australians and got to eat with them. After their second group came in, I wished them all the best and went and did a little bit of shopping before going back to take a nap.

From my nap, I decided to walk to the other side of the island to the kite boarding beach and it turned out to be quite relaxing. There were a few boarders on the water, so I watched for a bit, then got my last bit of tanning in on the beach followed by sitting around in the water enjoying the view.

I walked along the beach and sat around again for a bit with a bit of change in scenery, but then I decided to go grab one last fruit shake from Jonahs. Money decision. Took my sugary treat with me along the length of the beach, then went and chilled around Casa Pilar in the water. The White Beach is definitely a huge contrast to the other side. More people, more commotion, but still beautiful.

More chilling occurred followed by another bacon burger from SuperMagic. Afterwards came a nice sunset to send me on my way to end the trip in a relaxing way. Or so I thought.

I got back to my hostel to do some checks on things and pack up, but as soon as I opened up google chrome, it showed me my flight to Manila was now delayed for 4 hours. Are you fucking kidding me? And on top of that, I tried to check my reservation with Turkish Airlines, and they showed nothing regarding my booking. Fucking tits...

I walked over to Casa Pilar to use their phone to first try and call Turkish airlines and see what the hell was going on. True to form, the service was not super helpful and in fact a bit frustrating. Long story short, Ben, the owner I met a day ago and a player on the dragons, came by as well as another receptionist to help out. The end result was they printed my booking confirmation and suggested I get to the airport (for both flight plans) as early as possible to square things away.

That settled but not relieved, I headed back, packed up, and hit the sack.

Boracay through Manila-hell and back to Germany

An early start with a quick bike ride to the ferry, and quick ferry ride to the main island, and then a quick choice to be made. Was it worth it taking a two hour bus ride to an airport a ways away with fewer available tickets to Manila? I snagged some wifi from some random network and checked flights. All the available flights to Manila out of Kalibo (the far airport) were after around 12:30, but Caticlan could get me there a lot earlier at a little more pricey cost. I walked over to Caticlan and waited for the ticket offices to open up while enjoying the commotion around the airport.

While sitting around, I had a nice relaxing moment. Some Nickel Creek and other bands were playing on the speakers and I had an empty roadway in front of me. It was a nice reprieve to be able to find the peace among a stressful little bit of time.

Once the ticket offices opened, I got in and got my (more expensive than anticipated) ticket, but figured I could pay a little premium to get to Manila with way more than enough time to spare. Either way, this trip has been full of flight problems, and I was ready to do what I could to mitigate any further headaches and nip it all at the bud.

I got into Manila and had a nice walk through Terminal 3 to the transfer to Terminal 1. The bus ride was pretty cool, riding along the runway and transfer roads amidst the aircraft and such.

I got to Terminal 1 and was gonna go right away to Turkish Airlines and see what was going on, but their office didn't open for another 5 hours. Well, I pretty much put myself into that. So I found one of the cluster of benches in the middle of the terminal that was empty, set up camp and took a nap.

Unfortunately it wasn't beauty sleep, so I woke up with still lots of time to kill. I wasted some time on the internet, and at some point remembered I had two confirmation numbers for my flight. With this (not) new info at hand, I went back and checked to see if my reservation still existed. It turns out it did, I was just too much of an idiot to remember to check it when I started off. I'm an idiot.

Spirits a little bit more at rest, I had a very subpar time waiting around at the airport. Manila's airport really blows, first off with the layout of things, second off that their international terminal is super old and weirdly set up. That paired with the terrible airport organization, it was a bit annoying. To be fair though, I'm the only one responsible for putting me in such a long layover there. I finally got through, got some food, and then had to sit through some weirdly terrible gate organization. Boarding happened, then we got to enjoy another unannounced and unexplained one hour delay. Turkish Airlines service sucks. To my extreme surprise, the aircraft was deemed flight-worthy and we took off headed for Istanbul.

The two good things about Turkish Airlines were exploited heavily by me during the flight, namely the leg room and entertainment center. This leg of the trip, I turned on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (awesome Guy Ritchie film, highly recommend), then Jupiter Ascending (interesting flick, decent sci-fi), followed by Life of Pi (not what I expected, a little slow, but overall interesting and makes you think).

Landed in Istanbul, had a nice walk through the airport and terribly inefficient transfer gates, but I got some food, and quickly enough was back in line boarding for the flight to Frankfurt. Soon enough, I was back on the ground in Germany. What a roundtrip.

But Turkish Airlines didn't want the fun to end! Waiting at baggage claim, and nothing showed up. I went to the counter to see what happened, and in talking with the guy there, the excuse was something to the effect of Istanbul logistics is a fucking joke. They essentially just left my bag in Istanbul just because. What asshats.

To kill time til the next flight came in, I walked around Frankfurt, got some stuff figured out with my bank, did some work on this entry, jammed out, and just made a chill time of it all. Thankfully my bag came with the next flight, so I was able to continue things onward and upward.

Kölle Alaaf!

From Frankfurt, I jumped into an ICE to Köln. I got in and this good looking chick sat down next to me. Well, when the train guy came around to check tickets of people who jumped on, she whips out her BahnCard 100. Swag yo. That's status right there.

It was honestly a little weird being back in Köln. It'd been quite a while, and it felt like such a distant memory when I lived there. It'd been over 2.5 years ago, so it was all a little faded, but some things were still present in my mind, like the steps in front of The Dom, some of the U-Bahn lines, and some other things. Either way, it was cool to reflect on some of the memories of the daily life I had in Köln.

I got in and then met up with Mischa. We hung around his place for a sec, then went off to grab some food. He took me to Oma Kleinmann's (11th on the list of 111 pubs in Köln to check out), and had some MASSIVE Schnitzel. I'd never seen one so big as the one I ate. It was spicy too, and overall delicious.

From dinner, I headed over to the concert. It was kinda weird going to a concert alone, but the music was worth it. The opener was a group out of Scotland that I wasn't too jazzed about. But once Lake Street Dive came on, it got good. First off, the lead singer is super gorgeous and has some great stage presence. Next, their drummer has a lot more energy than I anticipated, so I loved watching him do his work. All that paired with their great music, it turned out to be a great show.

From there I met back up with Mischa, enjoyed a few more beers, then we headed back to hit the hay.

Meine Perle

An early morning got me to an IC train headed straight for Hamburg. What a joy to head back to my favorite city in Germany! It'd been quite a while since I was there, but it felt awesome coming back.

I got in and walked to Jungfernstieg along the Binnen Alster and got a quick glance of the great city I miss.

I then jumped in my old U-bahn to meet up with Lutz. We met up, then walked to his bike store near our old place to go check on something. Along the way, we had a nice chat about a ton of stuff, and the stroll through the neighborhood slowly brought me back to it all.

From there, we headed back to the place we called home for a while on the Wendlohstraße. I gotta say, it was definitely weird going back, but as soon as I got back, it felt like I'd never left.

Elke greeted us with a huge smile and hug, and as I said, it felt like I'd never left. We were just in time for some food too, which is right in line with the usual.

The afternoon ended up being relaxing and awesome. It was me, Lutz, Elke, Lutz's dad Matthias, and Lutz's sister Ute. We sat around a good bit, got caught up on what people are up to, talked about travels and fun things, went for a walk around the neighborhood with Matthias' little dog Paul, and had an overall awesome time. It really felt like family, just hanging out, talking, and enjoying one another's company.

As is tradition auf der Wendlohstraße, we topped off the night with some delicious food. Grilled steaks, grilled veggies, fresh bread, and a whole slew of other things. We ate, were merry, and had a grand ole time together.

At some point, Me, Lutz, and Ute headed on our way. Me and Lutz were staying at one of his buddy's places for the night, so we headed there. I was up for going out and getting another night on the town in the Sternschanze, but Lutz was still kaputt from the night before. His energy waning, mine started to fade in tune, so we called it a night.

The next morning was super lazy. We woke up fairly early, and then went and threw some friz in a park nearby. On the way back, we picked up bread and came back to a lively house setting the table for a great breakfast. As is tradition, a great breakfast was had sitting around the table together watching the April snow come down in the harbor city up north.

I initially had plans to hang out and go meet up again with my friends from Schlagball, but the sickness I caught sometime during the trip was slowly starting to get more and more annoying. With the cold outside and a lack of proper clothing, I decided to call it a trip and make my way back to Karlsruhe instead.

Lutz and I said thanks and goodbye to Björn and Lenny, and he headed off to the train station. I still had some time, so I went down by the harbor for a bit to take in the city that just switched to sunlight from the snow. Landungsbrücken is always a great place to take in Hamburg, so that's where I went.

If Hamburg had mountains and variation in elevation, I would be fighting tooth and nail to get back there. It's an amazing city, but that's the only thing that's missing. I would eventually like to get back to Hamburg for a while though. It's such a cool city. I would love to be back there and continue enjoying the great city on the water.

Sure enough, my time came and my train was not going to wait for me. I jumped back on the train, headed back to the train station, and got my ticket back down to Süd Deutschland. A long 6 hour train ride later, I was back home.

I can't lie, I was super glad to be home and not on the go. I was feeling pretty sick when I did get home, but had a wonderful surprise waiting for me. I had to go to the front desk to get them, but a package from my lovely mother and a card from my sister and brother-in-law were there for me to open up! What a joy to come back to! Definitely a great capper to a great two weeks on the road.

Karlsruhe - Work Week

The sickness I picked up has lasted pretty much the whole week. Monday and Tuesday were really rough. I took the afternoons off to try and come back and get some rest, but even though I was tired, I couldn't fall asleep. Wednesday was the same, but Thursday and Friday got a little better.

I don't think it helped that my main task for the week was to stare at a video feed and find errors in the camera detection algorithm. It's a really mind-numbing task, but it has to be done. So sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day looking at a video feed was my post-vacation work week. It definitely made me need another couple of weeks off just to recoup. But, now sitting here on Saturday, sun shining through the window and feeling a little better, things are looking up.

My Thoughts and Ramblings.....

Flight Out Hindsight

For the trip back, a lot of the stress on the outset was definitely unneeded. I'm not sure why I didn't, but I definitely should have been aware of the two reservation numbers with my Turkish Airlines reservation. If I had, that would have calmed me way the hell down, being able to see from the outset that my flight was still there.

But then, with the flight from Caticlan to Manila, I made the dumb mistake of booking at the ticket office rather than doing it online. It cost a pretty penny, the flight, and being too focused on getting the hell out of there, I lost a bit of my common sense in the process.

Learning Experience: in times of stress, stay calm, think clearly, and don't get so worked up.

Beach Ultimate as a Ticket Out

As I mentioned, we played a couple of teams of youngsters from Boracay during the tournament, and they were damn good. I would love to have been that good at ultimate at that age.

In talking with a few people about the many young players here in Boracay, it was interesting to hear how much of a role Ultimate plays in their lives. For them, they really look up to the older players, seeing how they get to travel all over the world through frisbee. For the youngins, they see frisbee as their ticket away from the island, a ticket to something more than they recognize right now.

For me, frisbee is something on the side, it's something I do in my free time as a way to stay in shape, a way to enjoy a great sport, and a way to socialize in the different places I go. For me, if frisbee was the one way I could look forward to something bigger than what I've got right now, I likely wouldn't be going anywhere. To think that this sport could be the one way they get out and see the world, on the one hand it's awesome to see that the sport I love can provide such great opportunities for people. But on the flip side, it's a little sad to see that there aren't other opportunities (i.e. education/university, work, whatever else) available for them to branch out and grow or see the world.

Philippine Life - Hard to Imagine

In that same line of thought:

I am a very blessed person. With where I was born, how I was raised, and the opportunities that have come across my path throughout my life, I am very lucky and blessed to not only have done what I have done, but also to be where I am today. Riding through the villages on my bike ride in Moalboal really made this evident to me and got me thinking about a number of things.

I'm used to four enclosed walls and a roof over my head. I'm used to paved roads and sidewalks. I'm used to orderly roads and infrastructure. I'm used to having something to do during the day. I'm used to having tap water I can drink. I'm used to having a postal address. There's so many things that I am used to in my day-to-day life, so many that I can't even think of all of them.

But through my ride, it's clear that life is much different there. A full enclosed house was a rare thing to see. Once you left town, it was all dirt roads of varying quality up into the highlands. At a good number of the houses I passed along the way, there were kids running around and parents/adults just sitting or laying around, seemingly just passing the time. I didn't see anything to make me believe there was running water up there. Mailboxes were definitely not along the road at every pathway to a house, leading me to wonder how people received mail up in the hills.

All in all, it was very clear that the life led up in the highlands near Moalboal, and likely in a great many places in the Philippines and all over the world for that matter, is a world away from the life I've grown up with and know. In trying to relate, there's no way. I tried to put myself in their shoes and couldn't even come close.

Philippine Life - Am I Elitist?

In that grain of thought, I couldn't help but question myself and my overall position on this. Am I being elitist in thinking these things, or is it purely a matter of things being so different from what I know to really put myself in their shoes?

I don't think it is. The opportunities that come across my path in life are not something that I can control, and the same goes for them. But regardless, I can't help but feel elitist for questioning it. And moreso for even being in the position that I am.

I got to where I am today through the combination of opportunities presented to me and what I did with those opportunities. That doesn't make it any better that others don't have those same chances as me.

I feel like I'm rambling and not making any sense of my feelings here. They're hard to put into words. Essentially, it was a bit hard for me to see the poverty and extremely different way of life in the Philippines. I've seen it before, in Honduras and in Guatemala, but that was a long time ago (pre-CBYX, oddly enough) and no matter where it is, it's hard to see people in such hard living conditions.

I felt elitist just being in the position I'm in. I'm not sure if that's elitist, I don't think it is, but it still felt that way. It's a completely different life, something completely different than what I know in life.

Philippine Life - Daily Doings

While riding, the houses and shacks along the way were quite rundown, which is how it goes in the rural area of a developing country. But the more weird part that struck me was how many people were just hanging out, sitting around not doing anything. Serious question with that, is there really not anything to do? Is it just normal to sit around a lot?

It seems with the poverty that employment is notably harder to come by, which could leave people with nothing to do during the day and they end up sitting around the house. Did I see that wrong? If you've got experience/knowledge with this, I'd really be interested in learning more.

I was too timid to actually interact with someone I rode by. That's my fault. I'm not proud of it, I just didn't end up doing it. That would have definitely helped answer some questions though.

Impatient POS

I'm an impatient dude. Very much so. Unfortunately it came out in a bad way during our awesome motorcycle day. It was both Doug and my first time riding a motorcycle when we rented. I've got a lot of experience on a bike and have ridden ATVs and stuff like that, so getting used to the thing came pretty quickly to me.

For Doug on the other hand, it was a little bit more of a learning curve. I knew that, and knew I should be patient with him, as that can be quite intimidating and scary for someone who has never ridden one before. But being the impatient asshole I'm wont to be, I was quite impatient with Doug while we were riding, expecting him to ride a little faster and getting a little far out ahead of him. I was pumped to be on a motorcycle, I wanted to go fast. That desire didn't match up with Doug's comfort on his bike, and I let my impatience get in the way of being understanding and helpful.

So Doug, again, I'm sorry about being impatient with you on the bike. I'm super proud of how well you did all day, and especially for it being your first time on a motorcycle, damn good I say. I had a great time renting them, and I know you did too, but I still feel bad for letting my impatience affect the fun that we had.

Learning Experience: be patient with people. Life's too short to be a dick.

Cultural Regression

With all of these thoughts of me being elitist, and seeing such a different way of life than what I've experienced/seen/been involved with over the last few years, I had a different mindset and attitude towards it all. Through all of my interactions and reactions and thoughts, I couldn't help but question myself: am I backtracking on my cultural awareness and open mindedness?

I learned a lot about cultural differences and tolerances through my experiences and training with CBYX. But there were a lot of points during my trip where I didn't have the normal patience for cultural differences and other people:

• Turkish Airlines and their lack of communication with the delays and flight status updates
• Turkish Airlines just leaving my bag in Istanbul
• Customer service in the Philippines and the consistently included apathy

During these and likely other situations during the trip, my patience wore thin quite quickly. It blew my mind that things didn't work out, or that people's reactions were so different than what I expected (i.e. the stewardess just turning around and walking away). It wasn't the right reaction, but it was the reaction that I had at the time.

I'm glad I can recognize these things of myself. But at that same time, it kind of feels like I'm that jerk on the playground that punches another kid knowing he can apologize for it later and get away with it. Patience is something I've never been strong with, but something that's gotten better over the last few years. Not having the patience with people or the open-mindedness to think about possible motivations other than mine for things on this trip is quite shameful.

Clearly I have a lot to work on in terms of cultural awareness, patience with others (friends and strangers), understanding of other ways of life, open-mindedness to other reasoning and motivation, and a good number of other things. I know I can be weak in these areas, but moving forward, I am going to be more aware of how I react to adverse or frustrating situations. Patience is a virtue, and keeping that in mind as I struggle to adapt to different situations will help me maintain an open and understanding mind in dealing with things as they arise.

Learning Experience: taking things back... It's not good, it's not bad, it's just different.

Culture Shock

After my CBYX year finished and I moved back to the States, I never really had any severe culture shock. I feel like I reintegrated pretty well. But in the 24-48 hours after I landed in Frankfurt, I think I had felt more culture shock than any other point in time.

The biggest reason for this was the openness and friendliness of people during my time in the Philippines. In the Philippines, a smile was always greeted with a smile bigger than the one given, and there's always a friendly attitude waiting to be shared. In Germany, and I've always known this to be the case, that is definitely not true. A smile is greeted with a grim expression, at best a neutral gaze, and a flat out closed off confrontation.

It's never really gotten to me before now, but I wish it weren't so. It makes a huge difference being able to receive a sign of positivity from a complete stranger through nothing other than look on the street. For me, a smile from someone else puts a smile on my face. So in the Philippines, it was hard to find me without a smile on my face. But here in Germany, that energy and positivity doesn't exist until you actually start a private interaction with someone. It's a shame. But it's not good, it's not bad, it's just different...

ISO - My Self-Inflicted kryptonite

I like taking pictures, yeah? Sometimes I suck at it. This happened a number of times during the trip, and it really pissed me off a) when I realized it in the moment, and b) going through the pictures after the trip.

At night, I set the ISO on the camera high to help with the darkness. It helps out, because that's what it does. But then the next morning, I either assume that it automatically reverts back to a normal ISO level or I just completely forget about it. Unfortunately, it's a combination of both, but either way, it takes me a while to realize that I'm shooting with high ISO in daylight, leading pictures to look grainy and terrible.

It happened during the morning of my bike ride due to sunset pictures the night before. It happened during the morning at the kite boarding beach due to the night time boat cruise. It's such a stupid error, but it really makes the pictures turn out poorly.

Learning Experience: check the camera's settings each time you start shooting.

"My favorite Japanese food is Sharing"

And it really is. I think I mentioned this while I was still in Japan, but one of the coolest things about food culture in Japan is the fact that everything is family style. When you go out to eat with a bunch of people, normally at an Izakaya restaurant, everybody orders a dish and then it's all shared within the group. It's definitely one of my favorite ways to eat.

The sense of community that it shows is one thing that I really enjoy. Sharing is caring, and when it comes to food, it holds true. But the other awesome part is that you get the chance to try all of the options. For me, this is probably the best part. I'm all about variety and covering all my bases, so being able to try what everyone's got is awesome.

Learning Experience: eat family style more often, try and get the trend going elsewhere.

Disc Disconnection

Once I met up with Doug in Moalboal, I made an easy decision and cut myself off from the world for pretty much the whole trip. It had been a while since I'd done that, and I gotta say, it was absolutely amazing.

In Moalboal, I had my camera, but other than that, I was technology-less. I was able to move and groove without anything tying me down, and I was able to just kinda let myself be where I was. It was really nice just going with the flow and letting Doug take care of all the details (Thanks Doug!!!).

And then in Boracay, it was even more of a release. With the tournament going on, I had one less thing to worry about, and I could just wander around in my board shorts and not have anything to carry around. Seriously, I wish I could do that more often, because it was super liberating.

Learning Experience: detach from your phone and communication sometimes. It's refreshing.

Second-Grader Shyness

I'm my own hindrance when it comes to meeting new people, and I need to change who I am in a way to fix it. I'm a sociable-enough person, but I still have that second grade shyness when it comes to meeting and talking to random people. When I have some sort of common ground established, it's not so bad. But just out of the blue going up to someone and talking to them, that is a huge inability of mine.

It's not good, and it's not a permanent thing, but I'm not the super outgoing guy that will go up and talk to anyone around. Why? Because of quite a few things. But eventually I'm just gonna have to get to the point where I don't care about how things turn out, and I just go and try to chat. It's good for the personal life, good for the professional life, and good all around as a sign of personal confidence.

Learning Experience: be more confident in who you are, gather the gumption to go talk to people.

Asian Ultimate

Ultimate Frisbee is definitely, altogether, a big family. Regardless of where you go in the world, if you're an ultimate player looking to play, you can usually find a place to play. And when you do, the people you find there are extremely welcoming, helpful, fun, and ready to share such a great sport.

Being in Boracay, and seeing a little bit of what it's like overall in the world of Ultimate in Asia, it was easy to see that there's definitely an even refined subculture in that part of the world for frisbee. Ultimate altogether is a family, but Asian Ultimate is even more tight-knit, kinda like the twin siblings of the family that know all the ins-and-outs of the other.

From my outsider point of view, it seems like everyone involved in Ultimate in Asia knows everyone else, everyone is super open and welcoming, and new people fit right into the group. This was really cool and inspiring to see.

The other places I've played have been welcoming and fun, but nowhere near to the level of Asian Ultimate. In the US, it's the hub of the sport, but more often than not, the competition of it all gets in the way of the overall community feel. And in Germany, maybe I'm not the right person to say, but it's a little bit more closed off than other places.

Granted, this is just my view, and I may not be the most ideal person to judge such a thing, but it was awesome to see such a tight knit group of frisbee players, spread out from all over Asia, that know, play with, and are there for each other. It'd definitely be a huge plus of living there for a time.

Ultimate Compliment

As I mentioned, at the party at Area 51, me and Lena were talking, and she gave me a huge compliment about playing together for the weekend. Then, the next day, sometime around the finals game, I was talking to Rufio and he dropped another big compliment on being able to play with me for the weekend. I think there might have been one more instance, but either way, I got some pretty positive feedback from my play for the weekend.

I'd never received such direct positive praise for my frisbee play before, and it was really cool to receive. As I said earlier, I knew I played ok, but that it was enough for people to mention made it really cool. I like playing frisbee, and obviously try to be a good teammate, so that it was enough to elicit some good feedback from my teammates really made me happy.

Learning Experience: keep being a positive player with good spirit, the play will follow.

Detriment to being Visual

I am a very visual person. My sight is undoubtedly my most utilized sense, and I love it. Seeing things for me is my preferred means of taking something in. Be it sitting on a mountainside taking up the view, watching a little girl play the drums on the sidewalk next to the Rhein, whatever it may be. I love watching things and taking in an experience with my eyes.

A good number of times during the trip, my huge tendency towards the visual side of life was a bit of a hindrance. For one, me needing glasses can automatically get in the way. But you throw in water during the Canyoneering trip or hot and humid weather during a frisbee tournament, and it's an automatic blocker of my lenses. Then I have to take them off, find something dry to clean them with, and then put them back on. Sometimes that can be a real hassle, and always a major annoyance. When I can't see clearly, it's a big point of frustration for me.

Then, during the Canyoneering trip and the boat cruise, I had my camera in the waterproof bag. Unfortunately there wasn't any water repellent on the lens part, because there was always water hanging around blocking a shot. This is similar to the glasses, because I have to clean the glass and try and maintain a clear view for the lens, which can also be a hassle, especially when the bag is going in and out of the water.

Long story short, I hate it when my vision get's blocked or hampered. It's frustrating, takes away from my ability to take things in, and it's all around annoying.

Learning Experience: get lasik, put water repellant on glasses and camera bag?

Tropical Fruit

I was talking with one of my coworkers at lunch sometime this past week, and I don't remember how, but we got on the topic of the DDR. He grew up for a while in East Germany, and I asked him a few questions about what it was like. He was pretty young at the time, but he told me a story about how tropical fruits were nearly impossible to get in the DDR.

Every year, each person would receive one coupon for one banana. And he remembers vividly standing in line at the store with four banana coupons, one for each person in his family, and one melon coupon to pick up the fruits and take them back home to the family. When they ate them that night, he said it was like a kingly feast for them.

For me, that's such a crazy thing to think of. Having such limited access to bananas, a thing I get every time I go to the grocery store, is quite hard to imagine. It's kinda cool to see though, how fond of a memory that it evokes.

Laziness

This past week (post-vacation work week), I've been quite an asocial being. After work, with the exception of Monday for Swing Dancing, I came home, tried to get some stuff done, but ended up going to bed or wasting some time before going to bed. That's not an ideal life, but it's one I sometimes lead.

I'm not sure if it's social anxiety in asking people to do something and getting 100% no's in response, or just trying to focus on getting stuff done on my personal to-do list and failing miserably, but whatever it is, I need to improve. Life's too short to be wasting it away at home. I need to get out and make something cool and fun and engaging with my life. So here's to that.

Up Next

Another week of work coming up, and then a tournament somewhere in Germany. I completely forgot about it up until the reminder email came some time last week. I'm kinda torn if I want to go or not, because the dance school is having a workshop for Lindy Hop on Sunday, and I really wanted to go to that. But with the tournament, I can't really swing it (no pun intended).

But then the weekend after that, I'm headed to Nantes, France for another beach tournament. This will probably be not quite as warm as Boracay, but should still be a good 'ole time.

In between, more work. Hopefully I'll get this test drive analysis done soon so I can move on to a task that's a little more engaging and fun. We'll see how it goes.

Anywho, that's for reading! I know it was a lot of rambling and a lot of self-clarification of thoughts and a whole lot of randomness, but that's a quick view inside my jumbled up confusion some call a mind. Take care everyone, and I'll talk to you soon!

HOW COULD I FORGET!!!!!

Nial's World Wanderers

It's been a while since the last edition (TM2 in Beijing), but on this awesome trip to the Philippines, I was joined by some excellent World Wanderers, now apart of the club.

First up, huge shoutout to my buddy Doug! Getting the chance to bum around some beaches with you in Moalboal was an absolute pleasure! And Doug is no stranger to world wandering, living in Tokyo for the last 10 years and traveling to if not all, then damn near every country in that part of the world. It's clear that he's got a lot of experience moving and grooving in that part of the world, and I was able to leech a great amount of information from him, ranging to layover times in Manila, where to get a suit in Bangkok, which tournaments are the best in the region, and a whole slew of other things. So props to you Doug, keep Wandering the World!!!

Next, I'm gonna do in group form, but a big shoutout to all of my fellow JBDFer's! We came from all over, and it was a pleasure meeting you guys in paradise and sharing a beach with you all weekend!

• Taishi
• Anthony
• Max
• Holmes
• Mickey & Rufio
• Bats
• Paul & Hannah
• Baywatch & Patty
• Steven & Lena
• Glenn
• Kracker

They came from far and wide (NY, Berlin, Tokyo, among others) to meet up in Boracay. All have a slew of international wandering experience, and it was a pleasure to share the field and beach with all of you guys for the weekend. Wander on, my friends!!!

Original Publish Date: May 1st, 2016