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Shanghai, originally uploaded by 160507.

I was hoping for a leisurely excursion—a speech here, a contract-signing there, handshakes and photo-ops, maybe a dinner—and then on to the real attractions of the trip: sightseeing and shopping in Shanghai. In short, one of those Junkets we keep hearing about.

Unfortunately for me, it turned out to be Work.

The flight was delayed twice—for half an hour in Manila, then another half-hour due to the air traffic over Shanghai Pudong airport. At 1650H we emerged in the brand-new terminal 2 at Pudong—a vast, marmoreal building that had officially begun operations just that morning. Fifteen minutes later, having cleared Immigration, we stood by the carousel awaiting our luggage. The Undersecretary was wheeling a humongous square suitcase.

“What have you got in there, an altar?” laughed the Secretary of Tourism, Joseph Durano. The Secretary is a very neat young man with extremely clear skin. He looks like he graduated from college yesterday.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” replied the Undersecretary of Tourism, Eduardo Jarque. The Undersecretary is a career official who joined the Department thirty years ago, when it was first organized. “Seriously, it’s more practical. With a small suitcase, the sleeve of your barong gets segmented into four.” The humongous suitcase turned out to be an excellent idea: the Tourism officials were expected at a reception at the JC Mandarin at 1830H. There was simply no time for ironing.

Emotional Weather Report, today in the Philippine Star.

Aquarium, Tai King shop, originally uploaded by 160507.

There was some confusion as to the location of the Shanghai Museum of Sex and Sex Health. One guidebook gave an address in the city; another said it had been moved to the suburbs. Then a reliable authority said it was back in Shanghai, and was accessible through the Bund Underground Tourist Tunnel. He had recently escorted visitors from Manila to the museum and they were delighted to find the perfect pasalubong in the museum gift shop: vibrating cockrings.

En route to the museum, I thought of a little experiment. I texted three friends—one hetero female, one hetero male, and one gay male—the same message: “Do you want a vibrating cockring from the Shanghai Sex Museum?” In aid of research I should point out that women comprise approximately 5 percent of my immediate circle of friends, men 10 percent (none of them below the age of 40), and gay men 85 percent. (Sometimes days pass before I speak to a heterosexual.)

My three friends replied almost instantly. (Note: I hang out with people who text in complete sentences. That is why we get along.)

Woman: Thanks for the wonderful offer, but as there is no man on the horizon, that would be like a barn without a horse.
Man: Kind of you. . .but no thanks. . .
Gay guy: Yes!!!

This is why gay men are happier than the rest of us. Said gift item was so popular, the museum shop ran out of supplies before we got there.

How to prevent people leaving.JPG, originally uploaded by 160507.

It’s been a while since I’ve had one of these complaint epics, so while it was happening half of me was homicidally annoyed while the other half was oddly amused and nostalgic. 

I sent a text message to my contact saying I was on my way to the airport. It remained in the outbox. I sent it again. Still no go. Then the screen of my phone hanged. The battery indicator was at 75 percent. The phone wouldn’t reset, so I removed the battery then put it back in. When I turned the phone back on, the batter level was zero! For the first time in history, my trusty phone had died on me. I imagined my contact trying to reach me, and everyone leaving before I got there.

We arrived at the airport exactly as the delegation was going through the first security check. Passport and ticket safely in hand, I made it to the plane without further incident.

The flight was delayed for half an hour. I didn’t notice, having fallen asleep within minutes of taking my seat (It’s a gift). I woke up for lunch, then went back to sleep and regained consciousness when we were supposed to be landing. The plane circled the airport for the next half-hour—air traffic was heavy at the new Pudong airport terminal which had opened just that morning.

So we arrived in Shanghai at 1650, not 1550. We were expected at a reception at 1830. I figured one hour, 40 minutes gave me enough time to get to the hotel, check in, get changed, and walk to the reception a block away. I did not know about Shanghai traffic. It was like Manila at 6pm, except that it was cold and the roads are vast. For two hours we were wedged between trucks, buses, and cars going to the city. We passed an industrial area, gray and desolate. By the time the lights of Shanghai poked me in the eye, it was 1830.

We were booked at Baolong, a boutique hotel on Nanyang Road. I think it’s supposed to look like a traditional Chinese home; I couldn’t ask the front desk clerks because we had no common language. Next baffler: finding my room. The key said 8526, but the elevator only went up to the fifth floor. Turns out everyone’s room number started in 8; my actual room was 526.

I had no time to even look at my room; I threw on a coat and hurried to the dinner. Two hours later I realized one of my earrings was gone. A favorite, too—a ball of wire I’d found in a Seoul night market. It may have blown away in a strong wind, or gotten snagged on my muffler. Either way it was gone forever.

Round midnight I got back to the hotel and took a shower. The bathroom floor flooded. Afterwards I opened the laptop our host had lent me so I could check my email. Couldn’t connect to the Internet. Figured I could at least charge my iPod (my treacherous phone was already charging), so I plugged it into the USB port. The iPod’s screen promptly hanged. Clearly my gadgets were staging a rebellion. It wouldn’t unlock, refused to reset, and the light wouldn’t go out. I went to bed worried that I’d wiped out my entire music library, but in the morning when the battery had drained the iPod was fine.

That was my first night in Shanghai. Oh and as I was writing that last sentence, Murphy sent me a PS: the pen leaked on my hand. Aaargh.

Traditional proctological exam, originally uploaded by 160507.

I’m back. Shanghai was a blast. Lots to write about.
1. Shanghai is having an extended winter: it got colder by the day. Rained all weekend.
2. It’s very dusty, probably because there’s so much construction going on. You can see new Bentleys drive by with dusty roofs.
3. It always looks like dusk or early dawn because of all the lights.
4. If you are not accompanied by a local, you need to carry cards with the Chinese characters for “washroom”, “taxi”, “subway”, etc, and all the places you’re going to, especially your hotel.
5. It takes ages to change dollars. There are queues. You have to change your money at a bank as there are fake bills going around.
6. The locals only sound like they’re fighting, or at least one hopes so.
7. The Filipino brand Oishi rules the snack market.
8. Traffic is as bad as Manila’s, and the drivers are as nuts, so you feel right at home.
9. The locations in Lust, Caution no longer exist, but you can see where they used to be.
10. There’s a beautiful two-storey branch of Figaro in Luwan district. They have a book club.
11. The Bund Underground Tourist Tunnel screams, “We have so much money, we don’t know what to do with it!”
12. In the Museum of Sex you can buy an assortment of lewd figurines and a tea set that, when you pour water in the cups, shows you couples in different positions. However, the most popular item was out of stock. Tell you about it later.
13. Through a strange series of events involving Eileen Chang, Bread Pan, and chairs, my schlubby non-designer label-wearing self ended up at a preview of the Ferragamo 80th year retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art. In attendance were actual Ferragamos, both footwear and humans. Have plenty of pictures.

Obviously my cats were not happy. Despite my attempts to pack a suitcase in secret, they knew I was planning an escape. On Wednesday, while I waited for the airport service, the three felines sat around me in a circle, glaring. Think BF on the big Metro Gwapo signs, only adorable and furry. They appeared to be casting some sort of spell to prevent my leaving. Whenever I stood up, Saffy would meow shrilly–the same meow she utters when she rolls on the floor next to my feet and falsely accuses me of stepping on her.

I was expecting the airport service at 9.40am, but it was 9.45 and there was no sign of the car. So I called the service. There was no record of my order. I’d had a strange conversation with their dispatcher the previous night. Just before midnight, I dialed the same number I’ve dialed for ten years. “I need a taxi to the airport at 9.40am,” I told the woman who answered. “This is not a taxi company,” she replied. I said sorry, I must’ve dialed the wrong number. I tried again. The same woman answered. I tried a different tack. “Are you a car rental company?” I asked. She said yes. “Then I’d like a car to the airport at 9.40am.” Turns out it was the exact same company that has provided my airport service for a decade, only she didn’t want to use the word “taxi”. Picky.

And a nitwit. She confirmed my order, but didn’t record it. The morning dispatcher apologized and said she would send a car over immediately. Meaning the car leisurely drove up at 10.10. I had to meet the contact who had my passport and visa at the airport entrance at 10.30. Then I saw the building guard turning the car away, saying
“She doesn’t live here anymore.” No! I got to the car before it could drive off. Apparently the driver had been given the name of my sister, who moved out two year ago.

“I have to be at the Centennial terminal at 10.30, can we manage?” I asked the driver. “We’ll see,” was his noncommital answer. “Let’s take Nichols through the Fort,” I said. “Okay,” he said, unimpressed by my sense of urgency. He proceeded to take the long way. “This is the long way,” I pointed out. “Oh, did you want to go through the Fort?” Suffice it to say that when a driver asks me for directions, it is not a good omen. He tuned in to an easy listening station and proceeded at 15kph on an empty road, stopping every so often to let arthritic ants cross without peril.

to be continued

Guga in airports, originally uploaded by Koosama.

19 May 2006. It’s midnight, and seven hours before boarding. I am hanging out in an empty airport in Trieste, which used to be the port of the Austro-Hungarian empire, then part of Yugoslavia, and is now the tip of Italy. It is not Hong Kong airport, that’s for sure. The snack bar is a vending machine, and there is no Louis Vuitton store.

There’s one other passenger camping out at the airport. Indian, I think—he walked up to me and asked if I was Indian, I said no, and we never spoke again. By silent agreement we’ve divided the place in two—he stays in the arrivals area and I in the departures. I’ve stretched out on a metal bench in front of the police station, surely the safest spot in the airport—unless the cops themselves have a showdown. I can hear them having a loud, possibly violent argument inside their office. The bench isn’t too bad and my stuffed toy leopard Guga makes a good pillow, but the metal is cold even if I have on three layers of clothes. I sleep a total of 30 minutes in four hours. The rest of the time I read The Stones of Florence and check my watch. I’m not scared or lonely, though I feel like a homeless person living in a terminal. At 5 am all the lights come on and the staff begin to arrive. I check my suitcase, then have a coffee at the bar. The hardest part is not losing consciousness while waiting for the 7.10 flight to Rome. The moment I strap myself onto the seat I’m asleep.

Guga in airports, originally uploaded by Koosama.

This is for Ige, who recently spent 24 hours in an airport terminal—fortunately not on this list—trying to get on a flight to Manila. Foreign Policy lists the five worst airports on earth (NAIA’s not one of them! Yay!):

Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport, Dakar, Senegal. “There is only squalor, an unnerving sense of confinement, and to some extent danger.” —Patrick Smith, Salon.com, May 25, 2007. Standing room only. To think the Concorde used to fly there.

Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, India. “Of all the regional capital airports this one takes the cake … a piece of crap … bring the bug spray.” —Anonymous commenter, The Budget Traveller’s Guide to Sleeping in Airports, Dec 11, 2005. Aggressive beggars and used syringes on the terminal floor.

Mineralnye Vody Airport, Mineralnye Vody, Russia. “Mineralnye Vody airport is a lower circle of hell.” —The Economist, Dec. 19, 2006. Snow, ice, and feral cats inside the terminal, plus a guy selling swords and daggers as souvenirs.

Baghdad International Airport, Baghdad, Iraq. “Before jumping out of your seat to complain to the pilot, consider the good news: You’ve just avoided being shot down by a missile.” —Alan T. Duffin, Air & Space magazine, Oct./Nov. 2006. Stomach-churning corkscrew landings. It IS a war zone.

Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Paris, France. “Charles de Gaulle is a disgrace … it’s like a third-world airport.” —Michel-Yves Labbé, president of French travel company Directours, Aug. 14, 2007. Grimy, confusing, overpriced, and the staff is rude. (It’s actually not that bad, but it’s in Paris! It should be better.)

I suddenly remembered how I made a miscalculation in my travel arrangements and ended up spending the night at the airport in Trieste, trying to get some sleep on a cold metal bench while policemen had what sounded like a violent argument that may have been a regular card game. Where’s my notebook from 2006?

Musee d’Orsay, originally uploaded by Koosama.

April in Paris, a cliche that works. Broad tree-lined avenues and outdoor cafes teeming with people smoking or entertaining deep thoughts or both. Masterpieces of the Louvre, eminent skeletons of Pere Lachaise. The splendor of Notre Dame that the Nazis couldn’t bring themselves to blow up, or was that Sacre Coeur? In the midst of all this beauty it would be rude not to have an existential crisis. Ghosts of the Impressionists walking the cobblestones of Montmartre, haunting the fleshpots of Pigalle. The French Revolution, the Cinematheque, Anna Karina and her two swains running across the Louvre in nine minutes something. A schoolboy plagiarizing Balzac. Herald Tribune!

Paris, 9.30pm. Chaos at Charles De Gaulle Airport, endless renovations of the Metro, new arrivals herded onto buses and snuck into the city—is there a standard chic test we’ve flunked? Stink of piss as you emerge from the Gare du Nord into the twinkling evening: I lift my suitcase to avoid running over a man in rags snoring open-mouthed by the door. The cabbie’s nose so big that when he turns around to ask for the address I instinctively duck. He’s delighted to discover a street he’d never heard of.

Dog turds on the sidewalk, used metro tickets carpeting the street. I punch in the security code and the lock clicks open. The elevator is out of order. The stairs creak and groan like an arthritic grandmother. My suitcase bangs painfully against my leg as I drag myself up to the third floor. Much later I will recount with exaggerated horror how I carried a huge suitcase and a giant backpack up four flights of stairs in Paris. The point of the story won’t be the weight of my luggage or the creakiness of the stairs, it will be the fact that it happened in Paris.

Here’s my Robert Duvall impression.

I love the sound of Currimao at midnight. It feels like. . .the apocalypse.

Cue helicopters. Cue Ride Of The Valkyries.

Northern Exposure in Emotional Weather Report, today in the Star.

Ilokos loot, originally uploaded by 160507.

Things to get in Ilocos Norte: The Chichacorn of Pure Evil. Tear open a bag and you’ll be exercising your jaws for the next couple of hours because you cannot stop eating it! This can only be part of an Ilocano plot for world domination: Control the supply of chichacorn and the world is yours. Once the world finds out about it. It’s addictive, but unlike cocaine, does not cause you to grow a third nostril.

The Pasuquin Bakery (in Pasuquin, near Laoag) has been producing delicious biscocho since the pre-WWII era. Unlike the typical biscocho, which is made of day-old bread, the Pasuquin Bakery uses freshly-baked bread. Recently, due to popular demand, the bakery started selling its “soft” biscocho, which is flavored with anise. I asked Rene, whose grandparents started the business, what the secret of their brilliant biscocho is. He said, “Lard.”

Danton (a.k.a. Bakla sa 2010) and I took the noonday Cebu Pacific flight to Laoag. Even before the plane had taken off I was asleep; I only woke up when the plane was beginning its descent. Then I noticed that Danton, who was seated on my right, and the two gay men in the next row, would periodically, dramatically suck in their breaths like Eartha Kitt singing Boy from Ipanema (or Darth Vader climbing stairs). I asked Danton what was going on, and he puckered his lips and pointed them at the male flight attendant who was walking down the aisle. And I understood the extra oxygen requirement. The flight attendant, a tall, big-boned guy, was wearing tight pants that clung to the package. Right at eye level. That’s why the sisters were in a swoon.

Way to go, Cebu Pacific. And the flight was on time.

There was a small glitch on our return flight, this time on Philippine Airlines. Our air tickets had been purchased online and paid for with an office credit card. As we tried to check in for the return journey, we discovered that there is a PAL policy requiring passengers who bought their tickets online to present the credit card with which the ticket/s had been purchased. We did not have the credit card with us; it was in Manila. I don’t see why one has to show the actual credit card when the transaction has already been completed and the fares charged to the card. What a pain. It was the Saturday of a long weekend, and we couldn’t locate the office manager in Manila who had the credit card in question. Suppose your parents bought your tickets for you in the States and you’re not traveling together? Suppose the tickets were a gift?

Our host explained the situation to the ground crew, but they were adamant about their lousy policy, so we had to buy new tickets in order to get on the plane. The aggravation! Way to promote tourism, PAL.

So this is what lying on a private beach under the stars with the waves crashing and a bottle of wine is like. Ang daming lamok. (Lots of mosquitoes.) They don’t bite the other people, just me. Mosquitoes love me.

Nature is noisy.