I'm in Net topia writing this, an internet cafe in this euge mall here in Manila. I realized that my appetite upon coming here shifted and lessened considerably, I think the humidity and heat has dissolved my ordinary eating patterns. I love it here, I really do. It's so damned lively, its always chaotic and filled with people everywhere you go. Sure, the poverty is rather depressing at times...but there'll always be such impoverished elements in any major human hub. But the poor here, they're not like the bums and beggars back home. You can see the desperation in their eyes. The children beggars are aggressive little sonofabitches. It occured to me that these little scallywags could rake in a very sexy income for themselves in the states. Actually I don't think homeless children are condoned in the states, they become wards of the state instead. I don't care how much of a greedy yuppified self absorbed American you are, you'd be dumbstruck at the impoverished squatter cities that exist here in pockets.

I've written a ton. I've been subsisting on san miguel beer, mangos, and have been pampered like an Asian prince by my girlfriends family. The other day I got a foot spa for the first time in my life, and the funny lady speaking in Tagalog said that my feet were dry as a bone. She scrapped the layers of dead flakey skin off, smiling and cracking lighthearted jokes all the while. Everythings fucken cheap here, it'd blow your mind.

Life here can be so, well....Asian. It's really an entirely different universe. You have to toss aside all of your Americanism. There's this harshness, this no nonsense side to Philippines. My asian sensibilities understands it, but at times my Western half gets sort of...annoyed by various aspects. How Philippino's are so distrustful toward one another, sort of tactless in some regards, and very classist. Oh well, every race is imperfect in its own unique way...

My fingers are too tired to type more. Ciao...more when I get back!