Brazilian Bikini model and the love of photography

As Tita Alice and I were heading home from the 2^nd mile campus (last blog) we started talking and I told her that I was interested in Photography. There had been a film crew at 2^nd mile and I have followed them around and it was cool to see everything behind the scenes that went into the shoot. While Tita Alice and I where talking she said that since she used to work at Avon she could see if I could go to a product shoot sometime. Her contacts at Avon said that they had a shoot the next day and said it would be cool if we stopped by and checked it out.

So we headed over mid morning to the studio, Tita Alice knew everybody there since she used to work with them for like 20 years so she introduced me to the photographer and he showed me his website and a bunch of pictures he had taken. He is one of the best Photographers in the Philippines so he had some amazing shots. He did a lot of food shots but also work a lot with Avon and many other big company’s. It turns out that they where shooting a bunch of products like an umbrella and hand bag and stuff like that. But to shoot this they used a model from Brazil and since the setting was on a beach, she was in a Bikini! It was pretty funny, Tita Alice leaned over towards me and said that if she knew it was going to have a bikini model she wouldn’t have taken me.

But it was fun, it was really not dodgy in anyway and it was really cool to see everything that goes on behind a shoot. All the lighting and set up is crazy, the camera that he had was amazing and as soon as he took a picture it showed up on a computer screen in the corner. Really cool set up, and was a cool experience. It also mad me think about how much I like to take pictures and I have started thinking about maybe pursuing this when I get back home. Maybe take some classes and see where that leads. I for sure want to get a good DSLR when I get home and if nothing else just do it for fun on the side. It was a good day.

Then for a funny story, this evening the whole family is in the living room watching TV and I am on the computer checking email. I had asked jess for a CD so I could burn a program and she ended up dropping a piece of plastic on the floor. I am sitting cross legged on the swivel chair and as I leaned forward to pick it up for her, I find my self falling and sitting on the floor!! I had totally broke one of the legs of the chair!! Straight up snapped it off, right in front of the whole family!! It was pretty funny, they just kept asking if I was ok and I said that I was just embarrassed that I had just broke there chair!!! They said it was ok and they had had the chair for a while so it was about time for it to break. I think it was just built for Filipino’s not big white guys!

Anyway, that is it for now, still loving it and having an amazing time. So many good experiences.

I am, as I am typing downloading a program that should help me get my files back from my computer. So I hope that works and then I should get a copy of vista on Saturday, so hopefully it will be back up and running sometime soon. I still might lose some if not all of what I had on my computer but what can you do. Anyway, I should head to bed, be blessed and keep in the word.

Will

Life happens, deal with it.

So I need to get going but just going to say that my computer crashed so I will not be updating this things that much for the next while. I will try to get it fixed but am not going to spend to much money on it.
But anyway, I just got back from a overnight trip to this place called 2nd mile. It is part of Action ministry and they get kids from the streets of Manila and give them classes in carpentry and a few other areas. On top of this they have Bible lectures. Pretty cool camp and I just hung out for a bit. It was nice to get out of the city and it was a lot greener and cooler. So besides my computer crashing it is going good, liking my new camera so will try to get some pics up soon. Ok, I need to get going, talk to you soon.
Christ in ALL

If you want.....

I just got a web album for my other pics. It is http://picasaweb.google.com/thewillanator
But if you don't want to check it out that is ok, but there are some pretty sweet pics so it is worth a look. Anyway, today was good, I got to play some Futsal (indoor soccer) at Jess' church so that was fun, I sweated like crazy with the humidity but it was fun. The shoes I were borrowing broke half way through so I played the rest of the time barefoot. After that we just chilled around church and then went to the youth worship service. It was really good and there were heaps of people there so it was cool. I will be heading to church again tomorrow morning so I think I will get some sleep. And by the way, Happy early Birthday Mum!!! I will try to call tomorrow! Love you!!

Christ in ALL

This is a long one, sorry

I was excited, myself, along with the Orleans family, were about to take off on vacation to a place called Sagada. Jessica’s parents had been to Sagada when they were younger but had not been there for about 25 years. Sagada is a town that is about 12-14 hours north of the busy city of Manila and is located up in the Northern Province of the Philippines. Tita Alice and Tito Audie (Jessica’s parents, Tita and Tito are used when talking about somebody older then yourself) had told me a bit about it and it seemed like it was going to be a big contrast to the city. Sagada is located up in the mountains so it is a lot cooler, it also is not commercialized and there is a native tribe that lives nearby. We started our journey with a bus ride that left Manila at 10:00pm.

This bus ride was about 10 hours and the destination was a town called Banaue. We had about 3 stops on the way so we were able to us the CR (comfort room = toilet) I slept for a bit on the bus and listened to music so it was not that bad. It was also a good time for jess and I to talk, and not just about little trivial stuff but stuff that matters so that was really cool. One thing that was funny was that they had the air conditioner on so cold that jess and I both put on our hoodies and had our hoods up most of the time. This was the first time I had used a hoodie in the Philippines so that was kind of nice.

We arrived in Banaue at around 8 the next morning.

From there we hired a jeepney;------>

a jeepney is a common way of public transport and is like an extended jeep with seats on either side of the back.

This trip was about 5 hours long and was on some pretty sweet roads. The roads were all curvy and mostly gravel or dirt and had a good size drop on at least one side. AKA, mom would not have enjoyed it J It was a good drive and we stopped a few times to take in the views. One of these views and a view that we would see a lot in the coming days was the rice terraces. The rice terraces of Banaue have been said to be the 8th wonder of the world.

Since it is in the mountains the only way to have fields is to build them on terraces of every size imaginable. This is truly an amazing sight and pictures do not do it justice at all. These things would go for as long as the eyes could see and were all the way up and down the side of the mountain. They mainly grow rice but also a variety of vegetables.

The road was really not that smooth so sleep was not working that well. We got to the town of Sagada in the early afternoon and checked into the place where we were going to be staying. The place we stayed at was called Saint Joseph inn and was the same place that Jess’ parents had stayed last time they at visited the secluded town of Sagada.

We were all pretty tired so we ended up grabbing lunch and then headed to our rooms and slept for awhile. We had two rooms so Miguel (Jess’ brother) and I shared one and jess and her mom and dad took the other. I got an “American burger” for dinner and then we headed to bed.
The next day was the 31st, AKA my birthday, turning 20 seems pretty crazy to me. One thing that was cool was to think back to where I was last year and compare it to where I am right now, physically and also spiritually. It has been a hard year in some areas but also an amazingly good year in others. I have learned lots and reliezed that I have lots more to learn.

We ended up hiring a guide to take us through the famous Sagada caves. We where underground for around 4 hours, it was probably the most hardcore caving I have ever done.

The rocks where pretty slippery so with the advice of our guide, we ended up doing most of it barefoot to help with traction. My favorite thing from it was when we got to stop and swim for a while in the caves as bats flew over head. It was pretty sweet.

Then the next day I started the day off with an amazing banana yogurt pancake, so good. It was all saints day and the local tribe was having a fall planting festival and they were all dressed up. They came walking out of the forest and walked through the town and ended up at a central spot to have their ceremony. This ceremony consisted of them killing a pig, dog and chicken and then burning the hair off and butchering it right there. I got some pretty sweet video of it but I won’t put that up in case you don’t want to look at it.

We continued the day and walked all over the town seeing the sights. We saw the hanging coffins; they are on the side of a cliff and the richer you where, the higher up the coffin is. We also got to go to a little water fall that we went swimming in the base and got to jump from the top, it was only lie 15 feet but still fun because you jumped right over the falls.

We headed out the next day and staying overnight in a town on the way home so we could break up the ride home. Over all a good trip and a really fun time, it was really cool to see the more relaxed and farming culture of the Philippines. We just relaxed the next day few days’s since we were all pretty tired from the trip and Jess and her brother started school on Thursday.

Ok, that brings me up to today, Thursday, I had the opportunity to go with some friend of Tita Alice to a maximum security prison and hang out for the day. I didn’t know what to expect and even if I would have had some pre conceived idea it would have been totally wrong. It was two American missionaries, myself, and another young American. I actually can’t say a whole lot of what we did and who we met. Just for the safety of the people in the prison and for respect for them. But I can tell you that prisons here are nothing like the US.

There were 12,000 inmates in maximum alone and they are all free to roam about as they please. There is an outer wall but inside of that is a huge area that contains all their houses, over 30 churches, a bible school, and an open market.

The open market is just like it would be on the outside, fish vegetables, anything you want and this is all cut up with knives of every sort. Yes the inmates are allowed to have knives for work and also make a multitude of other souvenirs for sale. It was crazy, so different from the prisons at home, they are so free to interact with each other but they have had peace for years.

We met with this group that the missionary’s have been working with for about 2 and half years. In this group of guy’s there were 5 that had been sent there for at least double murder, 1 for rape, 2 for kidnapping for ransom and multiple others. It was pretty crazy.

Some of them had been on death row and one guy had been scheduled for lethal injection 9 times. God totally got a hold of their life and now they are reaching out to the other inmates. We took a tour of the prison and some of the people that we met had been there for over 25 years. It was an amazing experience and one that I will not forget easily. I have tones of other stories from there but will not take up more space.

Sorry that this was long as but if you are still reading, prayer for the people in the prison and for the ministry going on there would be really cool. Ok, that’s it for now; I miss you all and hope that you are having a good time in the cold weather! (those in WA)

Christ in ALL.
Will

A vid of me eating Tawilis

Tawilis is a little fish that they we had for dinner and is eaten whole. Head and tail and all. If they are the bigger ones you take out the spine but besides that, just eat away. It was actually pretty good.