EM: The Columbus In All Of Us

Near Gallery Uffizi in Florence

They discovered continents. They explored worlds. They colonized civilizations.

My first trip abroad was around 1995. Hongkong. It was my first taste of congee with my favorite fritters to go with it(you know, that loofah-looking dough?). We stayed in Kowloon side and I remembered our days there being filled mostly by Laserdisc and music cd buying from one store to the next.

That first travel was the start of a string of travels I will have in this lifetime. It somehow brought out the Columbus in me.

Every travel, to me, is a discovery. An exploration. Sometimes a conquest. You conquer the fear of being in a strange and new place. You conquer the fear of being alone in the midst of aliens.

Travelling makes you know more. Makes you see the world from another perspective. It makes you see how other people live their lives different from how you live yours.

Killing time in the park

A Park in Florence

The sun rays in Tuscany feels a lot healthier than our sun rays here. The smell of flowers in the streets of Switzerland is not the same as the smell of fried daing in the streets of Cubao.

Travelling is sensorial. You feel, see, hear, taste and smell a new environment.

Being in another country, makes you see what you wish you could change or miss about your country.

The food is no exception. Discovering the foods of other countries is a paradigm shift. Tomatoes never tasted so good in Italy. I eat more vegetables abroad than I do here.

Of the countries I've been to, there are some that speak to you and there are others that do not.

Last minute picture with the Eifel Tower

I remember being in Paris and not loving it, at all. It was touristy, it's hard to move around the city, people are kinda snooty. Being there is like being in a package tour everywhere you go. Like in Louvre, the throng of people inside the museum was just crazy. I rarely go to museums but with this one, I wanted to see all the masterpieces in their gallery. But I want time alone to, sort of, relish being in the presence of a masterpiece. But with that huge crowd snaking around each room, bumping into some senior citizen in retirement mode trying to catch a glimpse of a masterpiece before her last breath, shit, by the time I got to the Mona Lisa, I was so sweaty that I felt I was not worthy to have my picture taken side by side with the ethereal Mona.

Chanced upon this when I got lost in Venice

I love Italy. I belong there. I'm not saying that just because I might be coming from an Italian lineage (Matti in Italian means "the crazy one"). Wink, wink. I'm just saying that the Italians are people I can be friends with. They all exude an appetite for life. Their warmth is contagious.

One of my lousy days in Neuchatel, Switzerland

I can't say that about Switzerland. When I was there, it felt really cold, emotionally. Day or night, the streets were empty. Except for the chocolates of Switzerland and the beautiful high-tech, lakeside hotel I stayed in, I didn't really enjoy my stay there. They close all restaurants and shops from 2-6pm. And since I'm not really an early riser, I'd always end up eating lunch in this Persian sandwich place right at the heart of Neuchatel's downtown. Persian food in Switzerland, great!

Dario Argento on the right

This was the fatal day I was late for a car ride with Roger Corman

But Switzerland was memorable. I sat side by side with Dario Argento for dinner. He talked about his fear of riding a plane and had the festival fetch him by car to travel from Italy to Switzerland. Got Roger Corman pissed for being late because we had to share a ride to lunch.

The sun deck in Hotel Palafitte

I stayed in Hotel Palafitte, a 5-star hotel by the lake. I was booked in one of their villas, the ones standing in the middle of the lake. It has its own sun deck facing the expanse of the river.

The then hi-tech remote control in my hotel room

This was in 2002 and everything in the room then was already remote controlled. Turn on the TV by remote. Close the windows, by remote. Put up the sun deck, by remote. Even when internet in hotels were hard to come by then, they had free wifi, 24-hours a day in the room.

When I discovered this remote gadget, about the size of an old betacam deck, I started tinkering with it. I even discovered that it turns on the shower in the bathroom.

Anyway, after being tired from a long plane trip I slept to get ready for the big day at the festival the next day. The next day, I woke up terrified. Literally, the whole room was covered by a million little black thing scattered all over the place. My comforter was riddled entirely with these black things. I immediately stood up in panic. Checked it closely. Good thing they were already dead. I called reception to help me sort it out. When they got there, they reprimanded me for not reading the instructions beside my bed. "Always close the windows at night.", was how it read. The black things were mosquitos from the lake. I tinkered with the gadget and forgot to close the windows in the sun deck and they all attacked me while I was sleeping. Good thing I was covered entirely while asleep that I didn't get a single bite from those bloody mosquitos. Phew!

A view of Neuchatel

Switzerland means something to me because of the memories it gave me. The minute I landed, my newly bought luggage came out tattered in the luggage belt. My clothes were scattered and the bag was covered in grease. I had to buy a new set of luggage (this time, a hard case) from my own measly pocket money because Lufthansa would only pay me when I get back to Manila.

I also made a side trip to Zurich to visit a friend from my hometown. It was a nice day, sunny and all. She brought me to a park with her Spanish husband. Lying on the grass, her husband lighted a joint. Thinking that Swiss weed does not come close to a Baguio gold strength meter-wise, I casually smoked it like a cigarette. Time lapse: an hour later, I woke up in the park, it's almost dark and my friends are waiting for me to have dinner. They couldn't stop asking me if I was okay. Fucking embarrassing! Ended up in a fondue dinner and I didn't have one because I was slumped the whole time on the dinner table. They finally brought me to the train station and, still disoriented from the roundhouse kick the Swiss weed gave me, I fell asleep on the train station and missed my train. Ended up back in Neuchatel at 1am rather than 10. Grrrr!

I love those little mishaps that make travelling memorable.

Lady crossing in Shibuya

A rainy day in Tokyo

Once in Japan, when I landed, I had both the soles of my shoes left behind while walking to Immigration. A lady behind me stopped me and handed over one of the soles of my shoes. I smiled nonchalantly trying to hide my shame. A few feet later, my other shoe gave in. I was lining up in Immigration with my socks walking on the carpet clutching the two soles of my shoes pretending everything's under control. The worst part is, I landed at 6pm, travelled to Shibuya, checked in at 8pm and had to go straight to a dinner. As I am not really your formal kind of a guy, that was my one and only formal shoes that I brought. The next one, tucked in my luggage, is a yellow, bright colored Northface shoes. A friend critic fetched me at the hotel and I told him about my dilemma. He said, "Your an artist! You wear yellow shoes with your formal suit!" And that's what I did.

In a sea of black tie formal affair, with all the serious Japanese walking around, somewhere in the floor, there's this yellow Northface strutting around. I met a lot of friends through that, though.

If I didn't travel, I could not imagine having seen all these things just staying here in Manila. I'm no rich, globetrotting dude travelling at my heart's desire. I had a lot of travels for free because of my movies going into film festivals abroad.

The view of Florence from our window

Forbidden City in Beijing

Still life in Udine, Italy

Sun bathing in the Big Apple

Riding the boat to Staten Island

Flowers by the window sill in Venice

A bad profiterole in Chianti, Florence

China town, New York

Tired lady in a Beijing Park

Through my travels, I have managed to get lost in Venice, sat quietly on a bench in a Lido street watching dusk turn to night, made a wish in a Japanese temple, eat in a molecular gastronomy Michelin-star, restaurant in Switzerland for free(beside Dario Argento to top it), accidentally discover the best ramen in a Kyoto side street, ride a bus full of, politically correctly speaking, not-so-pleasant-smelling Indians in Singapore with my children rudely putting on a mask in the midst of them, went around a horror house with Phil Tippet of "Jurassic Park", slept in a Florence hotel with Michiko overlooking the whole of Florence, eat foie gras in a picnic watching the lights of Eifel Tower, shake hands with Tony Soprano, Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden and Jeff Daniels, help a drunk Korean friend who puked all over a hotel lobby carpet, look for an olive tree not knowing we are already beside one, be dragged out of my hotel room for being dead drunk and had to catch a plane in Trieste, run around with all the big stars of "Mano Po" in the streets of Shanghai trying to shoot without permit(imagine Susan Roces, Lorna Tolentino, ZsaZsa Padilla, Christopher De Leon scurrying in Shanghai streets. Now that's Third World superstardom for you), seeing the Golden Gate bridge and not knowing what to feel because it still is just a bridge, lock myself out in my underwear at a Shibuya Hotel (yes, the hotel right in front of Hachiko) and had to go to reception to get another key, had a near-miss pickpocket in Rome with Michiko surrounded by 4 burly Italians, huff and puff with my two kids going up the Great Wall of China, ate in probably the worst Italian restaurant in Italy, get trapped at Troubadour station in Paris, kissed in the middle of the rain, eat kare-kare in Montmartre.

Not bad for all the freebie travels. Thanks to my movies!

My next adventure: Japan. One of my favorite countries in the world. Okinomiyaki, sushi, Tsukiji, Kyoto, onsen, ramen, ryokan, bento boxes, takoyaki balls, Sapporo, Akihabara, Japanese pizza and pasta, Kuidaore, Dotonbori!

To Columbus, Napoleon, Magellan, Alexander and me! Cheers!

With each travel, I can look at my home country with fresh eyes.