Playing Catch Up Part 1: Taipei Days 1 - 3

Preparing to write this post I reviewed my last entry and was shocked to see that it had been over a month since my last communication! Our sudden exit from Mangenguey sparked the beginning of a whirlwind journey filled with new cities, towns and experiences, goodbye celebrations, welcome home celebrations, a little Seafair shenanigans, an amazing wedding and some great climbing. At the risk of sounding too cliché, time really does fly when you’re having fun!! Now I will do my best to back track and catch up on the last month’s escapades and fill you in on the truth behind Mangenguey.

Taipei was amazing and the complete antithesis of The Philippines: clean, organized, only one person doing a job instead of 4, the ability to get an actual receipt, drivers obeying traffic laws…the list goes on. Needless to say it was nice to get to a big city again. We spent five days exploring the city and still didn’t get to see half of it! Taipei is packed with history, amazing architecture and lots of scooters. We arrived early on the first day and set off walking. We explored the neighborhood around our hotel and had our first tastes of Taiwan style shabu shabu and hot plate. Exhausted from our two day goodbye party in Coron, we called it an early night. (see pictures from the last post)


On the second day we got up early, enjoyed our complimentary hotel buffet breakfast and set off by 10 a.m. walking to the Taipei 101, the 2nd tallest building in the world. On the long walk we got to see the Taipei Arena, The Living Mall and The Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall and Gardens. Hot and exhausted, we finally made it to the 101. We took the elevator to the viewing deck, enjoyed some beer floats (yes, light beer with a scoop of vanilla gelato) and took in the aerial view of the city. Unfortunately my camera died as we got to the top of the 101 but once we edit our flip videos for our entire trip I will post them!

Scooters Galore

The Taipei Arena

Outside The Living Mall

Outside The Living Mall

The Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall

The Sun-Yat-sen Memorial Hall

The Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall

Turtles in the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Gardens

Sun Yat-sen Memorial Gardens

The Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall

Sun Yat-sen Memorial Garden

The Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall

On the way to 101, Trevor needed a nap :)

He even found a cow to milk along the way!

Taipei 101

Taipei 101

Taipei 101

Beer Floats!!

Damper Babies!! A large damper is installed in the tower to help it maintain balance.

Leaving the 101


From the 101, we set off on a different path towards home and visited the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, Museum and Gardens. Tired from the days walk and craving some comfort food, we were drawn to Alleycats. Advertising “Stone-Oven-Baked Pizza and Hoegaarden”, Alleycats was exactly what we were looking for. We were a little early for dinner and had the place (and the actual alley cats) all to ourselves. Our waitress was very friendly and pointed us in the direction of the nearby Shida night market. She even introduced us to another American student dining alone. He was a graduate student studying Chinese at the local university. His wife was from Taiwan and they were staying in her uncle’s apartment while he was in school for the summer. He was picking up Chinese very quickly and was a great companion at the market. He gave us some advice on must see sites and helped us figure out the subway system. After a very long, fun filled day we were very happy to sit on our way home instead of walk! We got home by midnight and were asleep within minutes.

Chiang Kai-Skek Memorial Hall and Gardens

Chiang Kai-Skek Memorial Hall and Gardens

Chiang Kai-Skek Memorial Hall and Gardens

Chiang Kai-Skek Memorial Hall and Gardens

Chiang Kai-Skek Memorial Hall and Gardens

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Museum

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Museum

Chiang Kai-Skek Memorial Hall and Gardens

Chiang Kai-Skek Memorial Hall and Gardens

Chiang Kai-Skek Memorial Hall and Gardens

Alleycat's Dinner and our cat companions:

Shida Night Market:

Now that we were familiar with the subway, we decided to cut down the walking a bit and take advantage. On the third day we headed to the Lungshan Temple in the Wanhua District. We spent the afternoon exploring the area around the temple before heading back to nap and prepare for our visit to the Shinlin Night Market, the largest and most famous in Taipei.

MRT in Action

The Lungshan Temple:

Lungshan Temple

Lungshan Temple

Lungshan Temple

Lungshan Temple

Lungshan Temple

Lungshan Temple

Lungshan Temple

Lungshan Temple

Lungshan Temple

Lungshan Temple

Lungshan Temple

Lungshan Temple

Lungshan Temple

Lungshan Temple

Throughout the city we would stumble upon all kinds of small temples...here is another interesting one:

Ching Shui Yen Tsu Shih Temple

Ching Shui Yen Tsu Shih Temple

Ching Shui Yen Tsu Shih Temple

Ching Shui Yen Tsu Shih Temple

Some scenery from our afternoon walk:

Wanhua District Streets

Guarding the Streets

Live Shark

Dry Goods Booths: They sold everything from teas to mushrooms and many unidentifiable items as well.

Live Fish Stand Near Our Hotel


The night market’s are a main gathering point for the young people of Taipei. Packed with cheap shopping, amazing street food and bubble tea, we could see why! After enjoying some tasty eats, we cruised the market, soaking up the energy from the massive crowds.

Night Market Puppy

GIANT Watermelon

Packed Night Market Streets

Artistic Night Market Streets

Mmmmm...Night Market Tacos

Some of the Awesome Night Market Shopping

Night Market Street Scenes

More Night Market Street Scenes

The Shinlin Night Market Food Pavillion...delicious!!

Coming Soon:

Taipei Days 4 - 6

Interesting Taiwanese Signage

Wrapping Up Manila and Back in Sunny Seattle

Mangenguey: A Modern Day Dystopia
The sad truth behind the smoke and mirrors that create one "self-proclaimed demi-goddess'” vision of “utopian living” while destroying the local people and environment she promised to protect.

FREEEDOM!!!!

Long explanation to come but we are out of Mangenguey!! It was fun in it's own right: we met and made friends with some amazing locals, enjoyed some beautiful nature and had some personal growth experiences but overall we are happy to get off that island. Ruled by insanity and chaos the project we thought we had come to be a part of didn't really exist. More to come later but for now, we are in Taipei!! Exploring Taiwan for 5 days then back to the Philippines for a bit. Cheers :)

Shabu Shabu Lunch

Hot Plate for Dinner

Pictures from the Mangenguey Island Trek

Rainy Season, Old Friends and High Class “War Lords” Pictures...

Our adventure in Coron:

Our docking spot

Jade and Jun Jun removing the propeller.

Nick helping them out.

Poor Jade...all wet!

Nice look Jun Jun!

Fixing the Axel

Fixing the Axel, action shot!

Fixing the propeller

Jun Jun and Peter on the trip back

Jade and Peter on the lookout for shallow waters!

Jun Jun looking cool

The wavy approach to Mangenguey

Bridget collecting shells at low tide

Jun Jun hanging from our ceiling...

Installing our mosquito net

Another roomate...

A present from home...the tiniest Yakima Apple ever seen!

And like I said, how I didn't go to the doctor when I saw this...

Rainy Season, Old Friends and High Class “War Lords”

The last two weeks have been busy as usual. Rainy season has come early this year which means a whole new challenge we are fighting: the weather. Being a Seattleite I figured I knew a thing or two about rain and storms but I have been humbled. In the last two weeks we have experienced bouts of rain that beat against your roof with such intensity and volume one might think the clouds had begun functioning as a high powered shower (or even pressure washer) for the earth.

Because of the rain, the plants have begun to flourish and all that was brown is now vibrant and green. Some call it crazy but I find the storms to be beautiful as well. They can move thru the area so quickly sometimes you can see it coming from afar. From time to time you will see a single lonely pure white cloud, travelling across an otherwise empty sky flashing with the occasional lightning burst but no thunder or rain to be seen. Sometimes the rain lasts 5 minutes and you can literally see and feel as it moves across the island. Other times you awake at night to loud pounding that lasts for 6 – 8 hours straight accompanied by intense thunder and lightning that illuminates the whole sky. You wake to massive puddles the size of small lakes. One night the lightning hit somewhere on the island (location of impact STILL undetermined) and knocked out the generator.

We have experienced our first typhoon as well. It came up so quickly one evening while two guests were dining. The air was hot and humid and almost instantaneously high powered winds picked up and seconds later torrential down pour. It lasted all night but when we woke up in the morning it was almost as if nothing had happened.

The storms have caused waves to begin breaking around the island as well and it can be quite peaceful sleeping with the sound of the surf on the beach and the rain drops on the roof. Luckily the rain and storms are still mixed in with beautiful days and no matter what it is still always warm!

Last week also included a farewell to a new friends and the welcome of an old friend. Our masseuse Bridget left on the 21st to go take a test to become a certified teacher. We were sad to see her go but are excited for the new chapter in her life to begin!

On the 23rd I took a trip to Coron (in a mild storm) to welcome a long time friend coming to help out on the island and pick up a very important piece of cargo. The waves were strong and just getting the boat on the way took 7 able bodied Filipino men (and involved some swimming on their part) to guide the boat away from the dock and the reef. The surf was so strong on the beach I had wade in the water and jump onto the front of the boat. The trip took about 3 hours and I knew there was a large chance the weather would keep us from returning that night. After a 3 hour trip on rough waters Jun Jun, Jade and I made it to Coron. We had a few hours to kill before Nick arrived so we had some lunch at the boy’s favorite spot Dany & Lory’s and ran some important errands. I got to meet our dive master Gunther for the first time and after much frustration we were able to pick up our important piece of cargo. To make a long story as short as can be, as with almost everything we have encountered business wise in the Philippines, things are never as simple as they should be.

At the beginning of the month we ordered a replacement alternator for our banka (a whole different mess of a story to come later). The boys checked LBC (the Filipino fed ex) each time they went to Coron and it was never there. We contacted the man who had supposedly sent it to us and after talking to him a few times and him saying it was on the way he began having somebody else answer the phone and say he wasn’t available. We made a few calls to the friend who had arranged the purchase of the alternator the day before I left for Coron to make sure the alternator had indeed been shipped. Right before leaving for Coron than morning I received a text (almost everything in the Philippines is done via text, not phone) from Colassal (the company we had purchased the alternator from) providing me with a tracking number and letting me know my package was waiting in Coron…so I thought.

When we went to LBC to get the alternator, it was not there. The man at the desk told me it had been shipped back to Manila. Extremely frustrated, I text my contact and she assured me it would be there and asked that I just wait. Luckily we were waiting for Nick’s arrival anyway so we posted up on the boat in anticipation of our human and mechanical cargo. By this time the winds had begun picking up and the sky was dark. We consulted Normita (a seasoned boat captain from Coron whose services we use when we need additional transportation) and she said with our small banka it would be quite dangerous to leave now and we would be better off waiting until early in the morning to leave. This was good in a way because we were able to pick up the alternator that arrived FINALLY around 3. We called a local mechanic who had done some past service on the boat to install the newly arrived part. As he began to work Nick arrived. We left Jun Jun and Jade to watch the banka while the mechanic did the install and headed to Seadive Restaurant and Hotel where we would be staying for the night.

After a quick 2 minute tricycle ride we got to Seadive, dropped our bags in the room and headed for the ocean front restaurant so I could catch Nick up on Mangenguey life over a nice cold beer. We were both about halfway done with our beers when I received a text from Jun Jun: The new alternator didn’t work. Story of my life and doing business in the Philippines; nothing is EVER simple. We settled the tab and caught a tricycle back to the banka.

In order to keep the boat and all our cargos safe the boys have to stay on the boat all night. They had managed to move the banka to a safer location with the towing help of a friend. The mechanic who had installed the faulty alternator had one he could sell us and would be doing the install first thing in the morning. We enjoyed a beer and cigarette with Jun Jun and Jade, strategized over what to do the next morning and tried to get the boys to join us for dinner. Both speak very little English and while we are making ground they are still pretty shy and turned down the offer for dinner. Nick and I then headed to La Sirenetta, another ocean front restaurant on the end of the pier next to Seadive. The rest of the evening was spent talking about old friends, our new places in life and the adventure that is Mangenguey. The chatter was accompanied by a couple power brownouts, many rum and cokes (happy hour was buy one get one free!) a little pool, and very Filipino versions of Hawaiian Pizza and Spaghetti Carbonara. Exhausted from the long day and in anticipation of what tomorrow would probably bring we headed back to Seadive to crash (on the bed that had only a fitted sheet, no blankets or top sheet of any kind, another very common local thing in the area, luckily it is very hot and humid)!

Halfway thru the night we were awakened by loud thunder, lightning and heavy rain. We crossed our fingers for the boys and the banka!!

We woke up early the next morning and Jun Jun sent his friend Intes, our local tricycle driver, to pick us up around 6:30 and head to the banka. The mechanic arrived about an hour later, alternator in hand and began the install. The banka is in need of some serious maintenance (engine is always breaking, the propeller isn’t straight, you name it) so we figured might as well do that too while we were in town. The mechanic had done some tune up service on the banka before (oil change, engine check, the basics) so we figured who better to ask?? We couldn’t really get a straight answer from him and after he installed the alternator and tested it he jumped on his motorcycle and took off. Was he coming back to change the oil? After a quick look Nick had already determined that the oil was filthy and needed to be changed ASAP. It wouldn’t be an easy task however because whoever had installed the engine didn’t leave any space to drain the oil…maybe that was why the mechanic took off so fast?? Rather than wait for the mechanic to maybe return we set off to straighten the propeller and buy some oil of our own.

Below you will see pictures of how the propeller was straightened: (COMING SOON, ON MY PHONE)

Yes, it involved laying the axel on ground that probably wasn’t even straight to begin with, using some pieces of wood in various wedge shapes and banging the propeller a couple of times with another, very large piece of wood. Very technical, I know.

To fix the propeller involved a few different sizes of hammer and banging them against the propeller that was sitting against a piece of metal attached to another piece of wood. There was some measuring with a tape measure involved in this one and I must say I don’t know a whole lot about boats but I was impressed with the end result.

After the propeller fix we purchased the oil but time was passing quickly and changing the oil would be a time consuming and very challenging task. The sky was getting dark and we needed to get back to Mangenguey. Peter (another coworker) had been on vacation but unable to get to the island because of the storm and was arriving via Jeepney at noon. We grabbed a quick bite to eat, got Peter and FINALLY headed to Mangenguey. It was a very rough ride, we were soaked by the time we got there and it took 3 hours but we made it!

The next day Nick got up early to change the oil. He drained 5 gallons of black sludge out of the engine and there should only be 5 quarts. Now we knew why the mechanic had fled…he had been ripping us off the whole time and not doing any work. We also learned later that the alternator wasn’t broken, he just didn’t complete the install so we would buy one from him. Another lesson we have learned, don’t take anything for granted and double check ALL work.

We finished up a couple more days with the current guests and prepared for Helena’s return and the arrival of some British honeymooners. Despite being rainy season the weather was nice and we took Nick on the trek and snorkel around the island before being thrown into work. He also got to experience some of our VIP visitors. We had a last minute lunch for two major players (and hopefully our protectors, both politically and otherwise) the former Governor of Palawan Joel Reyes and the current Governor Abraham Mitra. Both unknowingly booked simultaneously so we had to prepare an impromptu lunch for 17 as well as entertain our current 2 guests. All things considered (we knew about the first group of 5 at 8 pm the night before and the second group of 12 at 6:30 that morning) it went very well. Both parties left satisfied and we got to meet some very interesting characters.

Helena is back now and we are working full force. Nick has taken on the accounting (and I couldn’t be more pleased) and housekeeping management and is helping with the marketing. We are launching a “Booking Button” for our website and making a big marketing push. Aside from trying a new kitchen role as the pastry/dessert chef, I have taken on a major role in the marketing development, especially the social marketing on the web and the design of the “Button” page. It has been pretty interesting and definitely a change of pace from a kitchen job but it is fun. Now with Nick here we are starting to feel like we have a well rounded team and Trevor can finally get some real kitchen time. Maybe now I will even have some time to keep up on this blog!! Until next time….besos.

Oh and had to add this….not sure why I didn’t rush to a doctor with my foot looking like this for almost a week. Learned my lesson there…