First Monthsary

It's been a month. Back home, we'd call it a monthsary. I personally had never used the term much but I thought I'd want to add more of a Pinoy flavor to this. So there. 

If there's anything that this country is doing to me, it's making me realize that I'm more pinoy than anything. One time, I met a Filipino in a fastfood restaurant and I was so ecstatic. God, I had not heard anyone talk to me in Tagalog for such a long time. It sounded so good. That was one of the things I took for granted. I swear I'll never speak Tagalog as thoughtlessly as I used to.

This is the part where I start listing down things that have happened to me since I got here. So here goes...

I've been mistaken as a Chinese so many times I can't even keep count. One theory I have is that their idea of how a foreigner must look is basically what they see in Hollywood movies. I don't have blonde hair and blue eyes, then I must be Chinese.

I find that really weird because all my life, once people find out I have Chinese blood, they'd tell me I look like a true-blue pinoy. Of course there are a lot of Chinese in the Philippines and people can tell in a second if a person is GI or not.

I still can't get used to the "wok thu" sound, as my LB would call it. Just before they spit, they make this horrible sound as if they're grating their throat, and then they spit. That's the "thu" there. One time, it rained so hard the night before, the streets were flooded when I had to go to school the following morning. It would have been fine because I've waded through higher floods before. But just thinking about all those "thu" finding their way to my legs... ohgodhelpmeplease. And it took such a long time for that flood to subside. It was still almost knee-high by the time I went back home in the afternoon.

I've eaten silkworms and salted duck eggs, which is of course nothing compared to our balut. I miss those. I almost ate dog meat but good thing I was informed in time; just when I was about to put it in my mouth.

I've met some really great people. I swear my social calendar is way busier here than when I was in Manila. Back home, I'd be too lazy to get to wherever it was, usually Makati or Malate, my friends and I were supposed to have dinner at. Traffic was always heavy. I'm sure it still is. Plus Akoh would probably freak out if I stay out really late. But here, everything is like 5 minutes away by taxi. And yeah, no one's waiting up. Hehe.

Since coming here, I've increased my alcohol tolerance. One bottle of beer here is roughly equivalent to 3 bottles of San Migs in size. And I've just about quit quitting smoking. Aaaargh, the premature wrinkles! I hope the moisturizers are making up for that. I know, I'm so vain. Sue me.

So far, I've had one marriage proposal. A lot of "are you married" and "do u have a boyfriend" questions. Several offers to introduce me to Chinese men. I've probably been mistaken as a hooker more times than I'm aware of, but let's not even go into that. Just tonight, the taxi driver was asking me for my phone number. Duh!

All in all, I'm loving it. Things can get really weird at times but that's where the excitement comes in. I never really know what to expect next. But somehow, things do always turn out to be fine.