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Hong Kong & Macau

Before coming on this trip I did little research about the places that I was visiting. Maybe if I had I would get more out of the cities we visit…but I purposefully didn’t because I like the surprise that comes from having no preconceived ideas or expectations about the cities. So far I think I was surprised most by Hong Kong and Macau, in terms of their appearances. I didn’t expect to see lush green mountains surrounding Hong Kong’s downtown…I don’t know maybe I need to brush up on my geography. As for Macau I knew that it was a gambling destination, basically the Vegas of Asia, so I was anticipating that there would be a lot opulent, expensive, and tacky hotels and casinos. Which there was. I also knew that it was colonized by the Portuguese, which had a major influence on its architecture and city planning, giving it a very European feel in parts of the city. What I was not expecting was the pretty major juxtaposition between the casinos and the surrounding apartments and buildings. The entertainment area bumped right up against run down high-rise apartments. It felt like the city had three distinct types of architecture, the tacky casinos, the old Portuguese style, and an additive style which seems to be pretty typical in Asian countries (where buildings are just added onto with little consideration for the original style of the building). All of these styles just kind of flowed in and out of each other, making it an interesting city to walk through. Going back to Hong Kong (which is only an hour ferry ride away) looked more like the other cities we have visited. We arrived on a Sunday, which like in the states is a day that people have off work so there were a lot of people out. In one area there were a ton of people, but not just any people. In the main financial district of Hong Kong women from surrounding areas come there to spend their day off together. These women are caregivers for children and the elderly hired by the wealthy in Hong Kong. The women live in the homes of those families, often in a windowless room only big enough for a bed. Since they don’t have enough of their own space they use the streets as their social area. They bring food, dance, gossip, play games, and do each others hair and nails. While this is a result of poor circumstances and living conditions, it has created a strong female community in Hong Kong. We also got out of the city a little bit and went to the world’s second largest Buddha. The Buddha is on top of a mountain so we took a 20 minute gondola ride up to the top. From the gondola you could look down see a stone trail that people hike up to the Buddha as a pilgrimage of sorts. Overall I liked Hong Kong more than I was expecting to, also the food was pretty great…dim sum…yum!      

Screen Saver Beach

After week of traveling through Bangkok and Cambodia, we ended a short weekend trip to the northern island of Ilocos with a day at the beach. The water was a beautiful blue and felt like bath water. I don’t know if it was the pure exhaustion or our amazing surroundings, but everyone seemed to revert back to being kids…throwing each other off our shoulders, making our hair look like George Washington, climbing palm trees, and playing in the sand.   

Food:

Preparing to eat a scorpion…followed by a silk worm and cricket at a night market in Bangkok. The scorpion tasted like crunchier beef jerky, the silk worm was kind of like a cheese puff, but just salty. And my favorite was the cricket which tasted similar to a BBQ chip.

Siem Reap, Cambodia:

We flew straight to Cambodia after Bangkok. It was a hot and sweaty blur of temples, but still amazing. Our first night we went to a dinner show where we watched traditional dancing, followed by a very fake boxing match. On our first full day in Siem Reap we went to the Angkor Complex where I rode an elephant through the complex gates. We worked our way through lots of smaller temples up to the main one, Angkor Wat (Angkor means city and Wat means temple). At Angkor Wat we climbed the very steep steps to the top where the Buddha shrine is. At the shrine a Buddhist monk tied a piece of red string around my wrist and with each knot he said a blessing. For the next couple of days it smelled like the incense that was lit during the prayer ceremonies. The next morning we woke up to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat, unfortunately it was pretty cloudy, but still an awesome experience. That day we went to the temple that Tomb Raider was filmed at, which was probably my favorite one in the complex. It was amazing how the trees grew around the temple. Our last day we took a boat out onto a river where whole communities had been build out of boats; they had houses, stores, mechanic shops, and schools all on boats. Unexpectedly something I found maybe a little too fun was bartering prices at the local markets. I bought a lot more than I needed to, just because I wanted to see how cheap I could get it for. Also the sales people and the children on the streets are aggressive sales people and call you lady instead of ma’am, which is kind of off putting at first.

Bangkok, Thailand: 

Bangkok was amazing! I don’t know what I liked best: the food, the Thai iced tea, the temples, or the massages. We were in Bangkok for three days and it was not nearly enough time. On our first day we were taken around by architecture students from the local university and visited temples throughout the city. The Temple of the Reclining Buddha was probably the mot impressive to me, mainly because of the shear size of the Buddha statue. After visiting the temples we walked through a night market where some of us ate scorpions, crickets, and silk worms. All of which were much better than I expected (I go into more detail about this in the food section). To finish the night off we shared a meal on a rooftop, lit by candles where we sat on the floor. The next day we drove about two hours outside of the city to the original capital of Thailand, Ayutthaya. Here we visited more temples, while still very impressive these do not have the vibrant colors like the ones in Bangkok. They are also more monolithic and cannot really be occupied. That night consisted of weak drinks, a strange back alley club that felt like you were walking into a haunted house, and a dance circle on stage. The last day in Bangkok was relaxed, more touring of the city and ended with a two hour massage. The best two hours of my life. Another really amazing thing about Thailand and Southeast Asia in general is that it is really cheap, a Thai massage and foot massage at a nice spa was only $18. Can I go back now?

Field Work - Leyte, Philippines:

Our project for the semester is to visit and research the housing settlements that were built by relief organizations as well as the Philippine government after typhoon Yolanda,which hit the communities on the island of Leyte back in 2013. Based on our findings we are to design a solution to one of the short-comings we saw during our visit to the communities.  

Before visiting the settlements we had breakfast with the Mayor and hiked up to the highest point in the city, where we were joined by some of the kids that lived long the trail. We visited about 10 communities built by different organizations, it was interesting to see the differences in both the physical appearance of the communities as well as the vibe and energy of each. At some settlements it felt like we were intruders and the residence would just stand in their houses and watch us. At others they were very welcoming, and invited us into their homes and wanted to tell us about what it was like living there. It tended to be the ones where there were a lot of children, the kids were an ice breaker of sorts. They would come up to us and ask us questions and we would play with them,and then their parents would come over. The children loved looking at pictures and videos of themselves. It was at these settlements where I felt like I got the best insight into what their lives are like and what they want in order to improve their lives. It is was pretty shocking coming from middle class America and seeing the conditions in which people were living. Generally there are at least seven people living in one unit, which is roughly 350 sf. In some of the nicer settlements the units had their own bathrooms and small cooking areas, but the majority of them had shared kitchens, toilets, and showers. When that was the case there was one toilet for every 30 people and the kitchen was shared by each row of houses (about 30). Most of the houses were very hot and dark inside, yet this is where the people spent most of their time. One of the things that I found to be really interesting is that all of the houses were landscaped in some way, which is different from what we see in impoverished areas in the U.S.In fact, it is a requirement in many of the communities that each yard has to be landscaped with either vegetables or ornamentals.

Food

The Philippines
Let’s start with they LOVE sugar, especially in their juices. It is really deceiving to think you are getting orange juice and it is basically Kool Aid.

Mangos - they are so good here, I have some sort of mango thing at least once a day.

Pig Cheeks - this is actually pretty good, the taste reminds me of sausage.

So American

I feel especially American when…                                                                         (side note: some of these have made me realize how much I take for granted and how thankful I am to have them and that they are average luxuries in the states.)

the wifi isn’t strong enough to load my Buzzfeed quiz.

I am the on the only one sweating and standing in front of the fan.

I can’t drink the tap water

my thighs are burning from hovering over the toilet…why no seats?

I have to take toilet paper from the counter into the stall with me, because otherwise there is just a hose…how do you dry off from that?

First Impressions

I have been in Manila for about 5 days now and the culture shock kicked in pretty much as soon I stepped out off of the plane. Before I get into it, there are a few things that need to be said to put things into context. One, the weather is very humid and hot, around 85-90 each day (but this is not their hottest time of the year). It is the end of the rainy season so it is normally cloudy, but hasn’t rained too often. Two, metro Manila has a population of about 11.5 million people and one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Three, english is very widely spoken. Now let’s get into my first impressions.

Rule of the Road - There are none. This was the first thing that I noticed while  going to the hotel. Lane lines seem to be street decoration rather than guidelines, no one stays in them. It is just a free for all. Also the few stop signs and traffic lights there are, are more of suggestions…that are normally ignored.

Public Transportation - Metro Manila has a rail system that goes through the city and to surrounding residential areas. It is designed to have a maximum capacity of 400,000 - 500,000, but over a million people ride it each day. Needless to say personal space is not a thing. Another way around the city are veepneys, which are like little trucks with two benches along the sides and the back is open. They get their name because they are a result of american jeeps left here after WWII. People climb in from the back and squeeze onto the tiniest spot on bench and then pass their money up to the driver by handing it down the line of passengers. Some have predetermined stops but other don’t and on those if you want to stop you bang on the roof to alert the driver. If you want a more personal ride you can take a ride in a side car on a motorcycle. This pretty terrifying and fun at the same time (it does have a top on it). About 2 people can sit in the side car and one person can ride on the back of the bike. 

The People - The people are friendly and smile and wave at us a lot, but not quite as much as they stare at us. They call out “hi, how are you?” from their cars and street stands. But we also get laughed at a lot…so there’s that.

The Buildings - The building codes are pretty lax when it come to adding onto a building, so a lot of the buildings remind me of lego buildings. Additions are just stuck on in no certain way and don’t match the existing building, making the buildings look run down and old. Opposite of that there are a ton of malls, many of them are new and modern. They have a lot of malls because it is so hot outside for most of the year that is an air conditioned place for people to go and walk through. 

Animals - Stray dogs and cats are all over the place. There are two cats that hang out at our hotel. We named them Cockroach and Lil’ mama (she’s pregnant)      

Intro

This is where I am going to write about my 7 weeks spent in Southeast Asia. Don’t expect this to be eloquently written, I will try to keep it somewhat organized, but as the name suggests I will be doing a lot of rambling. So to start things off I will answer a few basic questions.

Where am I going? Manila, Philippines. Bangkok, Thailand. Siem Reap, Cambodia. Hong Kong, China. Macau, China. Singapore, Malaysia. All over Taiwan.

Who am I with? 20 other interior design and architecture students from DAAP.

Why am I here? We will be working with graduate architecture students from the University of the Philippines to work on design solutions for communities that have been destroyed by Typhoon Yolanda on the island of Leyte.

*Disclaimer the internet is painfully slow so these posts may be sporadic and clumped together. Also pictures may be pretty sparse as they take forever to load, but I’ll do my best.