Tournament day 1

First day of competion and the tournament was to be held at the local mall. Now we're not talking American Malls here. These suckers have 4 floors. We're talking colossal. We showed up somewhat early for the ad-hoc "rules and officials" meeting, held downstars at a Starbuck outside. Consisted of groups in two rooms separated by glass and one guy communicating things back and forth. OK, to be expected. So with anticipation we headed to the mall location and staked out chairs.
And then we waited. If you're familiar with FMA, then you understand the term "Filipino time". Starting at 9AM could mean anywhere up to 2 hs later. I've even seen tournaments in CA advertised as "NO Filipino time". Having experienced and gotten used to this last time, I had low expectations. Little did I realize there's two floors of lower than that. By a mile way worse than I've ever seen. Many of the usual suspects that helped run these were not to be involved. I suspect there was some of the usual politics and the locals were wanting to run the whole thing as a matter of pride or whatever. Big mistake.
All the registrations from the day before had disappeared overnight. Everything was being hand written on legal pads by Pinay's who hardly spoke english. See any problems there?
I'd have to say this was again an auspicious start and even saying " I expected this" didn't cover it. Needless to say we were disgusted and bored. I consequently have very few pics at this point.
At one point I did sub as center judge for one of the forms rings for a while. That was fine, I don't mind judging. I knew eventually my division was coming (there wasn't too many left after what had to have been 4-5 hrs) so I excused my self. Sure enough, I was called. Which ring? Yep, same one. It was just Ernie (doing a traditional DP form) and I again. At least three of the judges were DP folks. End result was we both had all 9's and 9.5's. I think Ernie had one more 9.5. No surprises with that judging, NBD.

I ran a good form so I'm happy with that. They'll never see anything like it again.



A few hours later we got around to Cole's division.

I sticking with the debacle of how the tournament was run they decided (for what brilliant reason we never got) to combine the 14-15 with the 16-17. Nothing we could say would change that. Cole's first fight was with a 16 yr old Brit who had a serious push checking problem. Finally close to loosing a point at the thrid round. We had prepared for this eventuallity and Cole had no problem handling him despite getting continually shoved three steps back and knocked off his feet.

There was a bit of broughha after the third round as I took Cole's helmet off. Seems the Brit follow rules that do not allow removing the helmet until there is a winner declared. They wanted him disqualified. Typical stuff. Believe me, I know the rules backward and forwards. It's not in there but that's how they "practice" them in Europe. It's certainly not that way on Britian's website, I checked the rules on their site.

In the end it didn't matter. Cole won unanamously. For first place cole had to fight a guy who will be 18 in 6 months and was at least 3" taller.

Cole got accidentally disarmed in the first round and it proved to just not be enough to recover from. It was a good and close fight. I think ultimatly the other guy just had more reach and could come over the top more.




The end of a somewhat disappointing (in several ways) day. We headed back to the hotel around 9PM and never even got dinner.

Drool Bobbe, Drool

A while back Bobbe and I were discussing classic SciFi and MA books and the name Eric Lustbader came up.

While cleaning up after the water damage in our master bath and basement, I came upon these (undamaged) and knew Bobbe deserved to see a shot. This is just part of the collection, the rest are packed up somewhere. These are all hardcover. The book in the top center holds sentimental value, "Clan of Death:Ninja" published in '81 got me back into MA's in a big way again after I read it. I even had a cockatoo name Miko.

Having never read "The Faded Sun" trilogy, Bobbe you deserve this.

Cebu at last

After two glorious days in the jungle we made it to our home for the next 6 days, Cebu City.
The population of Cebu City is close to 800,000, almost as much of all of Bohol Island.
Last time we were here we spent 90% of our time in the city so I knew it would be somewhat of an abrupt stop from all the natural beauty of the islands.
But then again Arnis was the whole point of the trip and there alr different things to see and experience in Cebu that are just as significant.
We went from staying in a hut in the jungle to a five star hotel, the Crown Regency Towers. Tallest buildings in Cebu. Quite the change.

View of Cebu from the 9th floor balcony


The only requirement for the first day was registration at Doce Pares Headquarters and then the officials meeting elsewhere where we finally met up with folks we hadn't seen in a while.

3rd floor of the DP headquarters where I fought last time(It's much different at 7PM)
The roof where fights were held as well
DP HQ
After the meeting we took some time to walk around the local streets and experience all the amazing stuff for sale.
Cole was in heaven with the amazing variety of fruits for sale.


The stick in the middle is called a Pinga. A piece of bamboo or rattan with notches on the end for carying baskets, ect. But also a formidible weapon in the hands of KP Bong and one of the weapons taught in his system.
Bong bargaining for Rolex watches.
Final price? $5
Puppies for Sale!!!

So, these working girls were giving Cole the wink, wink, smile and a wave. Had to get their picture.
Bonsai for sale
The most sweet pineapple ever
Jackfruit. Not as bad as durian (more on that later) but not the best smelling. It's much better dried.
Honeycomb

Panglao

We headed out of Bohol in the morning for the beach resorts of nearby Panglao Island. Just a small island really. Not at all developed except for some big resorts on the beaches.

And what glorious beaches they are!

You could see the reef not too far off so Cole and his total lack of fear when in the water went free diving and had just way too much fun. Almost more than the tarsier.

Ted and Mary were staying one night on the beach so we abused ourselves of their accomodations and beach before we had to rush off to the pier for our 1PM ferry back to Cebu.

True to form in the PI, since gas prices are now around $6 a gallon for diesel, they cancelled 1/2 their schedules while we were in the jungle and we had to wait around until 4:45 for the last ferry.

May as well have lunch on one of the nearby floating restuarants.

It was pretty good but questionable food as several of us got sick. I'm swearing by the Pepto Cole and I took before everymeal. We never once got sick and yes, I was overly anal about it but fortune favors the prepared. I'm not going through 3 weeks of hot flashes again.
We got back into Cebu around 8PM utterly exhausted but thrilled from the past two days.

Having spent almost all my time in Cebu last trip, I knew what was coming next.

Tarsiers

Definitely the high point so far for Cole.

The Philippine Tarsier is only found on Bohol and and is considered one of if not the smallest primate in the world, as well as a threatened and protected species.

Note the innocuousjug in Bong's hand. Coconut wine, the local moonshine. I guess if it can be fermented someone will do it. Picked up from a local shack. Not terrible but does have a very earthy flavor. From what I can gather it is made by tapping the coconut on the tree similar to maple syrup.

We actually ran into a couple at the Nuts Huts from Wisconsin of all places. They were in their third month in SE Asia. She showed us pictures of the 6" spider in their room. I headed back alone to our room just a bit paranoid in the extreme dark. Feeling kinda silly searching the room when I got back.

It was only about 4" across but hanging from the bathroom ceiling was enough to freak me out. Good thing I was exhausted or I would have never slept.
Another beautiful morning on the river.

Rice harvesting
Two elderly gentlemen out for a leisulrely morning stroll. Nothing out of the ordinary? Note the large blades on their hips. The one of the left has a large Karit.

News Break

We interupt you from the current slide show for a short new flash.
The local Holland Sentinel did a nice peice in today's paper.

http://www.hollandsentinel.com/sports/x573703679/Sticking-with-it-Father-son-stick-fighters-compete-in-Philippines

Not a bad article. It did incorectly state that I won a Gold (it was silver). Not surprising because in the interview we barely talked about how I did.

That and I don't think I stated Mushtaq was in his late 60's but you know the media always adds ten years. Neither of our quotes were totally accurate but it's news reporting.
All in all not a bad piece.
We had them come out and film quite a bit of video to put on their site but for some reason it's not posted.