The Strand

There are two types of travel writing. You have classic British Isles style, in which the author employs latinate language to convey a shuddering distaste for native customs and hygiene. And you have what I will call gonzo modern, in which the writer puts himself forward as the object of ridicule. Both styles focus far too much on bowel movements and misfortune, and ultimately fail to communicate the fullness of the traveling experience. But if you chronicle with the wide-eyed excitement of the truly engaged, you will be written off immediately as naive, and no publishing house worth its teeth will touch your manuscript. There has to be another way, but until I find it, I will continue to give the details of my pepper-fired liquid shits, and err--in my cultural sensitivity--on the side of the gonzo. Of course, there is also the mundane genre of expat bloggery, where the writer has ceased to be surprised by the oddnesses of his host country, and spends time complaining about the fact that the new Nicole Kidman film is only showing in that dingy, out-of-the-way cinema far from the trainline.

I don't want this record to take that turn, but the truth is--at some point, I stopped touristing Cebu City and started living there. I mapped all the alleyways and fruit stalls within 2 kilometers of my pensionne room, sniffed out a reliable source for swamp cabbage and cucumber salad, and settled into a routine. It went something like this: street food, jeepney, streetfood, google, naptime, wash, repeat. Of course, It wasn't my plan to take up residence in the Queen City of the South, but my flight to Surigao--province of my mother's birth--was cancelled twice, and I eventually resigned myself to the will of the fates.*