Dive-Monster Rhoody

I just came back from a quick Trip to Bohol where I visited my friend Kim and his lovely family. The Day was originally planned as a lazy day with the feet in the sand and a beer in the hand (wow, that is almost poetry…).

The Bohol-trip was exclusively organized by two tour-manager who did an awesome job in fixing messed up bookings, while the return trip was flnucked up by my lovely personal assistant. ( I promised Kim, Frank and Rechel not to mention their names as it would be unfair as they really did a fantastic make-up job… )

Anyway, the beer needed to wait a bit cause after my arrival was Lunch scheduled at the Bohol-Bee Farm. I have been there a few times and always enjoyed the small tour through the Facility of the Bohol Bee Farm.

We arrived there just ready for lunch and after some table and chair adjustment for our big group we made a kind of bulk order. When we having lunch or dinner in a group it usually ends up that we are ordering way to much food for everybody, put it in the middle of the table and everybody grasps what he wants to eat.

So here is the (I think not complete) order for 10 people (including 2 Kids):

Yoga Salad (Family Size)
Fish Sticks with herb dip
Halang Halang Soup (family size)
Vegetarian Pasta
Seafood Pasta with Coconutmilk
Fresh Herb Pasta

Tropical Pasta
Spaghetti Packages
Buko Pasta
Spaghetti with Shrimp and Tomatoes
Meat Pasta
Curried Pasta

Curried Pasta with Vegetables
Curried Pasta with Chicken
Curried Pasta with Seafood
Honey glazed Chicken
Pizza

Well, that was a kind of enough food with that much left over that the staff at the Bohol Bee Farm staff had a great Fiesta after closing time. One thing which was a little bit irritating for me is the fact that each dish was decorated with flowers. Everybody tried to convince me to eat them, but I just didn’t wanna eat something like that. Later during our tour the guide explained that they are edible cause the bees don’t die from them … and 5 other reasons…. Hmmm my cat eats mice and flies shi…. YAKS. They don’t die, does that mean it is also healthy for me… no flnucking way. Of course I was a butterfly in my past life at teenager times but I do not need to taste each flower which is passing by, nicely prepared on a plate or not…

….unless of course it looks like this beautiful tasty Oyster, but sadly they did not have this type at the Bohol Bee Farm :

Anyway, the food at the Bohol-Bee-Farm was very delicious and I can recommend it to everybody to stop by there when visiting Bohol. My hot tip is to get some glasses of the Pesto-Spread, it is just too delicious and in the unlikely event there are also flowers in it, at least I couldn’t identify them…

Cheers

Rhoody

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I am on my traditional Angeles City visit at new Year to see two of my absolute best friends here, Kim and Tom. After spending a couple of days with them they told me there are plans to drive to Manila with another friend to watch the most expensive movie ever made – Avatar- in the I-MAX movie theater.

Well I am not into that Fantasy thingy but hey, getting on a nice trip with great friends watching a supposing to be great in 3-D in one of the absolute High End cinemas of this planet, no way I will pass on that.

So here we start the trip on a Sunday around noon time at the house in Angeles City with 4 BIIIIGGG boys, actually 3,5 big boys, looking at them I am pretty tiny… hehe . Kim spend the whole night and Sunday morning praying Rosemary to make the aircon in the Van working but the result was not really worth his effort, so he should not forget to light some candles too.

As the highway is almost empty, opening the windows is enough to cool down the van to a acceptable temperature all the way to Manila until you hit the famous Manila traffic. We 3.5 fat guys were lucky, as the traffic was not really that bad for Manila, but still enough to make me sweating and almost melting on the backseat like butter on a hot toast. Kim’s prayers were not completely useless as about 5 minutes from the Mall of Asia (where the I-MAX is located) the aircon started to spit out some cool breeze, cool in consideration of the temperature in the van which was close to boiling point.

We floated out of the van and entered the Mall of Asia on the search of the I-MAX. After about a 5-12 km walk through one of the worlds biggest shopping Malls (by the way, an ice-scating – thingy in the Philippines is still a kind of disturbing for me) we arrived at the movie theater to find out that all shows for that day were sold out.

Yeah, of course…  3.5 fat long-nosed smartasses going on a Sunday afternoon without tickets or reservation to a Cinema to watch one of THAT movies. I hope nobody of them was surprised that it was sold out. That’s what is called proper planning. I guess we simple lost the right to complain when things with Filipinos in charge are not working out that well….

As we do not have a proper job, we made the decision buy tickets for the next day and stay over night in a Hotel somewhere in Manila.  But that’s gonna be another story coming up soon, I already have the title… “The Manila Burger Run”. Stay tuned…

Cheers

Rhoody

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Part of my “goals” here in the Philippines is to explore these wonderful Islands. I have several travel guides at home, of course the lonely Planet is a must have. My big problem with Lonely Planet or the “Jens Peters”  travel guides is simply that there are only a few pages about the destinations I plan to visit. On my research for a travel guide to Bohol, I came across a guide called Bohol Insider written by Jack Sterling.

Well, I live in Dumaguete and have been to Bohol a few times –it is only a short Ferryride away- so I was very interested what “insider knowledge” Bohol Insider has to offer. Bohol Insider is an e-book what is absolute perfect for me as I always travel with my notebook anyway, so I don’t need to carry around a 500+ paper-book, where there are only some pages about the area I plan to visit.

The purchase was done via Paypal for US$ 9,95 and after a minute or so I got my download-links. The purchase included also a free Tagalog phrasebook. The download took about 3-4 minutes as 12MB is a huge file in Dumaguete-Broadband-Speed. Bohol Insider is a travel guide with more than 150 pages full of information and great illustrations.

The first thing which I recognized was that the book had my email-address on each page, a small thing but I like that personal touch. After scanning through the first few chapters it is pretty obvious that Jack Sterling is obviously living in the Philippines and is not just a student send from the well known Travel Guides to write short paragraphs about some Hotels and tourist attractions.

The Bohol Insider Travel Guide covers a lot of interesting areas way beyond the typical “where to go – what to eat – what to see “ – questions. The book covers many details like money changing, dealing with vendors, historical back-grounds, diving info and and and… just a lot of stuff I could not find in any other guide and I caught myself a few times thinking “Yeah, Rhoody, you messed that up on your last trip”

The Travel guide has a nice format with great pictures. One thing I really like is a kind of funny cartoon-mascot which goes through different situations typical for the Philippines I made some screenshots and posted them below. They made me smile numerous times and I saw myself many times in that situations.

One thing I actually miss is a kind of index, where I could go faster to the section I look for with a single “click” and not scrolling, well I am lazy… hehe

Jack Sterling’s Bohol Insider Travel Guide offers free updates and since I bought the book a month ago it extended from 145 to 156 pages and I am almost sure that index for lazy Rhoodys will come one of the next updates.

All in all Jack Sterling’s Bohol Insider is in my opinion by far the best Travel Guide about the beautiful Island of Bohol and helped even me… and I am living since 8 years in this lovely country. For US$ 9.95 free updates and the free Phrasebook, Bohol Insider is a total no-brainer and of great value, no matter if you are an experienced Philippines traveler or a first-timer in Bohol.

cheers

Rhoody

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Falling in line - Perfect demonstration

The “big” Robinsons Mall is open a few weeks now. It appeared before the opening that it is the reinvention of the wheel for Dumaguete. Unseen waves of excitement swapped through Dumaguete and I heard a lot of people talking bad about Lee Plaza and how great Robinson will be. This guys are exactly the same who are talking bad about Robinsons Place in Dumaguete.

So what is Robinsons Place in Dumaguete now… breathtaking, stunning, disappointing, a disaster? Ok let me get Rhoody’s opinion online. Robinsons is a perfect step in the right direction.  The Mall is simply a provincial Mall in a province-town.

Knowing some people I had the chance to enter Robinsons Place Dumaguete about one hour before the grand opening. I definitely like the place in general. The stores and shops are what had to be expected. Some local shops moved there and there is not a lot new. Like each Mall in the PI they have problems with stocking up for the opening and run out of stock after the first few hours.

Glamorous opening

That of course gave the “typical” complainer enough reasons to whine around again…. the traffic.. and the bike-turn-arounders at parking area, and it is too cold inside. Andandand…

My Rhoody-Award goes again to a part German – Speaking – Expat community here in Dumaguete for what I hear online and read on several blogs and internet-board. I really love Germany, but this “personalities” made me turn my back to the country, Rhoody can’t live with all that grumpiness. ood that their very limited English skills keeps them of Dumagueteinfo. I wouldn’t be a moderator for DI with those guys around…

Ok, here are my two cents. The traffic is less than before unless you go at 5 – 7 pm. But there is no way of going smooth in the city for the last 4 years and all this retired complainers can go there from 9 am – 4 pm, where there is absolutely no problem at all.

At present are 39 out of 100plus shops open and we are of course in the province and won’t have the shops many are dreaming of.

I have been there a few times now, alone, with Rechel, with the little one and never had a bad time. The little one has space, mama can look at shoes and high-heals and I go “talent-scouting”. We have a look at the Supermarket if they re-stocked (for all complainers, they had a lot of great stuff at the opening what you do not get anywhere else in Duma and it will come back.)

correct, keep Mall clean, but make trashcans bigger

Of course Robinson Place Dumaguete was a “Rush-Opening” and stores and shops are not finished, the staff is not very knowledgeable and things are out of stock , however there are already some new options for dining, shopping, watching a movie (81 Peso only !!!! ) or just roaming around, getting an overview and go to buy it somewhere else.

Listening to some people here in Dumaguete it seems they are “forced” to go there, bad luck to you !!! I am a kind of free and can decide where and when I wanna go. Having my little one Happy and smiling for some hours and seeing Rechel in different sexy high-heals (without buying them… hehe) makes me also happy and willing to pay 2 peso more for my coffee at Robinsons Place in Dumaguete City.

Cheers

Rhoody

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When you wake up at 4:30 in the morning and have two girls running around in your house like “chicken without head” there are a few options. One of these options would be that your girl found another girl in your cabinet. Another option: You simply life in the Philippines (where it basically has nothing to do with the daytime..hehe).

In my case yesterday it was the first communion of the “little-one” and the excitement of her and Mama was almost touchable. As I am not that into the church thingy I promised my little one (of course) to go with her at her “big day”. After we got dropped off at her school, where the celebration was held in the gym I had my last cigarette before show-start.

It was actually very exciting to see all this little girls and boys in a mixture of anxiety and nervousness and excitement. There was quite a tension in the school-gym. Unlikely other events in the Philippines, the show started on the spot at 8:00am with a …. Guess what … of course, a parade, where the parents/guardians had to bring their little one to their place. For that we had to present ourselves to all visitors on the grand-stands by walking a “round of glory” through the gym.

My little one had wet hands and Mama raced down first leg like a sprinter on the 100 meter finals at the Olympic games, made me wondering who is more nervous. I was pretty excited and very proud of my two girls and it was the right decision to go there, btw, I was the only long-nose at this event and had the feeling that a lot of eyes were on me.

After the mass started, some of the kids got bored pretty soon (at least those in the back-rows) and entertained themselves, constantly being reprehended by some teachers sitting behind them but without showing any effect on the kids. That made me wondering how this “teachers” are able to control the Kids in the classroom, as they are not able to do that at a “big event” like this. (I have actually a few more thoughts, but as you know, there is only one why question per day allowed and I “wasted”mine for today already, so I need to put them in a later post… )

After 1.5 hours the highlight of the show was scheduled and Mama and I led the little one to her first holy communion and after each participant got their “bite” the atmosphere relaxed a lot,  3 more songs and it was done.

We spend the rest of the day making it “Daisy’s day”, meaning whatever she want to do, we do. So we ended up in the movie-theater, malling, several restaurants, ice-cream, restaurant again and went tired but very happy at 10:00pm back home.

My goal for this day was to make it unforgettable for the little one. I am not sure if I succeeded but I saw here and Mama smiling and excited the whole day and they did the same to me.

cheers

Rhoody

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I had birthday a few weeks ago. My birthday is a thing I really keep as a secret. I am not into this big parties. A couple of beer with friends and I am happy.

I have no idea who leaked that date, however, about one week before Rhoody’s birthday two of my neighbors approached me and asked me what I want as a birthday gift.

Just to explain that a bit …. My two neighbors are beautiful young woman early twenties with a lovely body, cute smile, long hair and basically all a “bad boy” like I can dream off. The only problem is that they are absolutely not interested in men and prefer the company of each other …  (hope you get what I mean)…

Knowing that they have no big budget and having my famous dirty mind, I made it pretty simple and told them:

I know you sweetheart’s don’t have a lot money but if you really want to give me something for my birthday … hmmm let me think… hhhmmm. (Well at that point my mind went absolute off the materialistic track and so I answered:

“I wanna watch”

On my birthday just after lunch I got a text from the two sweeties asking me to come over and get my birthday - gift ….

YESSSSS …

2 minutes later I was ready and on the way…

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well, I know my english is not that good…

maybe I should make drawing of my x-mas wish-list….

cheers

Rhoody

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Sometimes things are happening where you just don’t calculate with. So it was last week… Due to some family issues Rechel needed to fly to Manila and left me alone with the little one. So here Rhoody sits with a 8 year old Makulit girl in his house in Batinguel and wonders what to do with her. Not that she is a big issue, she is a gorgeous kid and 99% of the time happy.

The week started with a school-holiday on Monday what seems to be great … for her only of course… for me it means I can’t do any work as she needs attention. Fair enough, it was my choice 3 years ago to bring the little one down to Dumaguete.

It is also my choice NOT to have a maid who takes care of the kid. I am the absolute opinion that a mother who can produce kids also should be able to take care of them. Well, here in the Philippines it is different…

As soon as the mama pops the kid out it goes to a Yaya who has the exciting job to sit with the Kid the whole day in front of stupid TV-Programs to make sure the Kid learns nothing during the early years of living on this planet…

It is the tiny stuff what brought me the problems… My diet exists of food based on a strong mix of garlic, onions and chili, well not exactly what is on the top 10 list of an 8 year old kid. The first dinner was easy, we just went to a restaurant… hehe. The second day it was my duty to prepare breakfast…

Pancit, a local noodle dish … boil water, noodles in it, take noodles out after 5 minutes, “ready to eat mix” on top, done ? no problem for Papa Rhoody… To make it special a sunny side up egg on top. The little one loved it… at least when I presented it.

After the first try he said: Papa, it is very salty!!! Hmmm, she eats that a lot and I did not put any additional salt or spices on it. Looking again at the plastic sachet of the “dish” I saw that I did not prepare Pancit, I used a Noodle soup mix, just without water… no wonder that it is salty. Being a smart-ass I had some back-up cup-cakes in the Ref, as I planned in advanced and knew things will not run smoothly.

Messing up the Breakfast, my pride was tickled and I swore myself to prepare a great dinner for her after school. When I picked her up she asked me excited where we go for dinner. I told her that I will cook and the excitement dropped out of her face in lightening speed…

While Daisy was doing her assignment Rhoody was standing desperately in the kitchen, looking at philippine-typical tiny plastics where is nothing written on it and where I have absolutely no clue what is in there… If you look at the picture, you see almost similar powders one is cinnamon, one is pepper and 2 are something which I definitely could not identify… well, I guess there is no law that pancakes have to be sweet … hehe

Backup plan was Pizza delivery from Shakey’s, but HELL NO (I said to myself), Rhoody, give the little one some homemade food, show some creativity and make it yummy … I won’t write what I made but it looked great and she loved it !!!

The week continued with minor Hick-up’s like Rhoody teaches Filipino, Rhoody in the Kids department at Lee Plaza, Rhoody and the laundry and quite some more funny stuff…

All together Daisy and I had a great week, we both worked out as a great team and didn’t burn down the house… But finally we are happy that Mama is back…

cheers

Rhoody

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