When the Chips Are Down

It's good to be able to find a place that serves good food (see Filipino Food Frights) .  The London Underground (as in railway, not crime) in seedy Barretto is one such place.  Styled along the lines of a London cafe it is principally a fish and chip shop but it also sells all manner of British foods ranging from sausage and mash, fish cakes, stew and traditional English breakfast.  All washed down with a proper mug of tea (choose from either Tetley's or PG Tips).

I always took delight in the menu that stated: "We do not sell French fries.  If you want French fries either go to McDonalds or France." Brilliant.

The shop is owned by an English guy from Tunbridge Wells of a certain notoriety called Steve "Hickey" Hickmott, who I've met on several occasions, usually moaning about the lack of finesse  in the American palate.  No, we don't have A1 steak sauce; no we don't have plastic cheese that comes individually wrapped in plastic (hmmmm, throw away the cheese and eat the plastic, it's far tastier); and no, we definitely, definitely do not sell french fries).

The fish and chips is by far the best meal on the menu.  The fish is always cooked to perfection with a light crispy batter and not greasy or oily in any way.  Okay, so it isn't cod but it's a fine, perfectly acceptable substitute from tropical waters.

Before . . . 

. . .  After

The bad news is it's going to close next month.  I'm not exactly sure why but the girls working there said it was "Because of bills to pay", whatever that means.  Admittedly, it's never packed out but there was usually a couple of expats in there having lunch or dinner, which should of kept the place going.

Lets Hope Someone Buys It.

I for one am going to miss it.

Work Resumes

After the NPA attack on our site in Mindanao at the beginning of October (see Protection Racket) the project was suspended for nearly 3 months but after some meaningless statements from the national police force and the military that were meant to give assurance and restore confidence in the security, we started work again just before Christmas.

It wasn't going to be easy because all confidence was lost and no one seems to be willing to sell, lend, rent or hire any labour, equipment or materials to the project in case there was another attack.  But for us, and along with vague agreement that we'd have all losses and expenses reimbursed, we decided to get stuck in and get the job wrapped up as soon as possible and just get the hell out of there and never go back.

So, after some hiccups with not being able to get a crane, we eventually started slipforming the chimney on the 17th Jan.

Really, the sooner I can see the back of that project, the better.

A Moving Christmas Experience in the Philippines

I haven't spent a Christmas in the Philippines since arriving here so this year was going to be my first.  Not that I'm particularly bothered about Christmas in general and besides, it just never really feels like Christmas here, despite all the decorations and Christmas songs that start playing as early as they do in the UK.  I was in Manila in September and got stuck in some appalling traffic (even more appalling than it normally is).  At the hardware store I asked how come there was so much traffic and they said it was due to everyone Christmas shopping.  In September?

I'm of the mind that so long as you don't expect too much from Christmas or New Year then you won't be disappointed.  In the event, I ended up spending a large part of the day moving house.  Lunch was at a friend's house, the guy that runs the dive company I use, and that was pleasant enough but straight after it was back to lugging furniture.

New Abode

New Year I headed off to Singapore to meet up with my sister. Again, I wasn't expecting much but it turned out to be a good one.  The day New Year's Eve started with a walk to the Marina Bay Sands resort to have brunch on the skypark of the hotel.  As you may or may not know I worked on the construction project for 18 months which was a mega-development but without doubt a phenomenal and hugely impressive achievement.  Whilst what's above ground is spectacular, what's in the ground is equally impressive but will never be seen or appreciated by the public. A reflection of this is that there was more time spent building what's in the ground than what's above. It's just a shame that something of this grandeur can only be built off the back of a sordid casino and the obscenely huge profits made from exploitative gambling (is there any other type?).

Marina Bay Sands Resort

Buffet brunch was in the Ku De Ta restaurant with an awesome view north over the whole of Singapore, with the City of Johor Bahru in Malaysia clearly visible in the distance, and to the south across the sea to Indonesia.  But all this doesn't come cheap and it's an expensive lunch.

View to the South

View to the North

After lunch we headed to Clark Quay for a few more beers beside the river and left there early evening, battling through a hellish thronging crowd to the taxi rank to head back to the hotel.  Fortunately, taxis were aplenty as they were dropping off revellers (how they fit them all into Clark Quay I don't know), unlike one New Year's Eve I'd spent in Singapore where I had to wait nearly 2 hours for a taxi, which is no fun when you've a belly full of  beer and a very full bladder.  I really takes the edge off a good evening.

The evening and welcoming in the New Year was spent bopping in the hotel bar and quaffing more booze.

Catastrophic Catastrophe

Being away from the house for just over a week rendered more bad news regarding my cats.  On my return I'd lost Dumbo and her 3 kittens and Sambo.  Losing Sambo told me that there was something sinister going on because she had a tiny, very young kitten that she wouldn't have abandoned.  There's no clue where they are going and I'm not the only one losing cats as there was a lost-cat poster at the security gate left by a distraught owner.

Sambo's kitten, Muffy (named by a neighbour), is so young that without her mother she was doomed to die. By the time I arrived back from my trip, with her mother nowhere in sight, she was a bag of bones and absolutely teeming with fleas.  So I whizzed off to the shop to buy some flea powder and kitten food.  To be honest, she wasn't ready to eat solid food and should still have been suckling from her mother, but that's a role I couldn't fulfil. However, she readily and greedily took to the semi-solid kitten food I fed her, usually jumping in with both front paws, growling as she lapped it up. I had to keep the remaining cats away to stop them from stealing her food and she seemed to make good progress and lost the fleas.  

My foot, Muffy the Kitten & one of the ginger twins

Then I had to go to Manila for the weekend and I asked my neighbour to feed her whilst I was away, but after the first night she went missing and hasn't been seen since.  I was a bit a blow, caring for her and seeing her make good progress, only for her to disappear.

I'm now left with only 4 cats (Mambo, Medusa and the Ginger Twins) out of the original total of 12.  On one hand I want to know what's happened to them, but on the other hand I think I'd rather not know.

Ginger twin (Medusa and the other twin in the background)

I'm about to move to another house and I'm faced with the dilemma of what to do about the remaining four cats. They are feral and the problems associated with taking them with me and getting to adjust to new surroundings are probably too great but I feel guilty and concerned, in equal measures, about leaving them behind.

Half Century

Fifty years is a long time and it's odd that we should celebrate that milestone of our existence, especially as we hurtle towards the one of the few absolute certainties that exist: our demise.  I guess that from a point of view, the fact that we've made it so far and been fortunate enough to have had a happy and fulfilling life then there are grounds for celebrating, but for me I wasn't particularly bothered about partying the night away just because I'd reached fifty. However, on the other hand I wasn't dismayed and depressed that I had become so old, it's just a fact of life and looking forward to making the most of the coming, and remaining years, is what's important.

So there was no big bash but I did take a weeks holiday and went to Malaysia to meet my sister, Carol.  We met up in KL, which is a wonderful city, and generally hob-nobbed it over a long weekend, eating, drinking and most importantly, laughing our time away.

KLCC

Also, my mate Tall Kev travelled up from Singapore, desperately ill, but soldiered on.  He couldn't make it out the first night up, and had to have an early night, but the next day when he was feeling better we (Kev, me and Carol) made up for it by having a champagne brunch in the Mandarin Oriental and an extended session drinking more champagne ("That's your third bottle!" the waitress, somewhat agog, said in the Sky Bar at the Traders Hotel), beer, cocktails and spirits in the afternoon and into the evening.

Beer after the champagne - surely the wrong order?

From KL we went to the island of Penang and lived it up staying in the gloriously glamorous old colonial hotel, The Eastern and Oriental. The sea around Penang isn't particularly inviting when it comes to swimming and diving (that's what Langkawi or the islands off the east coast are for) but the E&O makes up for it by have a wonderful terrace pool.  Our time was spent lounging here or going out into George Town to admire the lovely old architecture of the city and to indulge in brilliant Malaysian/Asian cuisine, which Penang in particular seems to excel at.  I think I can safely say, each and every meal we had was exceptional.

Poolside at the E&O

A Cure for Chinese Farmer Giles

The penultimate day of the holiday for my sister ended with trip to Singapore and a tour of the bars and hawker centres around China Town.  I remained a bit longer in order to make a visit to our head office but the theme of good food and drinking continued with a champagne Sunday brunch at the Fairmont Hotel with my good friend Tall Kev and his family.  The night before I left Singapore it was a 10pint Guinness session with a work colleague before heading back to Subic Bay.

Ready for Another Night Out

Now I need to dry out and slim back down!

Rambo - Missing In Action

Since arriving at this house in Subic I seem to have adopted the feral kittens (or did they adopt me), which are now fully grown cats with kittens of their own.

The original four were named Rambo, Sambo, Mambo and Dumbo - see here for an earlier blog about them: Blog about cats

Rambo was always my favourite and called Rambo because he was the boldest of the four.  Whenever I would relax on the hammock on the verandah he would always jump onto my lap and make himself at home, purring loudly and occasionally taking a friendly bite of my hands if I started to ignore him.  Meanwhile, all the others would keep a respectful distance.  Mambo has never liked being touched and if I tried to stroke her she would do a funny sideways dance in order to avoid my hand (hence being called Mambo).

Rambo

Sadly Rambo has now gone missing and hasn't been around for over a week.  I kind of worry about where he might be but there's not really much I can do.  At best my guess is he's been either catnapped as a pet for someone else or he's gone to somewhere else where the quality of the food is better or the other felines are more attractive.  

At worst, he's been killed and eaten by a snake, been murdered by the monkeys or got himself locked away somewhere.

Whatever it is, I hope it's the former and not the latter.

Down, Down, Deeper & Down

Now that the bad weather has broken and we've started to see some sunshine, there are once again opportunities to go diving.  

There was also a suspension of diving following the unfortunate deaths of two divers last July (Diving Accident) but following a raft of new form filling and increased levels of bureaucracy the dive companies are operational again.

On board the dive boat Polaris

The company I use regularly for diving in Subic (Dive Shop Subic Bay) have moved from their previous mooring after it was destroyed by the recent typhoon - although a planned move was in the making due to blatant profiteering by the mooring company who decided to levy a Php1000 charge for each dive passenger using the jetty to board the dive boat, hence increasing the dive cost by over 30%. 

Dive Shop Subic Bay now have a mooring on the beach.  This means a short waist-deep wade out to the boat but if you're going diving, you're going to get wet anyway so it's no big deal.

North side of Subic Bay

We were out last Saturday, in somewhat overcast conditions but still very warm.  Our first dive was on the LST, which stands for Landing Ship Tank (follow the link for more information).  This is the deepest dive I've undertaken yet at around 34m (110ft) and diving at that depth did induce some pre-dive anxiety, although I seemed to have acquitted myself well as my air usage was very good for the dive.  

During the dive the visibility was very good and we saw plenty of Blue Spotted Rays, schools of Barracuda and huge Bat Fish (Bat Fish look like giant Angel Fish that you see in most aquaria) that just followed us around in groups of 4 or 5, staring at us.

Out second dive was in very shallow water on a reef at the end of Subic Bay Airport runway.  Up until recently this has been off limits but now, with the airport virtually non operational it seems that the reef has been opened up to divers.  It was nothing spectacular.  Some nice coral and colourful fish but not a huge amount of either.  We did see a sea snake, which was pretty impressive.

Only two dives that day and despite it being fairly overcast I ended the day looking like a Red Indian, as I was rather sunburnt (again).