Latest / bit of a Rambler / 098 Ramble On

Transcript

098 Ramble On · bit of a Rambler

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai and I am a bit
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: of a rambler. I like to travel, learn and tell stories.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: And it's raining today, which I like, so I figured
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: i'd get on with one of these ramble On episodes.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: So there's there's been a lot going on, but I
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: just I haven't had time to talk about all of it.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I haven't even got to the wedding yet, have I.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Goodness gracious, well, this is what the ninety sixth episode.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I believe of the podcast as a whole, I'm using
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: all these ramble On I'm classifying them as bonus episodes
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: instead of full episodes. But I've been doing this podcast
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: for almost a year and we're almost at one hundred
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: episodes total with the main episodes and these bonus episodes.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited about that. I was really curious if
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I could maintain this schedule for a year, and as
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: long as I do one more ramble On the week
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: after this, I will have done it. And I was
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: going to stop doing it twice a week, or going
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: to stop releasing two episodes every week for the podcast,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: but I don't know. There's more engagement with the podcast,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and I kind of like having twice a week instead
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: of once a week, And there's other things I can
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: do besides creating an entirely new podcast every week, which
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I haven't decided if I'm going to stop doing, but
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: that does seem like eventually two original episodes every week
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: is going to be really difficult to maintain. So I'm
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: definitely getting to one hundred episodes with one hundred original
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: podcasts two per week. Following that, I'm going to introduce
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: some new things into the Ramble On episodes will be
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: re Ramble, where I'll release old episodes that are still
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: perfectly relevant. I'm still having these talks with people who
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: listen to the podcast. They'll still ask me, so can
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I and like, so where should I start? I'm still
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: getting those questions and can I travel? And where should
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I start traveling? Those are really important conversations to have.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: That's where everything starts. If you can take that first
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: step and start traveling, you're probably gonna be fine. You're
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: going to be set once you are traveling. It's very
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: easy to see how beneficial traveling is to most people.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna take some older episodes like those and
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: re release those, and that way I'll be able to
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: have content twice a week in some places if I
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: don't have time or I haven't scheduled a new episode
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: of this ramble on or whatever, and those will be
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: called reramble and then I am going to start doing interviews,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: although I have not decided if those should be full
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: episodes or honestly, if I'm gonna just start making everything
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: a full episode so I don't have to keep two
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: distinct numbering systems, which is a lot. I mean a
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: lot relative to the amount of responsibility I usually have.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe I've already changed this and the numbers are already
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: collated into a single numbering system. That does seem easier
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: if I just have one system rather than separating them
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: like this. It was a good idea in the beginning,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: but I feel like if it's if I just call
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: them ramble on episodes or re ramble and all the
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: all of those are always on Saturdays. I don't know.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Folks thinking through it, now, write me something if you
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: think that's a good idea. Is it kind of confusing?
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: But I have two separate full podcasts basically one informative
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: main one or do they seem the same to you anyway?
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Because I'm rambling on both of them. Anyway, The main
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: thing I wanted to say is that after one hundred episodes,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I will be adding more content to the Saturday episodes
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: in different forms. So I'll re release some older episodes,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: and maybe it'll be information on housing or flights I
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: found recently, just other stuff that won't be requiring me
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: to do a full Current Events episode in person every week.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I might do several episodes in schedule those ahead of time,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: because you know what I've realized recently, I really want
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: to start backpacking again, and I simply cannot do that
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: when I'm bound to the stretchers of the schedule that
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: I've given myself. And I gave myself one hundred episodes.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: And if you can do that, then you can start
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: tweaking whatever you want to tweak. Think after one hundred episodes,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to start banking more of these Saturday Current
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Events episodes so that I'll have a couple of weeks
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: or a month to go out walking into the woods,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: as is my wont But we're only on ninety eight.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't be saying, oh this knock on wood, knock
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: on wood, boom, knocked on wood, just to be safe
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: we'll reach one hundred soon, so there might be a
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: change up in the format and content of the Saturday episodes,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: and the Wednesdays will continue to just be new informative
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: travel stuff every every week. Okay, running to catch the bus.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I had to run to catch the bus to the
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: other terminal in the Manila Airport. Even though I thought
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I would probably make it on time. I didn't have
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: a ton of time, and the bus wasn't like pulling
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: away right when I ran up. But I applied this
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: to everything I do. Feel like running or putting in
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: the effort to do something usually works out for me,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: and it's good for my mindset. Like if I had
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: just strolled up to the bus and got in, that's okay,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: that's okay, If it works, that's fine. But if I
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: make a little bit of effort to get to the
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: bus that I have to get to get to the
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: next terminal, I feel a little better that I am
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: working to achieve something. Maybe that's retirement and I just
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: don't have to do anything, Like I don't have any
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: not goals, but I don't have any objectives that I
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: must meet. So maybe giving these little objectives or proving
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: to myself that I'm still showing effort to participate in
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: life makes me feel better, and trying to run to
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: the bus and getting it does sort of validate that
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: decision more than if I strolled casually up to the bus.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: What I will change is I will not be waiting
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: in line at the airports anymore. I started waiting in line,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: and I never used to. I would just wait until
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the end of the line showed up and then be
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the last person in line. But recently I've had to
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: several times in a row because of connections, I've had
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: to run there, and then I waited in line with
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: everybody else waiting in the ticket line. And that's never
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: made sense to me, because the line's still there. If
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: you're at the end, you're still in the line. You're
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: gonna get on the plane. But just because I've I
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: don't know. I think it's just because I ran into
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: so many issues with layovers being close connected that I
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: started waiting in line. And Jetstar is that on my
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: list here of ramble on things to talk about? Has
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: killed that desire in me. No, Jetstar's way later, Jetstar
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: is slow. That's a preview. I got to go in
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: order of this list or I'll get all messed up.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: So grammatical gender. I wrote that down because it's amazing
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: that there are so many languages that don't have grammatical gender,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: and then a bunch of other languages just chose to
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: introduce grammatical gender to words where they were just like
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: tennis you're a girl, and computers you're a boy. Boats
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: you're a girl. Like there's so many, so many languages
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: that were like comforters, that's a boy, but paper clips
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: are girls. That have just decided that inanimate objects are
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: boys or girls. Because I was just speaking Spanish for
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a year and now I'm back, you know, Indonesian and
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: then yeah, Japanese now, and I'm just like, oh yeah,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: how simple is this when you don't have to think
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: about whether your laundry bag is a boy or a girl? Like,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: no genders in language makes so much sense. So does
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: the no articles, no the or uh or anything, no
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: definite articles. That's pretty nice. It's interesting studying Japanese again. Anyway,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: wait order, Brownie Brittle. I was on the flight too
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Bucalid and there was a guy sitting with a lady.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: There was a couple, and he offered me his brownie
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: brittle because I guess or the girl said she didn't
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: want her brownie brittle, so she asked him to give
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: it to me, and I was like floored. I was like, oh,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: this is so kind. Are you sure? He's like yeah,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: take it, and so I ate it and it was great.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: It's just like thin, crunchy brownie. It was really good.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: And he told me that she wanted to share her
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: coca cola with me too, and I was like, oh,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: thank you, but I can't. I think this bag of
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: brownies there is already too much sugar for me. More
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: coke and I'm just gonna go into diabetic shock. And
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: he was like haha, yes, and he was like, my
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: mom doesn't drink a lot of sugar either, and I
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: was like, what, that's your mom. I didn't say that
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: because that would be inappropriate and weird, but in my
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: head I was like, oh, yeah, sugar's rough. And I
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: was like, she looks like she's younger than you. And
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: that was his and Filipino mom. He was huge. This
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: dude was like easily over two meters tall, and she
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: was a meter and a half. Maybe she weighed twenty
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: five percent of her son, who was a very large person,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: and it was really funny when he casually mentioned that
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: was his mom, because she looked younger than him, and
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: she was a tiny, tiny specimen of a human being
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: compared to what this young man had strapped into as
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: a giant human being strapped out as yeah, that's good,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: he strapped out into a giant anyway, that was very
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: nice of them to give me some brownie brittle and
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: offer me some soda. Maybe I looked super skinny because
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: I was on the flight to the Philippines right after
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Indonesius was running every day, and I was much thinner
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: than I became after I went to the wedding and
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: the Philippines. So while I was on the airplane, I
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: was trying to stay awake, I guess, or I just
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: wasn't really tired yet. And then I started looking at
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: a list because I have offline Wikipedia using Kiwix on
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: my phone, and it just has a list of all
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Filipino foods. And so for what I thought, I was
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: gonna like go through the list until I got tired,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: but I love food, so that obviously didn't happen. I
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: instead created this huge list of every dish, every Filipino
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: dish in the Wikipedia Filipino cuisine list that I wanted
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: to try, and that turned out like forty fifty dishes
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: out of I don't know one hundred. I don't want
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: anything sweet. There was a lot of sweet dishes, but
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: there's a bunch of stuff I have never heard of before.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: There was one where they beat a chicken to death
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: so that the blood suffuses its tissues so that the
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: flesh has a different taste because of the hematomas. Right, yikes, Anyway,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I would try that. I ended up writing this huge
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: list of all the different Filipino dishes I wanted to try,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: and it was I was like pretty proud of it.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, look at that. That's all the stuff.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: And I showed it to the people I was sitting
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: next to because we talked a little bit and they
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: asked what I was doing and they were like, wow,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: that's a long list. It's like, yeah, I got a
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: little obsessive over going through all of Filipino cuisine. And
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: then when I got off, I talked to my friends too,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: and Annie said she had heard of maybe ten percent
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: of the list. Most of it she knew what Tosino
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: was of course, and she knew what like sisig was,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: which is very popular, but she didn't know most of
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the additional Filipino dishes according to Wikipedia. And I went
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: to a bunch of local restaurants around Bacalad and they
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: all had cecig and a couple had tosino. But other
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: than that, there were not many traditional Filipino I think
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: I would have to look for a specifically traditional Filipino restaurant.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And I just it was such a whirlwind couple of
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: weeks with the wedding and hanging out with friends I
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: hadn't seen in two years, and trying grilled be loot.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I got to talk about that that
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I didn't end up going to any traditional houses. I
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: just went to all the restaurants my friends and their
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: kid and their parents in laws wanted to go to.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: And that was funny enough, and it's still great food.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: There was like grilled ribs and grilled chicken and tasty
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: food everywhere, but it wasn't exactly a lot of traded
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, okay, so what's the barbecue in the Philippines
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: called in Asaul. Yeah, in Inisol is about as traditional
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Filipino food now as it gets, but it just wasn't
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: any of the like old traditional foods that would be
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: made back in the day that were in this big
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: list I saw. It seems like modern food. There's a
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: lot more fast food in the Filipino cuisine these days
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: than there may have been before. A lot of the
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: older ones look like they take a really long time
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: to cook. There was one where they make a cone.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: It's the national dish, I think, a cone of rice,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: and it's surrounded by a whole bunch of little Filipino dishes.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I really wanted to try that, but I didn't see
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: it until only a few days before I left, and
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: then I had to go to that buffet if I
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: mentioned that yet, and there was just too much going on,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: so I didn't get to try as many Filipino traditional
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: dishes as I like. But I did make an effort
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: to walk around to the local restaurants where I was,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and I did manage to get a few sisig and
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: a few soups and a few like local dishes that
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to find in any other country. I
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: don't think I'm gonna see sisig anywhere else. There must
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: be equivalents in other countries. Of course, but this was Yeah,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: it was cool. I got to try a few of
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: the dishes on my way too long food list. Oh,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: also a couple other things. On that flight over to Bacalad.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: There was a girl who was not a good flyer,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: and that's not fair. She's thirty five thousand feet in
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the air. We shouldn't say that. She was scared of
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: being thirty five thousand feet in the air in a
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: metal tube that is somehow in the air. It's crazy.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: It makes total sense to be scared, and she was scared.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: But we were both sitting at the end of the
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: plow was the second to the last row, and her
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and her friend, I believe they were both Irish, were
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: at the very back of the plane. And if you
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: don't know, the front of the plane in the back
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: of the plane are very different in terms of turbulence.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: If you're near the front of the plane, you're not
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: gonna feel much. If you're in the back of the plane,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: you're gonna feel a lot. You can imagine if you've
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: ever been like in the back seat versus the front seat,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: or the driver's seat versus the back seat of a vehicle.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: If you turn the car the guy's in the back
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: feel to turn a lot more. That's what turbulence. So
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: if you're in the back, there's gonna be a lot
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: more turbulence. Then you'll feel up in the front of
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the plane. And this girl was really worrying about it,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: and I was like, I should tell her it's it's
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: not this bad all the time, and like, we are
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: at the back of the plane. And then her friend
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: brought up, like a stewardess was saying to her that
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: it's because we're in the back of the plane. And
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: I was like, perfect, because I didn't want to intrude
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: in their conversation, but then she brought it up, and
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: so I leaned around and was just like that stewardess
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: completely correct. If you are at the front of the plane,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: you're gonna feel way less turbulence. And I told them
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: a little car example, and I wanted to share that too,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: just in case if any of you are listening to
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: this and are going to go traveling and you're really
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: worried about plane turbulence, it might be worth it for
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: you to pay the twenty bucks or whatever to get
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: a seat near the front of the plane. Because it's
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: night and day. In terms of turbulence, I'm very used
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: to it, but obviously if you're traveling for the first time.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: This was the Irish girl's second flight, I think, the
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: one who was worried about flying, and the first one
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: had already had turbulence, and this one was apparently worse.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: And both times they were at the back of the plane.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: So yeah, after I corroborated what her friend had heard,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: she was like, yeah, I think I'll definitely be getting
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: tickets near the front of the plane. So if you're
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: worried about turbulence, get tickets near the front of the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: plane or midplane, and you'll see like, Okay, this is
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: what turbulence is, but it won't feel as crazy as
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: it does near the back of the plane. Where any
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: the further you are to the back of the plane,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the more you'll feel like any bumps or turbulence at all.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: It's still usually not crazy. I'm almost always at the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: back of the plane. Oh that's not true, but I'm
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: at the back of the plane often because I fly
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: often and I never select my seat. I always just
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: get random seats assigned, and even when I'm all the
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: way in the back, Yeah, I'll bump or shake, but
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: there's I don't know, I'm just used to it. I
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: guess I'm just used to it at this point. It
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: doesn't bother me too much. In the beginning of traveling.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: It makes perfect sense to want to avoid turbulence until
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: you're used to it, because you'll still feel it a
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: little in the front in the middle of the plane,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: just not as much as all the way in the back. Also,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I have to mention this, I was sitting directly behind
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: skinny Dwayne Johnson. It wasn't actually the Rock, but this
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: dude had such he looked like the Rock, Like before
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Captain America goes into that machine that makes him buff.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: It looks like Dwayne Johnson before he became buff. Was
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: sitting right in front of me, bald, same facial features,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: and I was almost it's like, oh, is he taking
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: a time off to whatever? But I was like, no,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: he can't get that skinny. But I was sitting right
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: behind a skinny version of the Rock, and I was
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: really happy about that. I got an emergency row seat,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: which kind of nice because I can stretch out, but
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I don't really I don't need that extra room. And
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: then I don't have a place like to take off
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: my shoes under the seat in front of me, which
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: depending on the flight I am on, I will totally do.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: If everyone else is kicking their shoes off, like they
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: were going to the Philippines, I will absolutely kick my
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: shoes off and just have my socks on. But if
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: everyone is keeping their shoes on, I usually keep my
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: shoes on. So I was going to take off my shoes,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: but then the stewardess asked me to seat myself in
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: the exit row because I was traveling by myself, and
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: I guess there's not many solo travelers or relative to
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: people traveling in a group, and they want solo people.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe we're more rational in the event of any emergency,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: we won't be trying to take care of everyone we
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: brought with us. We'll be focusing on the emergency procedures
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: that I do occasionally go over. I read the little
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: pamphlet they give you every now and then. So it
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: was nice because when you get the emergency row and
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: you have the extra leg room because it's the emergency row,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: people do stare at you jealous, and that's kind of
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: fun because you're like, hey, there's nothing I could do
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: they wanted me here. But everyone who is cramped into
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: a seat just looks at you like, ah, must be nice.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: And that is kind of funny when that happens. But
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: for the most part, I kind of like the regular
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: seats better than the emergency seat. I don't know. I
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: don't know if it matters to me at all, To
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: be perfectly honest, I think it's really just if I
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: take my shoes off, no one will really notice if
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I kick them under the seat in front of me,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: versus if there's no seat in front of me to
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: put my shoes under. Belgian friend, okay, okay, there was Belgian.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: There was a Belgian in Where was he? It doesn't matter,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. We're almost off the plane. So this
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: was in the last airport I was in, which was
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: probably Manila. But he noticed me when I plugged in.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I guess there weren't a lot of non Filipinos in
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: the airport, and he asked me how I was doing
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and what I was doing, and I explained because some
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: people are just like, hey, what's up, and you just
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: like just flying too a call it okay, But then
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: some people are really curious, how are you traveling? And
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: so they ask multiple questions in a row, and that's
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: what this guy was doing. He asked what I was
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: up to and then I was and he was like,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: oh cool, why are you going for a wedding and
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: you have time off work? And I was like, no,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: I actually am retired. And he was like, really, how'd
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: you do that? And he was had a lot of
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: follow up questions. So I started telling my an abridged
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: version of it, which is basically, teach English investor money retire,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: and he started talking about how he wanted to do
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: something else because he'd been living in the Philippines now
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: for several years and he was working as a security
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: guard sometimes and he wasn't making a ton of money
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: because it was like a local job in the Philippines
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: where the salary is not very high. But he didn't
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: have a work visa, so that's the only thing he
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: could get. And I went into my spiel. I was
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: just like, hey, man, if you take this, and he
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: was Belgian, so his accented English like it was accented strong.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: But there are so many jobs even like in China,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: outside of China, Thailand, sealthea Stagia. I was like, there
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: are so many countries where if you get this certification,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the TEFL certification, even with your accent at English, if
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: you improve it, great, If not, you'll still be able
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: to find a job that will pay you more than
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: what he said he was making. He was only making
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: sixteen thousand pass a month at this job, and that's
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: less than three hundred USD a month, so he could
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: easily even going Actually, he could probably do this in
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the Philippines. The guy, I don't know, man, I want
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: to help people, and it's and I do. I still
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: talk to them. It's just everyone, so many people are
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: stuck in this rut. I don't know if that. Maybe
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the Philippines doesn't pay English teachers as much. But even
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: if he went to Thailand, where the pay is relatively low,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: even Cambodia, where the pays relatively low, he would still
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: be making triple. He'd certainly be making close to US
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a month and he could get the
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Oh he's not a native English speaker, that's right, that's
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: what it was. He said. He looked into English speaking,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: but since he wasn't a native speaker, he couldn't find
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: a job. And I was like, get the TEFEL certificate,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: you will get a job, because he also had a
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: four year college degree, and that's the only other thing
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: people ever ask, Like, the TEFL is more important generally
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: for finding a job, but the only other thing they'll
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: ask is if you have a two or four year degree,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: and he either had a two or four year I
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: can't remember, but I was like, okay, then you're all set.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: There are a billion and a half English language learners
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: you can teach online they and I gave him a
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: list of the online ones from a LEMMI post I made, like,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: these ones don't even you don't even need the TEFOL
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: certificate for this, and you'll if you're only making sixteen
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: thousand Filipino pesos, you'll make more on these platforms. Even
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: if you're teaching at five dollars per hour. You'll only
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: have to work fifteen hours a week to pass the
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: salary you're making now, and you won't have to leave
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: the room. So I gave this Belgian guy a bunch
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: of information about which TEFOL academy he should go to
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: and take part in, or where he could find the
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: accredited ones online, and I reassured him. I was like
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I'm going to the wedding I'm going to right now
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: is a Chinese person who speaks great English and a
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Filipino girl who speaks great English. They're both English teachers
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: and their accent is about as strong as yours, So
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: you'll be fine. And he got really excited. But once
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: he realized he could do it, Like, once he believed me,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: that's when people start being like, but I can't actually
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: because so he was like, but I bet I can't,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: like take my Filipino girlfriend with me, right It's really
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: difficult to travel to China if I want to teach
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: English there, And I was like, no, the one I'm
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: talking about is Filipino, she lives there. It's not very
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: difficult at all. It's the most difficult visa process in
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the free world, I will say, like China, But that
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: just means it takes two hours to fill out the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: visa application form instead of forty minutes. If you fill
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: out the form, you'll still be able to travel there,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: especially right now. China's opening up their immigration a lot recently.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I think Filipinos actually have ten days free travel now.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Oh no, they weren't included in the update. So but
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: there are plenty of Filipinos living there teaching English, like
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: a lot. I worked with many of them, and I
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: told him, yeah, she can get a visa over there too.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: But the reason I'm classifying that as a like pushback
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: sort of question instead of a genuine question is because
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: he was just complaining about his Filipino girlfriend. Three sentences
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: earlier in our discussion, he was saying that he wants
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: to like move on because well whatever, all whatever relationship
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: reasons anyone has. But then three sentences later he's like,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: but can I take my girlfriend with me? And it's like, man,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: you have the whole life in front of you. You're
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: just telling me about how much you're not really into
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: this girl. There's another three billion people who you might
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: be interested in in other countries. But again, it makes
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: perfect sense everybody. I certainly wanted to I wanted to
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: know way more before I went to China and started
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: teaching English. I just didn't have I was kind of
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: at the end of my rope living in the US.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I hated the retail corporate, the serve customer service culture
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I was a part of there. It felt like a
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: terrible way to begin a career, and it felt completely
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: dead end, and this guy working for three hundred USD
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: a month in the Philippines felt trapped in his own way. So,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: but he was working for three hundred USD a month,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: even if he's working at the cheapest online thing that
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: pays five dollars per hour, he works twenty hours a
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: week and he's hang on, let me check, two hundred
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: and seventy five US dollars. So he's making two hundred
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: and seventy five. So if he works like twenty two
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: hours per week roughly teaching English online, if he's only
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: getting five dollars per hour, which is the lowest I
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: have ever heard anyone get paid to teach English, even
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: non native speakers, he's still beating his salary now working
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: half as much, and it's going to be way less
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: trouble to just sit in your share at home and
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: repeat primary colors and basic sentences. Okay, So that guy
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: was really excited to meet me, and we talked, and
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I gave him all the basic information I could how
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: to get the TEFEL certificate. I showed him on my
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: phone and I said, these are websites, these are real
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: jobs right now. I showed him like their pay, which
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: is crazy high and just more than the pay. I
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: just want to show him these are jobs that are
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: available right now, and there are a ton of them.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: There's not as many since Xijinping like stopped K nine
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: English in K through nine, like the English used to
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: be mandatory in China elementary schools. It's not mandatory anymore,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: so there's not as many opportunities. But that there are
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: still thousands of jobs available for people with the TEFL
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: certificate who are English speakers. And he seemed pretty excited
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: about it, so I hope it worked out for that guy.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: You can get that TEFL certificate in a couple weeks,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: so if he was working on it at all, he
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: could already have the TEFL certificate. He could already have
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: a job paying him if he has the TEFL certificate
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: much more likely close to ten dollars an hour, in
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: which case he only has to work ten hours a
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: week or a couple hours what is at one point
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: five hours a day to beat his current salary. It's just, man,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: poor people feel trapped, and I feel bad, and it's
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: my favorite thing to talk about, so it was good.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I hope things work out for that guy, and I
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: hope he doesn't feel as trapped as he did before.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: So best of luck, my Belgian friend. Okay, that's the
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: last airport stuff. We're in the Philippines, folks. You know what, Well,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: let's just start the Philippines on the next one. We're
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: already half an hour in and it's all gonna be
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Filipino stuff coming in. I haven't been to the Philippines
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: in a decade, so this will be an interesting introduction.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: This will be an interesting episode because it won't sound
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I had a lot of ideas about the Philippines. Let's
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: talk about him in the next episode. You can talk
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: to me a bit of a rambler at gmail dot
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: com or a bit of a rambler on Lemy or
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Blue Sky. I'm always here because I'm just hanging out.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I hope you're having a great day. Thank you for listening,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: and I will talk to you soon.