DUNKED IN MANILA

Bill Fink's story of a year of work, basketball, romance, and other disasters in the Philippines

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Dolphins have hops, too

Ok, not much to do with basketball, but just had my eco-toursim article on Palawan island published in the prestigious Expat Magazine in Manila. If you squint, you can see the dolphin hopping out of the water in the screen shot of my article to the left. I think dolphins probably could be trained to play some sort of water-basketball. And sure enough, a quick search on youtube shows this is true. I'm going to bet on the dolphins vs. the sea lions in that game.

The squirrel in the lower right corner is some newly discovered species that hasn't even been named yet. Saw it in a cage in some remote island off the coast of Taytay. And the bird in the left corner is a hornbill, not an eagle as the magazine mis-labeled it. And thus launches my new career in wilderness photography.

I'll also have an article on Philippine ecotourism published in an upcoming SF Chronicle travel section, as well as a couple blurbs into the December issue of Islands Magazine. So perhaps the Philippines is going to start getting some publicity as a tourist destination.
And just to make sure I'm keeping the focus on all things basketball & the Philippines, below is a shot of a basketball game on the deck of a docked freighter ship, taken during my recent ecotoursim travels. Seems to be some sort of irrepressible desire for Filipinos to play the game by whatever means necessary. Would loved to have seen a game at high seas, it'd add a whole new dimension to the sport. And could be yet another Olympics basketball category in which Filipinos would be assured of a gold medal. (in addition to flip-flop-wearing basketball).