07 Apr 2017
Flight Tracker Tokyo to Minnesota
On the back of the airplane seat, directly in front of me, is an entertainment console with music, movies, and diversions.. If I hit a flight tracker button on the console, I can see the path of our current flight in midair, the wind speed, plane speed, miles traveled, miles to go. A […]
07 Apr 2017
Escalator Selfie Haneda Airport, Japan
This tunnel is well lit. Some tunnels are rabbit holes, some filled with pack rat vaults. Some tunnels are underground, dark and womb like, leading to gold and silver leprechaun caches. Some tunnels are constructed with giant boring machines, go under seas and through mountains to large impressive cities. Through some tunnels we […]
07 Apr 2017
Cooking on a hot stone Haneda Airport, Japan
“Watch out for the stone, ” the short order cook says, as he slides my meal across the counter to me. ” It is very hot.” I look at a dark stone shaped like a huge pill on my plate, then look at my under cooked meat next to it. The hot stone, […]
05 Apr 2017
Tokyo Train Narita Airport to Haneda Airport - Japan
There were trains for getting around before there were planes. You have to walk before you can fly. The first trains were big, lumbering, uncomfortable, dark, and were powered by men shoveling coal into fireboxes to heat water and using the created steam to turn gears and wheels. Train tracks were wide and […]
02 Apr 2017
Marinduque to Manilla return boat ride
The nautical miles click by and Marinduque disappears. The Philippines move into memories, that funky place where facts get forgotten, emotions get heightened, truth gets obscured, and we turn experiences into what we want them to be instead of what they really were. Montenegro lines will get us safely across this pond and […]
01 Apr 2017
Gwen graduates Kindergarden ceremony
On this day, Gwen graduates from kindergarten at a local community center. It takes some urging to go on stage with her aunt April, but she walks on and is recognized.There are recitations by some of the kids, comments by teacher’s and invited guests, a small lunch afterwards. We have no crystal balls […]
01 Apr 2017
Albert and Bella playing on the front porch
Albert and Bella are two of five dogs at the house. There are also two cats plus a new Kitty who joined the wrecking crew last night, abandoned in the road and following us home. Next morning it is curled up against one of the dogs on the front step, unaware that cats […]
01 Apr 2017
Cat and Birds just out of reach
These two parakeets are new to the front porch. The two birds and cage were a thousand pesos, about $20.00. The two of them sing, preen, watch the world from their small enclosure.They are confined, but they are safe. Sitting below is one of Alma’s cats, looking up, calculating ways to reach them.He […]
01 Apr 2017
Who’s got the best rooster? to the end
Excitement builds during the week . As Sunday afternoon grows close, the roosters crowing takes on more urgency. On Sunday afternoons, a stadium in a local neighborhood opens for business and men pay for permits to fight their birds. The fighting cage in the middle of this stadium looks small from the bleachers […]
01 Apr 2017
Sunday at the rooster fights Sunday afternoon
Each week, rooster fights happen. Men of all ages bring their favorite fighting roosters to this stadium, pay a fee to enter, put their rooster and their reputation on the line. These battles are to the death, and, to ensure that, roosters have a finger long barbed metal spike attached to one of […]
31 Mar 2017
Painted nails girls having fun
Today, Gwen wants blue toenails. She is four years old but has a mind of her own, like all of us. Today, Alma sits on the floor in a doorway and carefully puts a new more beautiful blue on previously red toenails. Every little girl needs these moments. Alma knows this better than […]
31 Mar 2017
Raining Dogs and Cats its not always dry here
March is one of the dryer months on Marinduque but, even in March, it rains. This is a morning rain that lasts an hour, steady. Rain runs off the tin roof and puddles in the yard. After thirty minutes, soil turns to a mud so thick you can’t shake it off your shoes. […]
31 Mar 2017
Back to the Market more than enough
The Mogpog market is a place we return each day, more than once, By lunch most of the fresh products have been sold, fisherman have returned to sleep in their berths after a night on the waters. There are newly slaughtered hogs carried into the market throughout the day, loaded on tables and […]
31 Mar 2017
Pool Party Villa Arcos
Our Jeepney is loaded with twenty family members, kids, teens, babies, adults, inner tubes, coolers, pots of food, towels and swim gear. Today is a family pool party at the Villa Arcos in Santa Cruz, Marinduque. After we arrive and pay our entry fees, we tiptoe down steep stone stairs to two turquoise […]
31 Mar 2017
Jeepneys transportation specials
The most common vehicles on Marinduque are bikes, tricycles with a cab, tribikes with a cab, motorcycles, and jeepneys. Jeepneys are the most colorful and most used on narrow winding mountain roads that take a traveler three or four hours to go around an island that is called small by locals. Jeepneys are […]
31 Mar 2017
Harvesting coconuts the big stick
Coconut trees make pretty pictures, but they make money too. On Marinduque, coconut trees grow up the sides and over mountains, in valleys and in flat areas that have been cleared of brush to make orchards, rows of the trees standing like sailors at morning muster, in a line, Irish pennants clipped and […]
31 Mar 2017
Karaoke Time Singing for fun
In Belize, karaoke machines appear in bars and hotel ballrooms with guests wearing Wal-Mart pineapple and palm tree short sleeved perma-press shirts. They sing into late hours and consume vast quantities of rum. In Mogpog, karaoke machines appear in people’s front yards, or living rooms, and friends and family wear Rock and Roll […]
30 Mar 2017
Feeding Pigs Noisy Eaters
These guys and girls aren’t going hungry. They are fed in the morning and in the afternoon with snacks in between meals to help them put on weight. They will eat as much as you give them and they always behave as if they are starving. Alma washes out their cages several times […]
30 Mar 2017
Mosquito Fires farming in Mogpog
This old man farms seven days a week. He comes out early in the morning wearing flip flops, shorts, a long sleeved shirt and a baseball cap with a big brim.He has a machete in a sleeve on his belt and when he sees something that needs trimmed he pulls his machete’s long […]
26 Mar 2017
Help Wanted people resources
In days when Britain ruled the seas and ruled the world, colonies were properties on a global monopoly board. The more real estate you had, the more money flowed into royal coffers. Real estate, however, requires expensive maintenance and security. Britain lost the U.S., lost India,lost Africa, lost all but a few Caribbean […]
26 Mar 2017
Ghosts Buildings in Marinduque
Buildings on Marinduque run the gamut from simple to complex. They can be as small as this tiny wood frame square box with a thatched roof, unscreened windows, padlocked front door, built off the ground, no air conditioning ,no electric, no plumbing. They can also be more modern with fancy windows, air conditioning, […]
25 Mar 2017
Down by the River wash day
Every day is laundry day in Mogpog. A few do their laundry at home in washing machines. Most do it at home in their front yards using buckets of water, one for soapy suds and the other for rinsing. Some few still go the river to clean their clothes, using cane sticks to […]
25 Mar 2017
World War 2 Memorabilia for pat
There are relic hunters who still roam the mountains and valleys on Marinduque searching for World War 2 memorabilia. They sometimes find helmets, bayonets, mess kits, a lucky photograph of a wife or children in a leather pouch, pieces of uniforms and occasionally, by the side of downed aircraft, bleached bones. This great […]
24 Mar 2017
Ulong Bay Mogpog
It is easier to describe this place by telling what isn’t here. There are no condos, resorts, blue water swimming pools, water slides, fancy cabanas with fully loaded bars. There aren’t people wearing sunglasses and expensive thongs. There isn’t a paved road to get here, or fountains, or water features.There aren’t staff moving […]
23 Mar 2017
Smoke Signals smoke works wonders
There are fires burning in Mogpog. They are kept simmering all day and into the night, started with the skins of coconuts peeled and shredded to make tinder, reinforced with dead coconut tree trunks, branches too small to be used for anything else. You see smoke as you stroll,smell it as you take […]
23 Mar 2017
Piggy goes to market business is business
Pigs are popular on Marinduque. They are particularly popular for large family get together’s and celebrations. Like Ecuadorians and Mexicans, Philipino’s like pork and many households have a pig or two staked out in back yard mud holes. On this day, the man who makes his living cooking pigs over a fire, on […]
23 Mar 2017
Rice and Coconuts staples
Rice is a staple. The rice plant grows about a foot high and then men with machetes separate the part of the plant with rice grains from the rest of it. The rice grains are shaken from the leaves, gathered, then laid out in the sun on mats to dry in the intense […]
22 Mar 2017
Thrilla in Manilla hitting the ground running
In a world of nearly eight billion people, and growing, we often have to wait our turn. On a Tokyo runway, our jet backs away from its boarding dock, follows air traffic control orders, gets in line with a string of jumbo jets to take off for Manilla. Thousands of planes land and […]
21 Mar 2017
Coffee Table Books Another world
In the universe of coffee table books, there must be one about airports of the world. The intrepid author would have traveled to major airports of the world, taken photographs, picked images that best describe the country visited. The Denver airport has a blue bronco statue reared up in an open area as […]
20 Mar 2017
Where Do You Sleep in an Airport? Travel Portals
Airports are portals to the world. The Denver International Airport was built in cow pastures to the east of Denver, after Stapleton closed, and was turned into condos. To fly out of Denver you follow I-70 east till you see white sails in the country, shuttle parking lots, arrival and departure ramps, east […]
Scott’s Philippines Timeline
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