WTF moments

Sometimes I find myself in situations so bizarre that I suspect there's a hidden camera filming me, capturing my hilariously oblivious reaction for some reality TV show.

1. This morning while I was walking down a quiet road on my way to work, I saw an old lady that seemed to have been frozen in place. She was just standing completely still as a statue there, all alone and staring forward at absolutely nothing. I thought to myself: Was she asleep? Was she dead? No, that can't be right, you cannot be either of those things and remain upright. I just kept to my own business and walked past her... when I reached the end of that road I looked back and she was still there, unmoving. I wonder what that was about.

2. A couple of weeks ago, I saw a blind guy at the entrance of IT Park. I knew he was blind because he was wearing sunglasses and was using a cane to feel his way around-- you can't get much more stereotypically blind than that. Untypical for a blind guy, however, he seemed to be completely alone in the city beside a busy road. A couple of other people noticed how strange this was too, and they stood by watching to see what would happen. This situation could easily lead to disaster, and I was in no hurry, so I stood by observing the blind guy too. He made his way forward on the sidewalk, very slowly, one step at a time and using his cane to make sure he doesn't bump into anything. Then he reached the corner of a road intersection-- and he was about to cross it! Some guy rushed over to him and helped him cross the street. Whew.

3. There was this other time... A workmate of mine asked to borrow my ruler to check how many 1/16 of an inch there are in a ruler. He actually started counting and then I said "12 times 16?", and he thought for a while and said 192, then gave back the ruler and left. Dude, I don't care if you happen to stumble upon this blog entry... what the hell were you thinking?

Frappucino for the Wookie

Paolo and I went to Starbucks in IT Park. The girl at the counter asked for my name to put on the cup, and I said "Chewbacca". She asked me to spell it out for her, and I did. A few minutes later: "Tall green tea Frappucino for, uh, Chewbacca...?".

Ahh, the simple pleasures...

This picture, by the way, is pure awesome.

A Malapascua weekend

Considering my self-deprecating image of myself as a guy that wastes away his free time on the internet, I've been quite the frequent traveller lately. My past 6 weekends have been spent at 5 different places. Bacolod, Cebu, Cebu again, Valencia, Moalboal... and last weekend I went with a large bunch of officemates on an outing to Malapascua Island, a tiny tiny island off the northern tip of Cebu.

It really is a minuscule island. Based on the Google Maps satellite image, I'd say it is about 1/10th the size of Boracay. It's a lot more remote too-- the dizzying boat ride going there took more than an hour. Standing on the beach in Malapascua, mainland Cebu is just barely visible on the horizon. They say the island could be eventually developed into another Boracay-like tourist destination in Central Visayas. It certainly is beautiful enough.

The place could benefit from more development though. The port at the northern tip of Cebu was quite primitive. Because of the shallow and rocky waters, the pump boat had to stay far from the shore. The passengers have to ride a much smaller boat to get there five at a time, then make a very dangerous transfer to the larger boat. Those Korean tourists must have been terrified.

There were some nice-looking resorts on the island, but we just rented a few relatively modest cottages (such lowly software engineers are we). Still, it was paradise compared to the sad shack I stayed in last week. The beach is beautiful and clean, with fine light-colored sand. Almost deceivingly clean, in fact-- the ocean floor was painfully peppered with spikey rocks and corals, at least at the area that we went swimming in. I think Malapascua is advertised more as a tourist site for diving rather than swimming anyway.

It takes half a day to get there from Cebu City and half a day to get back, so staying there for just one night (as we did) is not very practical. I had fun nonetheless, and I can now say I have been to 8 of our 7,107 islands.