When is it ok to hit children?

Chinatown, Central Manila.
I had read that the further north you get from the Pasig River, the more 'ghetto' things become.  I never intended to go right to the heart of the Tondo neighbourhood but I was a bit curious as to what this part of town was really like. I'm not really the sort of person to shield myself completely from these sorts of environments and I had just purchased a Canon 1200d the previous day so I was eager to get back into snapping a few photographs.
As I crossed the Pasig river a naked man ran along the footpath towards my direction. He wasn't sprinting like a crazy bath-salt-possessed mad man but he still had the cheek to pull the fingers at me for the entire duration of his approach.
I had barely passed through the Chinatown gateway and already things had started to get weird.

Travelling really brings out the bean counter in me and I had intended on stumbling across a 1 peso water dispensing machine at least once on my journey but for some reason they don't seem to be a big thing in central Manila. Spotting a 7/11 convenience store not too far in the distance I went in to grab a cold drink and gather my thoughts. Some guy had just tried to sell me an Iphone X without a charger out on the street a few minutes ago and then a naked man had just run across the Pasig river bridge in front of me, what else could possibly happen today?

I sat down at one of the tables inside the convenience store and opened up a cold bottle of Powerade before looking up to see a street urchin holding his hand out for money.  I quickly grabbed my wallet from off the tabletop and stashed it in my pocket. Not being in the mood for awkward confrontation, I handed over 8 pesos worth of coins. Shortly after, the staff and security guard forcefully removed the child from the premises. Had I waited a few seconds later I'd be 8 pesos richer but it wasn't a big deal, 8 pesos is the equivalent of 0.23 NZD (January 2019).

Outside the 7/11 there was a group of about 4 street urchins hanging around the entrance knocking on the windows and staring inside. At the time I didn't think much of this until I left the store and found three young children pinching my skin, tugging at my arms, unzipping my bag and wiping snot and saliva onto my t shirt. I clutched my phone and wore my backpack on my front, fending away their strikes as I walked down the road. As a sheltered New Zealander I had never actually had to deal with professional street kids before and I was feeling confused as to whether it was ok to use violence against a young child. It's an awkward situation because normally you imagine only really having to fight aggressive adults.

This was clearly not the time for someone to bring out the old "well what would Jesus do?" question. This was also the moment when President Duterte's policy of using violence to communicate ideas and concepts started to make sense to me. To be honest I felt like smacking them in the face but I was also faced with the potential for being that guy who takes things way too far.

After an aggressive shove, the last child broke off and I quickly made my way into a church where I sat down for a few minutes to calm my nerves. I had barely made it into Chinatown and supposedly isn't even the worst part of the city. Already my adrenaline was being released into my bloodstream and I was entering a very different frame of mind. For those who have ever ventured into a large south east Asian city (that isn't Singapore or Kuala Lumpur) you have may experienced a kind of mental burnout which is a combination of the high temperature, noise, and chaotic visual stimuli. There are a few things which has can accelerate the rate of mental burnout, such as dealing with poor public infrastructure and people trying to extract money from you. After around two hours my mental stability was wearing thin and felt as If i needed to 'resurface' to replenish my mental oxygen.

I decided to call the mission off and make my way to the nearest LRT station where I proceeded to waste the next 2 hours catching the wrong train and then walking back home after being unable to secure a space on one of the carriages. That's another story.

In the next blog post I'll discuss my experiences using the Manila LRT system and sound like a snobby dickhead who's standards of public transport have been warped by spending too much time in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

I'll leave yall with one of the few photos I took that day.

Give me 1 Peso every time I see black Jesus and I'll show you a man who could retire at 24 years of age.

Eating out of a plastic bag with my bare hands!

Yes, I'm no stranger to squeezing pieces of cold meat out of a plastic bag

I was lying in bed watching Youtube videos on my laptop when suddenly I realised the time was getting close to 6pm. Today, I've made a switch to a strict eating pattern involving the consumption of three meals a day at regularly spaced intervals as it facilitates my newly acquired ritual of taking antibiotics several times a day with food.

It is believed the current Arabic script evolved from the handwriting of
 general practitioners on their prescription forms.

Leaving the hostel, I noticed the leak in the municipal water supply had gotten worse. Perhaps a motorbike had accidentally run over the plumbing. (Yes the idea of a tricycle taxi running cutting off the water supply to your house buy literally running over it is actually a possibility in some parts of the world.) 

I leapt over the giant puddle of grey water on the side of the road, trying really hard to not contract more diseases than an agar plate from a year 12 biology class.

Like some kind of medical tourist, I hobbled over to a generic roadside food stall and ordered the classic Pinoy combo of pork and rice - takeaway style. The idea of a using styrofoam takeaway containers hasn't really taken off here, nor have eating utensils. I spent the next five minutes going from stall to stall asking if they had any plastic spoons that I could purchase but to no avail. 

I brought my catch back to the rooftop lounge in the hostel and proceeded to squeeze the contents of my dinner out of the clear plastic bag like a desperate woman trying to make a genetically gifted NBA child.

Using the same hand I wipe my ass with, I proceeded to scoop the food into my mouth (it's ok, I washed my hands before eating). I don't usually prefer to eat moist foods using my hands but sometimes I guess you have to have to make do with that you have available.

This is truly Asia.

Malapascua - Bali Before Bali was a thing

Ever wondered what Bali Looked like before Bali was a thing?
Well now you don't have to because there is an island in the Philippines called Malapascua and it hasn't really changed since the time of Siddhartha Guatama!
Yes believe it or not the inhabitants of Kuta,Bali haven't always made a living off overpriced Ojek and taxi services, tattoos, and Bintang singlets.  Malapascua is basically what Bali would have been like if white people had never found out about this thing called surfing.

Unfortunately for me, Malapascua is commonly known as a a destination for divers (People who like to breathe oxygen under the water).  The thing is that I still have a student loan to pay back and I don't actually have a job at the moment so doing the financially responsible thing, I opted to purchase a snorkel set.
After spending 2/3 of my available cash on the snorkel set, I decided to hit the water.  For those who like to do their research, you will probably find that there not a lot to see off the immediate coast. Despite this I found my experience to be adequate as I had never seen fish in the ocean before. If you, like me have never seen fish in the ocean before then perhaps you might find it worthwhile.
If you like looking at what is the underwater equivalent of a poorly maintained front lawn then you're in luck, there is plenty of seaweed located within 30-40m off the coast which is more than enough to satisfy the desires of any underwater plant life enthusiast.

The island does not have an ATM or a bank to withdraw cash although judging by the amount of plastic waste on the ground, I believe it might be possible to actually sow and harvest Philippine Pesos provided you deposit the correct amount of plastic packing into the soil and wait patiently. Plastic straws however cannot be used to grow Pesos, as depositing them into the soil makes them magically appear in the stomachs of sea animals - which explains why they have been banned on the island.

I would estimate that after tourism and fishing, the next largest economic activity is rooster farming. Here in Malapascua, the rules are a little different as it seems the mandatory number of roosters for each household is 5.  If you haven't got at least 5 roosters bolted down to the ground outside your house, are you really going to succeed in life?

Children are probably the 4th largest economic activity on the island. ROI expected after 5+ years.
Zero capital required.

Caption this

Money can come and go but art can never be recovered.

The genius contained within that blog post
exceeds the ingenuity contained within
this object.

After spending 5 hours sculpting a magnificent blog post, I had to face what no writer using a digital medium ever wants to encounter.
Yes I lost an entire post with no way to recover it.

Using my last can of Nescafe Ice and DJI Sam Soe Kretek cigarette, I laboured in the sweltering humidity to produce a golden commentary on the island of Malapascua and how it compares with the Indonesian Island of Bali.

After realising that the 'Blogger' platform was experiencing issues, I copied the entirely of my post so that I could paste it into a new post. Unfortunately, when I discarded the original post and pasted the copied text over, all I got was one image.  This was when I realised I had fucked up big time.

Anyone who has ever written hilarious shit will know that trying to reproduce such an organic piece of work is futile as it will lack the purity of the original; and so I write this post, fuelled entirely by the emotion of my grievances.

Such is the struggle of a person who relies of a constant internet connection in a place where reliability is lacking.