Sagada, Familiar?

I'm not sure i get the Philippines. I like them, but I'm not sure I "get" them. They just seem to be a big hodge-podge of contradictions: it seems eerily familiar, although I have never been to anywhere even slightly like it; just about every sign is (only) in English but not that many people seem to understand me; they have better quality TV adverts than anywhere else I've been on this trip (New Zealand included) and far worse roads (Bolivia included); the bus station shops In Baguio were the kind of market stalls you would expect from a developing country, except for an unfeasibly shiny Dunkin' Donuts.

Possibly most confusing of all, last night the place I was staying in Baguio was pretty close to an all-night karaoke place ("pretty close" in that I could hear out of tune [pot.kettle.black] the singers were with a pillow pressed to my ear; "all-night" as in it was still going on when I got up to get a bus this morning) whereas Sagada, where I'm staying now, has a 9pm curfew.

Sagada's tiny and in a pretty setting, up in the agricultural mountains. It would be great if it wasn't raining quite so hard. Guess that's why they call it "rainy season".