Here comes jet lag

and why looking it up prior to the trip never even crossed my mind, given my decade of training as a research assistant, beats me.

Yesterday was the worst of it all. i barely had 3 hours of sleep, total.

The morning of our arrival (June 14), the people from the office met with us for a half-hour briefing and to give us our per diem, plus the five or so tokens for the public transportation around Toronto. each token costs about three dollars but they were given to us for free. When i received mine, i kept it aside, knowing i'll never have the chance to use it. Having a different "mapping" system, i easily got confuse as the "briefers" started on the routes and schedules of the buses, street cars and subways. The only thing i remember from what they told us is that we should always never forget to get the transfer ticket from the bus driver. i imagined that the token slot is like an ATM where you insert the coin and you get a printed receipt (transfer pass) in return. The transfer pass is valid for at least half a day (i think), on one route, regardless of the mode one takes. one person can take all three different modes and still be charged the same. How the pass becomes null and void (other than its natural expiration), i still have no idea. I never really hoped to try the public transport. I'm too disoriented about easts and wests and norths and souths to even want to understand the routes.

I only had 3 hours of sleep before the briefing and my ass is still sore from the plane ride.

We were told to get everything we need from shoppers drug. it's technically a pharmacy -- on steroids. it's like the Mercury drug and Watsons we find in Iloilo malls except that the technology Shoppers use, from their doors to their cash registers, are definitely of first world origin. Early on (walking our way to Mcdonald's Spadina), my colleague gave us a short tour of the 3 major blocks from our office to the Spadina Avenue, telling us where to the cheap restaurants we could eat in. There was the Hero Sandwiches, Tim Horton's (where i definitely can get breakfast of donuts and coffee for under 6 dollars) and Zupa, which is just at the corner of the block adjacent to our hotel. I was hoping he'd say something about finding a Filipino carinderia but, no.

this is, btw, how my hotel room looks like, 3 days after i've roomed in:

that's the fridge, microwave and coffeemaker at the corner, a large flat screen TV that i barely use and the messy desk. 

and then my messy bed. because i was jet lagged, i slept at the time everyone should be out and refused to be disturbed by the house cleaning. On the second day, the cleaning lady insisted she just make up my bed and clean the toilet, at least, while i rested.  

View from my hotel window. 

We had complimentary breakfast at the hotel morning of June 14. I wolfed down the fresh melons and honey dews, tried the bacon (too salty) and sausage (too chicken doggy) and a large mug of coffee. lots of water.

At the meeting, the briefers asked me if i was tired. I'm not sure what to say because i certainly felt good but i didn't know anything about jet lag so i think i was probably tired but just didn't know it.

The briefing started at 10:30am, and we're 12 hours behind the Philippine time. At home, if i don't get sleepy by 9 pm, i'm still able to stay up till 11 pm. My sleeping patterns though changed in the last nine weeks and i usually nap for an hour when i get home from office, to my kid's disappointment. Technically, i should be very sleepy now.

Our hotel is located in downtown Toronto, about three blocks away form the CN Tower. The briefers suggested that if we still have some energy, we could go see the tower. The temperature on that day was  warm but not humid, maybe somewhere in the 20s, and it's been suggested that it's best to go up on this kind of day. I didn't want to go, frugal that i am (frugal, not stingy), i didn't really feel like spending  my 30-40 dollars on something tourist-y. What i'd prefer to do is walk around downtown to shoot, experiment with public transport, but none in the group apparently wanted that. I guess no tourist in his right mind would do that on his first day in Toronto (esp. when he is just 3 blocks away from the tower) .

The mantra that "we'd probably never have the chance to try it again," always works on everyone. But i've been to too many disappointing places convinced by this mantra. I didn't know why it will not happen again this time; bursting my bubbles. But everyone wanted to go and i felt responsible (although not obliged to) for seeing them through knowing that majority in my group are nearing their ultimate seniority.

this is inside the elevator on the way to the viewing deck. 

Some stadium. (or what i call Guess What Building This Is.)

My colleague also convinced me to join (because for one, he wasn't joining, he was going somewhere else) because it is definite that in an hour everyone would be raring to go back to the hotel and rest. We're still technically on Filipino time and as expected by 2 pm i was already exhausted. I badly wanted to go back to the hotel and sleep. We separated in small groups, those who took the basic and those who went for the sky pod.

I'm cheap. I took the most basic package (27 dollars) because the guy at the ticket counter said the waiting time to the sky pod is at LEAST 30 minutes, and because one of the briefers said that we really don't need to get the whole package because most of it would just go to the museum tour and the meal that comes with it-- which, he said, we don't really need if we're only after the view.

We took the slow walk home in the warm afternoon Toronto sun. It felt like 9am on my skin. Before heading to the hotel we dropped by for a quick lunch at Zupa, talked with the Chinese owner and his Sri Lankan chef/waiter. He's been managing the Zupa for two years ("It's owned by my wife, I'm just his cashier here," he explained and smiled) but the small Mediterranean/Greek restaurant has been around for at least 30 years. Lee, his name, said that it's been passed on to several owners and when the ownership came to him, he never really thought of changing the name or the menu.

"Because people already know what Zupa is. They don' care about who da owner is. Or whoze bahind the cash register."

Interesting guy, the owner. I'm hoping to get his portrait on film before we leave for Niagara.
(I am still embarrassed to take portraits. sigh.)

I took the rest of by pork souvlaki meal back to the hotel and crashed.

The souvlaki that's more than i can eat and a recent favorite "pop".
(I intentionally tried hiding the brand of the "pop" but my lunch mate stopped me before i could shoot, repositioned the can and said "now that's a picture.")

I slept from 3:30pm to 7pm, awakened by the bright evening sun. I though I've slept through the morning but was severely frustrated when i saw the bedside clock. I am still on the same day, and only 3.5 hours have passed. I tried going back to sleep but couldn't. The sun was just too bright. after tossing for half an hour i got out and checked my messages and i got nothing. Eh, people have forgotten i existed. I went to wash my face. My colleague called me up and asked if i was up for a walk to the chinatown, four blocks away from out hotel.

I changed to jeans, my hooded pull over and my hiking shoes. We walked for about an hour looking for an asian grocery store but it's almost dark and most stores were already closed. At 9pm the sun was just setting. People were just coming out to grab some dinner. We passed by a still-open chinese bakery and saw a picture of rice cake. Thinking they might have "puto", we went in to find the staff preparing for closing time. They've ran out of rice cake. and the rice cake is definitely not puto.

It's almost 10 pm for chrissakes. what do we expect?

On our way back, we grabbed some (extra small) coffee (IF YOU'RE THINKING OF SURVIVING THROUGH A JET LAG, WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?) at Tim Horton's and went back to the hotel. I left my colleague on the hotel sidewalk to smoke the rest of his cigarette away. In my room, i reheated my souvlaki and forced myself to finish at least the remaining fries. Three days of this kind of food and I'm close to vomiting. I'm dreaming of a bowl of steaming tambo and laswa and rice. and fried aloy.

I'll definitely never survive a year in this city.

Again, if you do want to get over your jet lag why would you eat dinner at 11pm?
Not if you knew.

I was certain that the next day's gonna be hell because sleep never came until 4am and never stayed beyond 8am. The next bad news is that i woke up to see that my body decided to keep on harassing me.


next: riding the streetcar, subway and bus to Markham City, finding Nissin Seafood Noodle at No Frills and dinner of grilled shrimp in a Fil-Canadian house.


*****

Time travelling to Toronto (two)

(all the T's in the world. post title dedicated to ABD who earlier made me form a sentence with all the words starting in M)

I got this alert from google mail about a suspicious sign-in attempt to my google account:

Someone recently tried to use an application to sign in to your Google Account, "insertheremyemail"@gmail.com". We prevented the sign-in attempt in case this was a hijacker trying to access your account. Please review the details of the sign-in attempt:

Thursday, June 14, 2012 7:06:47 AM GMT
IP Address: 173.243.46.194
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada 

Reminding me that yes, it's been two days and i am still jet lagged.

-----

Not everyone in our group made it to the domestic flight to Toronto. A couple from our group whom PAL failed to issue transfer pass (for the connecting flight) had to stay behind and wait for the next flight. The whole flying thing started to feel like Survivor. I wonder how many survivors we'd have by the 30th. 

This is how the rest of our side of the Vancouver airport runway looked at 6:30 pm. The in-flight temperature in PAL was freezing and I readily grabbed the time to sunbathe at the warm early evening sun (feels like 3pm on my skin) before the plane took off. 

That wing belongs to our plane and the tail with the maple leaf is by another plane. Then there's pine trees and way way way back there, where the horizon and the clouds are, is the ocean (or was it a lake).
It says June 14, 9:23 am -- i haven't yet figured out how to set the date. 

I don't know what this is but i think it would have looked great shot on film.

Then it's about 4.5 more hours to Toronto. Plane finally took off few minutes before 7pm and about 15 minutes into the flight i took this shot:

Add caption

There was an even more beautiful scene of snow-capped mountains before this but the seat-belt sign was still on and we were not yet allowed to use electronic devices. 

The plane for our domestic flight is just the same as the one we had for domestic flights in the Philippines. Cebu Pac's newer planes are even much cleaner compared to this but there's like free-flowing liquid stuffs though. We're not served free "lunch" anymore (technically it's dinner in Vancouver time) but the juices and the water were provided all through out the flight. The attendants seem to be going around every 15 minutes to ask who wants water or juice or anything to drink. sometimes they go around showing off the food for purchase menu. I was still too bloated to want something Canadian to eat and this time, I already begged of the tempting offer for apple juice. And because i didn't have any CAD with me. Poor that i was, i know that if i got separated from the group i'd starve to death. 

"Just water," I told the attendant with red hair. 

The amazing thing though, oneof our group members just right after when we the seat belt sign was turned off stood up to go through on of her bags in the overhead bin and produced her amazing packed meal of native chicken adobo and boiled rice. Did i already say she was amazing? There were just the two of us in our row and sharing her meal, i suddenly want to head home. I wasn't really prepared for this trip. I've been too busy with office for the last 2 months and was really unable to attend to the things domestic. 

The Indian lady who tried stealing my seat (mentioned in the previous post) was seated at the aisle seat of the row across us. Just as we were allowed to eat she started tearing her chapatti in little pieces and doused them in yellow-colored dahl (i think). She would stare at us--at me-- the rest of the time in the flight that she was awake. She's probably mistaking me for an Indian-indian. To her left was a black girl in long braided hair (like Bo Derek's) eating chinese take out dinner. 

Meanwhile, the attendants routinely checked on us, so tall and skinny in their dark blue, almost black, uniform and highlighted, very dry hair. One of them looked like the present-day Cyndi Lauper. I chatted with her on my way back from the toilet, waiting for the aisle to be passable from the trolley traffic. It was when i had the chance for a quick glance at the pantry area and although the ladies were super nice and attentive, their pantry was halfway to being a disaster. 

I slept some more on the plane. my knees were numb from hours of sitting and my butt feels like I've walked on them for days--hard and sore. 

I woke up 30 minutes to landing time. It was already dark. I can tell inhabited areas below by the clustered bright city lights disconnected from each other by the wide, dark and empty patches of uninhabited lands. We've past another time zone again. 

We were not provided free headset (it's 3 dollars a piece) so my group/seat mate watched Smurf in mute. Just before i dozed off I saw large expanse of brown, seemingly dry mountains and farm lands. They must be the desert/arid area of midwest. I didn't take any pictures of them. Maybe on our way back i could start rabidly taking pictures of everything. 

I've finally learned how to adjust the time settings of my borrowed camera.

We made it to Toronto about 1:30 in the morning. The airport was so huge and clean, because maybe it's 1am and most stores are already closed. At the carousel, waiting for our luggage, one of us tried to get a cart but it costs 2 dollars, 1 cart to use. Eh?

At the arrival, there was a large Indian guy from the limo service waiting for us. When we finally went out in the waiting area, we were met with the 15 degrees Toronto early morning summer chill. So I thought I'd really freeze to death by the time we get to Nova Scotia having been warned earlier by our project coordinator that it's much colder there, with temperatures going as low as 10 degrees. Shet. i'd really freeze to death here.

Then out came from the arrival area, a group of college kids, the girls in hot pants and flimsy tank tops, spaghetti strapped shirt. the boys were equally dressed for the beach. holy shit. they were fetched by a long limousine, driven by some white guy. We were fetched by a two 6-seater dodge SUVs, all driven by Indians. Or punjabs. or maybe sri lankas. you know the type. Our driver was probably sikh indian because he had an orange turban wrapped on his head.

Our hotel is located near the financial district of Toronto. Everything's a little expensive near the area but there are few stores that sell affordable meals, and it's also near a Tim Horton's. It's also about 4 blocks away from the CN Tower (which we visited yesterday but I won't be talking of here). We went out at 3 am to grab some coffee and late dinner to find out that everything's closed. Tim Horton's closes at 11 pm everyday. We ended up eating at a McDonald's branch staffed by a couple of Filipinos, one i mistook for Chinese until she greeted us with: "Ano po sa inyo?" and smiled warmly. whoa. We're really everywhere.

This part of McDonald's, since it's near the university belt, is frequented by drunk college kids in early mornings coming home from night of clubbing. So while lining up, a drunk college boy, thinking I was a teenybopper, greeted me and told me I was really very pretty. Creep. The girls were also dressed flimsily. Their tolerance for cold, it's amazing. Also in our line were two hobos, one with a guitar (or maybe he's a street singer) and the other with a wild spiky gray dreadlocks.

I tried bringing back to the hotel the water i got from the store (kasi sayang) because i wasn't so sure how tap would taste. I had to leave it by the newsstand though because it started getting so cold i had to hide my hands somewhere (and because i'm already shivering from the cold).

I was able to sleep at 430 am and will try to recover from jet lag for the next coming days. We were given three days to adjust. But mine might take longer.





FIN.

Time travelling to Toronto

The 20-day tour in toronto and nova scotia hasn't even started and i was already tired. I have been on this tour for the last 2 months facilitating this, liaising between our main office and the participants. 

i left Iloilo in June 13 to catch the 10 am flight to Manila, together with the (bigger) batch of earlier "departers". Some were booked on later flights because they had a different route.

Our group was scheduled to fly to Toronto, from Manila, 7pm of June 13, going through Vancouver, BC on a 2-hour lay-over. Our group will be time-travelling, if you may call it. We gained a day, arriving in Vancouver about 2 hours earlier of the same day we left the Philippines. What we, however, gained, we will lose when we return home. We will leave Toronto in June 29/June 30, to arrive in the Philippines July 1.

Have i already mentioned it is my first time travelling outside the Philippines? As expected, i didn't know that the check-line was 10,000 kilometers long. it took us about 1.5 hours to get to the counter. we did some more lining up at the immigration, then at the security checks (there were about two major checks) then the final long wait. Incidentally, the flight was delayed by more than half an hour, making the wait even longer. The cramped waiting idea made it worse.

and oh, did i say the lay over in Vancouver is just two hours? I imagined that we now had to run for our connecting flight to Toronto considering that we will be arriving late and I was pretty sure there will be more lining ups to do once we get to Vancouver.

at 54 minutes past 6 pm we finally entered this gate:

and took off about 45 minutes past 7 in the evening, June 13.


***


Flight to Vancouver from Manila takes about 11.5 hours. Vancouver is 3 hours advance than Toronto, making it about 9 hours delayed from the Philippine date. Despite the 11-hour travel, we are still expected to arrive in Vancouver at 4:45 pm of June 13, technically about 3 hours earlier than the date we left the Philippines. As I said, we time traveled. our plane was sucked into a black hole with the time-space continuum already distorted, we were able to bend time. Which is somehow, good news, we'll be a day younger.

The bad news though is, our expected boarding time in Air Canada flight to Toronto is 5:35pm. Given the time we had to spent in the border security and the time to gather our luggage, sprinting likely the best way to make it to our flight. Yes, it was a check through flight but somehow the having to pass through border security rendered that service null and void. We still have to gather our luggage, as instructed by the PAL check in counter person, present it to customs/immigration and go through the whole security check for the nth time. it gets pretty tiring. and one would wish s/he travelled naked so she doesn't have to go through all the frisking and the "de-belting" and the bag scanning...

The security personnel at the Vancouver airport were friendly though. and most of them looked asian. large asians.


****

The in-flight food was terrible. i barely ate them.

We were served late dinner. Some creamed chicken (with rice) and cold penne salad and maja blanca pana cotta (that i also barely touched).

Then i had interrupted sleep every 2 hours. all the in-flight movies, I've already seen. I tried watching (shyet, i forgot) an action movie but was distracted by my seatmate who kept on asking for things and my attention, when every one, including me was trying to sleep, and with the cabin lights already turned off. When he finally fell asleep, I found myself not able to so I "watched" 500 days of Summer. Didn't, actually. I just put on that movie and when it started, turned the monitor off. I realized this kind of "noise" puts me to sleep. when the movie was done i listened to Oasis' What's the Story Morning Glory, some brazilian stuff and Madonna's True Blue album (this reminded me of ABD--this album is so 80's synth).

****

At 2am (philippine time) i awakened and decided to brush my teeth. I noticed there was some light coming through the crack of the window shades. We've crossed the international date line and our time travel was done. We're back to the morning of 13th.

I had the Oasis, Brazilian bossanova and Madonna on loop and dozed off some more.


***

We were served breakfast at what seemed to be already lunch hour (but still 8 am on my watch). I asked for fish fillet and waited for it to surprise me. Surprise, it was stewed milkfish belly with 3 button mushrooms and a wedge of tomato. I only ate the mushrooms. Then on the side was a creamy dollop of scrambled eggs--this one i was able to finish half, and half a portion of the rice. Dessert was almond jelly and 3 pieces of canned lychees. I finished the desert. it seemed the only edible food for me. There was the omni-present raisin and walnut roll then a piece of ensaymada, imported from Red Ribbon.
I learned i should not be drinking orange juice during long flights because the juices i took from the 2 meals made me all gassy. Although i didn't fart a lot during the flight (or so i thought), my belly was all bloated and it made sitting very uncomfortable.

We made it to Vancouver at 4:30 pm. Lined up for clearing at the boarder security, waited some more for our luggage, past another security checked that collected the immigration forms, then off we sprinted to the check in counter for our last leg of the flight.
Lining up for the boarder clearance, i had a CHANCE to panic learning that the participants did not bring any printed copy of the immigration letter that our office provided them, and that I only had with me five (5) copies. My boss expected me to have like at least 12-15 copies to give each of them, and I thought we only needed at least one for one group representative (my boss) to present to the immigration officer.

I panicked.

But I was right. The one copy did it for all of us.

***

The passengers from the PAL flight from Manila help up the Air Canada flight to Toronto. Fortunately, none of the passengers clapped their hands when we finally boarded. I had about 1 minute to panic when i noticed that 4 in our group have not yet boarded, panicked some more when I realized that one of them was carrying my TWO hand-carry bags ( i had to go somewhere earlier and left with the group my bags). I only had with me my passport and boarding pass for the Toronto flight. No money, no ID, no wallet, no nothing. not even a piece of candy.

The indian lady who tried to steal my seat thinking we weren't gonna make it kept on staring at me. Finally she asked if it was my seat she was sitting on. I told her i'm "F" but didn't move to take over the seat because I am without my essential things.

What if the plane decides to leave without those four?
I'm doomed.
It's gonna be a banged-up abroad moment.

After what seemed like forever they finally arrived and I was finally able to sit down and shoot this scene:

14 June 9:29 am Philippine time. but it's actually half past 6 pm of June 13, Vancouver time. 

Coming up: the Vancouver-Toronto leg, early morning dinner at Mcdonald's at Spadina Avenue and walking back to hotel freezing my ass in the 14 degree early morning chill. . 


FIN.

"Film photography all day, you bastards!"

as they say in film guerilla.


all these photos were from october - november 2011.

Film leader. one day i will make a photo collection of all my film leader shots.

the shadow i think is from my camera strap. 

same shadow, same camera strap.

church by the airport.

las pinas bamboo organ church (and so are the succeeding church shots.)

I went to attend the green urbanism conference. this is the view from my hotel window. i was on the 7th floor.

this is the view of the building across my hotel room. just as i was done with the shot. a plane flew by its rooftop.

unoccupied spaces inside the domestic airport.

She was a hundred and 1.

Fin.