Day 6: Am I a Pinoy Celebrity?
Posted by Brandon Lagao | Posted in The Prodigal Lumpia | Posted on 5/08/2009 10:13:00 PM
About $5 for a chicken sandwich, fries, and 3 San Miguel Pale Pilsners ain't that bad. And when you throw in the fact that I got to enjoy that on the beautiful white beach of Boracay, that's pretty much priceless. Today was a nice day. The rain stopped for the most part so I walked all over the island, bought a cell phone, and had some beers on the beach. Tomorrow I'm going on an island hopping tour from 10am-4pm. I'm really looking forward to snorkeling and using my new underwater camera! Also I think this will be a good opportunity for me to meet some other people.
Typhoon Emong is hitting the PI, but the news is saying that its weakening, so hopefully that is the case. I guess Western Pangasinan(wherever that is), got hit pretty hard. It killed 10 people and 12 others are missing. And I think the news just said 80% of homes are destroyed, whoa...i hope I misheard heard it.
On a lighter note, if I don't make it onto the Amazing Race, I just discovered that there is an Amazing Race Asia and I would probably have a good shot at making it on that. In fact, when I was walking on the beach today, two locals stopped in their tracks and just started smiling at me from ear to ear. I looked back every once in a while to see that as I walked like 5 mins down the beach, they were still watching me! It really just freaked me out. But they waited for me to walk all the way back, and at that point I was kind of nervous, so I avoided eye contact as I walked by. I thought that maybe my boardshorts we're ripped at the crouch or their was a jellyfish on my face or stomach, but after I thoroughly checked, I came to the conclusion that they thought I was a celebrity, haha! Pretty big headed of me huh?! Well, it wouldn't be the first time actually. When I was at Lisa Filipino Cuisine back home, a Filipina lady said that I looked like a famous PI dancer named John Brown. After a little research, I figured out she was actually saying John Prats. When Filipino's speak english its really hard to tell the difference between their "B's" and "P's". Anyways, so maybe the locals thought I was him. It's better then the other option...there are a lot of gay's and tranny's(or guylady's as the locals call them) running around here. Some times there is way too much eye contact for my liking!
Another observation i've made is that Filipino's are always singing! My Lonely Planet book mentions that just like other asian countries, Karaoke is big here. But what i've learned is that it is much more than just karaoke. I've noticed people are always singing while they are working or just walking around, or doing just about anything really. At night time, just outside the path to my cottage, there are a group of locals who sit around every night and play guitar and sing. And when I was in Makati, a group of guys busted out "Still of the Night" and I had to hold back from joining in. And honestly, I really haven't heard a voice that is bad yet! Most of the time people are singing A Capella and seem to know all of the words to whatever they are singing. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that they show the lyrics on the music channels here and karaoke. I think those are some traits that I have picked up. When I was younger I used to be really into singing in public. In fact, I was even in the San Diego Honor Choir one year. And even now, singing is a huge stress reliever for me. I haven't been the same since puberty, but I still don't think I sing all that bad. The only difference is that I'm not as open to sing in front of others anymore...except when I am doing Karaoke. Maybe that is something I can get back from this trip. I also have always had an interest in song lyrics. I always go to lyricsmania.com or songmeanings.com whenever I like a song, because I really can't like it until I know what the song means and I can sing aalong to it. Even when I was younger I used to record songs from the radio onto a casette and then play it back line by line and write down all of the lyrics. To this day I can still rap all of the lyrics to "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems", haha! I never knew it, but maybe a lot of that comes from my filipino side.
Typhoon Emong is hitting the PI, but the news is saying that its weakening, so hopefully that is the case. I guess Western Pangasinan(wherever that is), got hit pretty hard. It killed 10 people and 12 others are missing. And I think the news just said 80% of homes are destroyed, whoa...i hope I misheard heard it.
On a lighter note, if I don't make it onto the Amazing Race, I just discovered that there is an Amazing Race Asia and I would probably have a good shot at making it on that. In fact, when I was walking on the beach today, two locals stopped in their tracks and just started smiling at me from ear to ear. I looked back every once in a while to see that as I walked like 5 mins down the beach, they were still watching me! It really just freaked me out. But they waited for me to walk all the way back, and at that point I was kind of nervous, so I avoided eye contact as I walked by. I thought that maybe my boardshorts we're ripped at the crouch or their was a jellyfish on my face or stomach, but after I thoroughly checked, I came to the conclusion that they thought I was a celebrity, haha! Pretty big headed of me huh?! Well, it wouldn't be the first time actually. When I was at Lisa Filipino Cuisine back home, a Filipina lady said that I looked like a famous PI dancer named John Brown. After a little research, I figured out she was actually saying John Prats. When Filipino's speak english its really hard to tell the difference between their "B's" and "P's". Anyways, so maybe the locals thought I was him. It's better then the other option...there are a lot of gay's and tranny's(or guylady's as the locals call them) running around here. Some times there is way too much eye contact for my liking!
Another observation i've made is that Filipino's are always singing! My Lonely Planet book mentions that just like other asian countries, Karaoke is big here. But what i've learned is that it is much more than just karaoke. I've noticed people are always singing while they are working or just walking around, or doing just about anything really. At night time, just outside the path to my cottage, there are a group of locals who sit around every night and play guitar and sing. And when I was in Makati, a group of guys busted out "Still of the Night" and I had to hold back from joining in. And honestly, I really haven't heard a voice that is bad yet! Most of the time people are singing A Capella and seem to know all of the words to whatever they are singing. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that they show the lyrics on the music channels here and karaoke. I think those are some traits that I have picked up. When I was younger I used to be really into singing in public. In fact, I was even in the San Diego Honor Choir one year. And even now, singing is a huge stress reliever for me. I haven't been the same since puberty, but I still don't think I sing all that bad. The only difference is that I'm not as open to sing in front of others anymore...except when I am doing Karaoke. Maybe that is something I can get back from this trip. I also have always had an interest in song lyrics. I always go to lyricsmania.com or songmeanings.com whenever I like a song, because I really can't like it until I know what the song means and I can sing aalong to it. Even when I was younger I used to record songs from the radio onto a casette and then play it back line by line and write down all of the lyrics. To this day I can still rap all of the lyrics to "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems", haha! I never knew it, but maybe a lot of that comes from my filipino side.
i say jump in and sing.
um... do you have a partner for the Amazing Race? Cause I'm totally down for being on that show! :)
The gays are called Bacalas (sp?). And yes, they would love you.
@Val- My partner's sole purpose on the Amazing Race would be to do bungee jumps, sky dives, and anything else that scares me...can you meet those requirements?