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Monthly Archives: August 2017

That time we almost died… part 2

Again… sitting here as Hurricane Harvey has been making landfall, and I’m thinking of some of the crazy situations we’ve been in in our lives. And this one just happens to have taken place in the Philippines…

So three years ago while we were teaching in China, Trent and I went on holiday to the Philippines. We started on the island of Palawan- we rented a motorcycle and explored the island that way. It was awesome. I kind of felt like Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries!

Our sweet ride

The countryside was absolutely breathtaking and we enjoyed seeing the mountains and the ocean and all the flowers and greenery. scenery2

But that wasn’t all! Between the vast expanses of untouched nature, we passed rice paddies, innumerable goats, basketball courts, schools and churches, and oh, so many friendly faces!!!

Oh, and did I mention water buffalo?!?!? Yeah, like a million water buffalo. In fact, for anyone who’s ever seen Veggie Tales… remember that episode of “Silly songs with Larry?” Yeah, want to know what song was rolling through my head for almost the entirety of our trip? You guessed it, “Everyone’s got a water buffalo!” (if you haven’t seen it, look it up on YouTube before proceeding any further)

Okay, where was I… oh geesh, I digress. Oh yeah, harrowing water experiences! So we made it through most of our trip without incident. We spent a lovely 2 days in El Nido, followed by a trip to Port Barton and then the final leg on that island… Sabang! This is where we were going to see one of the new 7th wonders of Nature: The Subterranean River National Park. It is considered one of the seven wonders right alongside the Amazon Rainforest/River, Jeju Island in South Korea, Komodo Island in Indonesia, Halong Bay in Vietnam, Table Mountain in South Africa and Iguazu Park in Argentina/Brazil. It is an underground river more than 24 km long and boasts amazing limestone formations, impressive stalactites and stalagmites, and one of the largest cave domes in the world! I was pretty psyched for this final stop before heading back to Puerto Princesa and moving on to Boracay.

However, the moment we left Port Barton, it started raining. It rained and it rained, and it rained! Thankfully, most of the dirt roads were at the beginning of this trip and we didn’t get caught in any terrible mud. Anyways, we tried to cover our things as best as we could. We donned our flimsy ponchos and helmets and hoped for the best! It was supposed to be a three hour drive… but with the rain it took much longer. We took things slowly to make sure we were safe. cover up

We finally arrived and, although it shouldn’t have surprised us, we were saddened to find out that the park had closed because of the typhoon that was making landfall that day. In fact, they told us that another boat that morning had capsized, full of tourists! That was enough for Trent to say- “forget it! Let’s go!” Even so, I had still hoped we’d be able to do it.

puerto princesa

We stopped anyways to give our tired bums a rest and to get something to eat. We wandered the beach for a few minutes and watched the dark, angry sky and the waves that crashed against the shore. The red flag was up, meaning that it was a high hazard day, so we didn’t venture far.

beach crazy weather We ended up stopping at one of the only little restaurant there and eating a quick lunch before heading back out on the road to get back to Puerto Princesa. Our flight didn’t leave until the next day, but we didn’t want to be caught in the storm on our motorcycle without shelter!

sign

We continued on in the COLD, wet rain for a few more hours, stopping only occasionally for respite from the beating rain and freezing cold before arriving back in Puerto Princesa.

We quickly found a hotel for the night and started to strip down and unpack everything. Although we had made an effort to cover what we had… I think EVERY. SINGLE. THING we owned was SOAKED (including our souvenirs from Vietnam on the earlier part of the trip). This also meant that we didn’t have any dry clothes. Not only that, but this particular hotel didn’t really have hot water for the shower, so we went from cold rain to cold shower to… nakedness. We wrapped up in a towel and tried to get warm under the blankets (aka sheets) as best we could. We laid out clothes and hung things wherever we could so that they could begin to dry.

drying everything out

We took to using a hair dryer to dry clothes and even to dry my Bible. It had gotten soaked during the trip and I LOVE that Bible… it has YEARS worth of notes, thoughts and cross-references in it and I wasn’t about to let it die. So I sat there on the bed, carefully blow-drying each individual page until the whole book was dry. However, blow drying has the same effect on paper as it does on your hair… volume!!! My Bible just about doubled in size!

Anyways, since the typhoon was coming, the next day’s air travel did NOT go as planned. We arrived early in the morning for our flight, which got delayed (but not too bad) before we got to Manila (to go anywhere in the Philippines, you have to fly through Manila).

flight airport

But in Manila (where the typhoon was NOT an issue), we were delayed… and delayed… and finally cancelled. There were no more flights going to Boracay Island that night. So we were rerouted to Kalibo, another airport that was about a 2 hour bus ride away. We arrived there around 8pm and then got on the bus (which the airline paid for, thankfully). After a long, winding trip, we arrived at the port that would take us across the water to Boracay Island. However, now it was not only dark (around 11pm), but the wind and the waves were CRAZY.

We walked out and watched our ship bob up and down and lurch left and right… and the ramp that was connecting the pier to the ship was swaying violently back and forth. Trent and I looked at each other freaking out. Was this a good idea? Was this rickety little boat even going to make it across? Would we die out here?!? But on the other hand, where else would we go? It was late at night and we had no idea what was around us… so we just decided to roll with it (quite literally). Clutching our bags for dear life, we crossed over on that crazy ramp and got into the swaying boat. Thankfully there were life jackets! That made me feel a little bit better. But after I already fell as I was walking to my seat (and another gentleman fell as well), I wasn’t super confident. They weren’t even real seats… just benches that weren’t even secured to the boat! Ay-yi-y! Moments like these just make me pray harder… and that’s exactly what I did! I prayed hard that God would get us to Boracay Island safely and that this little boat and it’s crew would be able to maneuver us on the crazy waves to get us there!

Although this picture doesn’t capture the swelling of the waves, I promise it was CRAZY!

Long story short… we made it! After that we still needed to take a rickshaw to our hostel, but we survived! The next few days were crazy, windy and rainy, but we still very much enjoyed our time on Boracay Island.

crazy wind We didn’t let this damper our experience, we just let it be what it was, and wouldn’t you know… now it’s turned into a story.

Have you ever been caught in a typhoon?

That one time we almost died…

27 Aug

So as Hurricane Harvey is quickly approaching the southern Texas region, I have been reminded of several harrowing near-death water experiences that Trenton and I have shared. So I figured, what better time to tell the stories than now (after the statute of limitations has expired)!

So, many moons ago, before Trent and I were even married, some mutual friends of ours invited us to go camping with them down by the Guadalupe River. Of course, we decided to go. So I borrowed my roommate’s tent, we packed a cooler, and headed down to the river.

We had a nice afternoon floating the Guadalupe, although as we were finishing, it started to sprinkle. It continued to sprinkle on and off for a while thereafter.

It let up enough for us to cook dinner over the fire, and then it really let loose! The heavens opened up and it POURED!!! For hours and hours, we were all confined to our tents drowned out by the pounding of the rain, the peals of thunder and flashes of lightning.

We didn’t think much of it at first, after all, we’ve camped in the rain before… it gets a little messy and it proves to be a bit inconvenient, but it’s no big deal overall. But as it continued to rain throughout the night, none of us could sleep! The thunder was SO loud and the lightning was constant and we were actually scared. We were surrounded by big trees and I kept envisioning one of them getting struck by lightning and falling on us. That’d be a sad way to go:

Angie Settle (formerly): crushed by tree. RIP…

Thankfully it didn’t happen that way. It got later and later, but none of us could sleep. Around 3am we were still up listening to the storm rage around us and were debating between ourselves whether we should stay in our tent or move to the car. We quickly decided on the latter. Although it wouldn’t offer superior protection if a tree fell on us, it had to be better than a tent! We weren’t in the car for more than 10 minutes (listening to the weather) when a police car pulled up with it’s spotlight pointed at us. Over the loudspeaker, the woman officer told us in no uncertain terms, “Leave or you could die.” She said that a flash flood was going to be sweeping through the area, not to grab anything, but just to get in your cars and get to higher ground. So… we listened! We left everything where it was, and Trent and I (in our car) and Ana and Will (in hers) left.

By now it was getting closer to 5 in the morning. We were hungry again. Trent and I found a Denny’s that was open, so we stopped in for breakfast. We ate and chatted, all the while the rain still pounded away. We decided just to go back home and come back for all of our stuff later the next day. So Trent dropped me off at my house and he went to his and we called it a day.

It wasn’t until later that we heard that not an hour after we left, a 20 foot swell had come through our campground, wiping away EVERYTHING that was there. Ana and Will made it back before we did and texted us pictures of the campsite (or what was left of it). There were picnic tables stuck in the tops of trees, there were scraps of tents and all sorts of other debris everywhere and there was nothing, I mean NOTHING left of what we brought. Our tents, food, coolers, and all the equipment that we had was gone. Where our tents had once been, there was a flipped over trailer that washed up from an RV park 500 yards up river (bottom left photo). One person even lost their life. Scary stuff!!! That could have been us had we chosen not to heed advice and high tail it outta there. We are so thankful that we made it out alive! Things can always be replaced, but people can’t!

PicMonkey Collage destruction2

Ironically, before we stopped for breakfast, we had to fill up the car with gas. The gas station we stopped at had some Bibles there. Trent just happened to find one he really liked- the Living Water Bible… it’s the Bible he still uses to this day. And it serves as a constant reminder for us to be thankful for God’s protection and provision over our lives! It causes us to remember that our God is powerful and our God is faithful. To this day, I am so thankful that that police officer came through and warned us, otherwise we all would have been swept away! Not being from here (or from anywhere where flash floods are an issue), I had NO IDEA how dangerous they could be! Lesson learned. I now know what flash floods are and I know not to mess with them!

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The best purchase we EVER made (…in China)

17 Aug

So, when we first arrived in China (four years ago now), we were in for many cultural shocks. For example, nobody waits in lines, having to learn how to use “squatty potties,” figuring out the hard way that apartments don’t have ovens (despite the perception that they’re there… they are in fact, dish sanitizers…), having to use a VPN for any sort of social media/Google site (and shoddy internet at best)… Oh, the list could go on forever!

However, one of the most pressing issues (literally) was the beds. The Chinese believe that sleeping on hard beds is good for their health, therefore nearly EVERY single bed in China (hotels included) have hard beds. It was quite an adjustment trying to sleep in these hard beds in our hotel (before we found our apartment) AND trying to sleep enough to recover from jet-lag.

Despite it’s appearance, this bed was rock hard!

For some reason we thought that once we got to an apartment, things would get better. And for some reason our hotel bed experience didn’t give us pause to test the beds when we were apartment hunting… Anyways, we finally found the apartment of our (then) dreams (it got even better the second year) and moved in. By this time, school had started and we were in full-swing preparing for the school year. This meant long hours sitting in front of a computer building a classroom website, planning out our curriculum, and long hours of standing/climbing/kneeling preparing a classroom for a year of use! We spent LONG, LONG, LONG hours at our school that first month or so that we were there. And we’d go home DOG TIRED!!! But then, trying to sleep was next to impossible. It was like sleeping on a hard wood table. Even though there was “padding,” it was essentially the equivalent of placing a cloth over a table. We have a video somewhere of Trent knocking on our bed… it’s like someone is knocking on your door! Needless to say, it did NOT make for good sleep.

mattress 943694_10101479958429350_7205248_n

I mean, seriously!!! Look at how skinny that mattress is!!!!!

When the first week of school (with students) was underway, I mentioned to our then P.E. coach that we weren’t sleeping at night and it was NOT helping with my attitude or energy to be able to work with 4 and 5 year olds during the day, he mentioned to me that many expats buy a mattress from this company out of Beijing called Slumber MAAX. Immediately, we started looking into it. We found that their mattresses were pretty decently priced (about $800 USD), especially considering that they were entirely made of memory foam. AND, even better, Mike told us that we could use some of our $2,000 USD “settlement allowance” given to us by the school to purchase it (or rather, be reimbursed for it). We literally ordered it THAT NIGHT! Even paying for the shipping ($22 bucks USD) and an official fapiao (receipt in order to be reimbursed- $35 USD) were minimal costs in the scheme of things.

However, we still had to survive in the meantime. I am a side-sleeper, so I was actually getting bruises and sores on my shoulder and hip from sleeping that way. Trent and I decided to get creative. We ended up taking the cushions from our living room sofa and placing them on the bed at night. It was still awkward, because they tended to separate right at the shoulder and hip, but it was still better than nothing! We had tried adding extra comforters, sleeping on top of the comforter… anything else we could think of to add some extra comfort.

Desperate times call for desperate measures!

Ta-Da! This was (sort-of) better!

Then that magical day arrived… after a short wait (2-4 business days), this small Chinese man arrived with this RIDICULOUSLY large, King-sized mattress, all rolled up in this big, HEAVY roll. Trent went out to meet him to show him to our apartment (since we didn’t know how to direct them up in Chinese) and ended up helping this poor, tiny man carry it up our stairs. Of course, as they were carrying it, the packaging started bursting open, so it started expanding before it even made it to our door. Finally, the guys lugged it all the way up and into our bedroom! We cut the remaining plastic packaging and let it expand!

It was literally like the angels sang! And the rest is history… I actually don’t think we’ll EVER have as nice a bed OR mattress ever again (at least not for that price)! We could set a glass of wine on that bad boy and it wouldn’t even budge. Neither of us felt the other one toss or turn or get up. It offered great support and truly, it was a Godsend. I’m not sure we would have made it through that first year (let alone stayed for a second) if it wasn’t for Slumber MAAX.

For anyone planning on staying long-term in China… we absolutely recommend them!!!

Logsdon's big adventures!

Monthly Archives: August 2017

That time we almost died… part 2

That one time we almost died…

The best purchase we EVER made (…in China)

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