Manila 2008 Part 2

Currently Reading: Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

So where was I?  Right, got to Tagaytay and slept.  This is where the Tagaytay pattern sets in.  You see, what most people do when they go on vacation up there is eat and sleep.  Not wanting to stick out as a tourist, I went native.  The day went something like this . . .

Woke up early. Had breakfast (CC's mom made pancakes, sausage, the works, it was FABULOUS!) then a nap.  Woke up for lunch out at a really great pizza place with a great view of the volcano.  Went back to the house. Slept.  

Woke up for dinner at the club house then spent a few hours playing video games with CC's brother Noel.  Slept. 

You may be thinking I'm exaggerating.  I'm not.  That's really all we did on Thursday.  Oh, well we also drove around the neighborhood and took pictures of this really cool castle-themed house.  But otherwise, that was it.  What can I say, this is what people do there when they're on vacation.  Who am I to argue right? :-)

So now it's Friday already, the day of the wedding, the reason we went to the Philippines in the first place.  We started things off with a little bit of TV.  The Philippines is 13 hours ahead of the US so whatever is showing on TV in Memphis Thursday evening is what's on TV in Manila Friday morning.  In this case, Olympic boxing.  I think I mentioned before, CC has this great little device that feeds cable from our apartment over the Internet to her computer when she travels.  That's what we used.

Anyway, after boxing we went to Mushroomburger for breakfast.  Now, I'm not even sure I can describe Mushroomburger and its cultural context.  It's pretty much an institution I would say.  You can't go to Tagaytay without going to Mushroomburger.  The two are just so solidly linked together.  When I first went to Manila back in 2000, we went to Mushroomburger and it wasn't too crowded.  We were there in the off-season, during the week.  THIS time though, we ate there twice.  The first time, Friday morning, not too bad.  Even though it was a long weekend and lots of tourists were driving up, they hadn't yet arrived so Mushroomburger wasn't too crowded.

As the name implies, it's a burger . . . with mushrooms.  They make two basic kinds.  You've got your 50/50 mushroom burger, that's half meat, half mushroom, and then your 100% mushroom burger.  All mushroom, all the time.

It's just a small place really.  Some tables inside, some outside.  Behind the restaurant are the cement buildings where they grow the mushrooms.   Some roosters patrol the eating area outside.  Simple.  But DAMN good burgers there :-)  If you're ever in Manila and you've got time for a day trip, head on up to Tagaytay and stop at Mushroomburger.  Your tummy will thank you :-)

Let's see, after breakfast we stopped at a store to pick up some ribbon for Meyan's wedding present.  Nice little store.  We spend lots of money there.  No, that's not really accurate.  We bought a lot of things but didn't spend that much money in fact.  I got a good chunk of my souvenir shopping done at that little store.

Ok, back to the house for, what else, a nap.  CC's mom made a roast beef for lunch.  You can see the pattern now I'm sure.  Eat, sleep, eat, sleep.  After eating a big breakfast, then a bigger lunch, well we all needed a nap so we had one.  At that point it was time to get ready for the wedding and off we went.

I was thinking about putting in a lot of pictures and details about Meyan's wedding but you know, there isn't really much I can say about it.  Besides, it was her wedding so she should be the one telling you the story right?  I will say that it was a nice little church up there in the Tagaytay area and the reception was at a bed and breakfast spa place about 5 minutes from where CC and I were staying.  Everything was great and I finally got to meet most of the people I had heard CC and Meyan talk about over the years.  Always good to put faces with names.  

Now, at some point we were supposed to go to the beach.  Obviously we were going after the wedding but at what time, we hadn't decided.  Saturday we made calls, sent text messages, waited, ate, slept, but didn't really get going towards the beach until around 1 or so.  At one point we were starting to wonder if we were actually going to MAKE it to the beach.  Finally we all got together split up into two cars and drove down.   Robin got us a nice little house at a great price and that's where we spent the night.  Along the way, we stopped at a market (not for the faint of heart or stomach) and picked up some meat to grill and a few other things.  Not much more to tell really unless you want the details on how we ate and slept again :-)

We spent Sunday morning at the beach.  It was a nice little beach in fact.  We had a great time.  I wasn't originally intending to go into the water but I took my trunks just in case.  More than anything I was concerned about getting water in my ears and that leading to some sort of weird, mutating ear infection.  But when we got there, everyone else was having so much fun and I kept thinking, how often do I get a chance to do this?  When will I get a chance again?  Probably be a while since Fall is around the corner so in I went.  Here's a little video of the beach.  No, I'm not in it.  This was not long after we arrived.

We went back to the house, packed up and said what we thought was going to be our last good-byes.  Turns out along the way we realized that we didn't have a group picture so we stopped right outside the sub-division where CC and I were staying and had a group picture there.  CC's brother Noel took the shot.  About an hour later or so, having packed up from THAT house, we were heading back to Manila and stopped at Mushroomburger one last time.  Guess who we ran into?  Yup, the whole group was there.  You just can't go to Tagaytay without stopping at Mushroomburger, I'm telling you.

So, we drive back down to Manila and it's kinda funny how you can actually feel the weather change as you make your way down the mountain.  You can also feel the pollution creep in as well.  The air gets heavier and heavier, more humid, more car fumes, etc.

CC booked us a room at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza Hotel in Manila.  Neither of us had stayed there but it had good reviews and I trust my wife when it comes to researching this sort of thing.  She leaves nothing to chance.  In this case, the main attraction was that it was near the Mall of Asia and that it had a free shuttle service.  Well now you can imagine our surprise as we pulled up to this place and it turns out to be one hell of a fancy hotel.  The whole  time CC's brother and I kept asking, "are you sure we can afford this?"  Yeah, it looked that great and it was actually quite affordable.  We spent less on a room there than we would have on a basic room at the Radisson.

So, how nice was this place in real life?  Well, have a look at this short video I shot of the pool area and you'll get an idea.

Monday, we hit the Mall of Asia.  Malls in the US just can't compare to the SM Malls in general but this one in particular leaves them in the dust.  The Mall of Asia, along with Megamall and Glorietta, those are how malls are SUPPOSED to be.  Everything you can ever imagine in one place.  You need it, they got it and again, I'm not exaggerating.  Mall shopping is like a national sport over there in Manila and they certainly do excel at it.  We even had a chance to see Batman Returns on the IMAX while we were there.  I don't know how it was in the normal theater but it sure did rock on IMAX.
And that was it.  That was the Manila vacation.  Gosh, it took almost a month for me to get the whole thing posted.  Sorry about that.  I had intended to get it done much sooner but things kept popping up at the last minute and I just didn't have the time.  Hope you enjoyed seeing little bits of our vacation.  Next week it's back to the boring, normal blog entries for me.  Sorry about that.  Who knows though, maybe aliens will land in the parking lot at work and need their 6 legged dog shaved.  I just hope they bring proof of rabies vaccination.  We can't take dogs without rabies vaccination.

A Busy Bear

Currently Reading: The Theban Plays by Sophocles

First of all, yes, that's right, Sophocles. I know a lot of you log in to this blog and shake your heads wondering just what on earth I'm reading now. Never let it be said I'm easily pinned down to any one particular type of literature. In this case, I can't even remember why I got the idea to read these plays again. I must have seen the book at Borders and decided right then. I haven't actually read them since high school, EARLY high school so we're talking 1984? 1985 maybe?

For those who aren't familiar with the work, there are three plays and you'll know the title of at least one: Oedipus The King (sometimes listed as Oedipus Rex), Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. After this I'll probably read something a little more modern but I do plan to read The Aeneid by Virgil (which is about the founding of Rome). It's always good to touch base with the classics from time to time.

Speaking of time, I haven't had very much of it lately, which I'm sure many of you have noticed. CC left for Manila on the 19th taking the first flight out (6:30 am!). We had to be at the airport by 4:45 which meant I had to be up at around 4:00 just to make sure we got there. Why do we always follow the rules like this? Because CC is what you might call a difficult case at the airlines. She doesn't have a US passport because she's not a US citizen. At the same time, because she's a legal resident, she doesn't have a visa either. When checking in at the international counter, what are the two pieces of identification that the little scanner will read? You got it, a US passport or a travel visa.

The procedure usually runs something like this. We walk up to the counter. The clerk tells us to use the little touch screen thing to get the boarding pass. So we go through the motions of trying it knowing full well that it won't work. We do this once for each bit of ID she has then tell the machine we don't have what it wants. This summons the clerk who then goes through the whole thing again once or twice (I guess to make sure we're not stupid or something) even though we've explained the problem. FINALLY after 15 minutes or so, the clerk takes CC's ID and keys in the information in the little terminal behind the counter. Another 10 minutes later she's got her boarding passes and her luggage is checked. Every time this happens. You'd think just once they'd actually listen to us and skip to the part where they type the stuff in themselves.

*You may have noticed that I didn't really have pictures that match this blog entry. I put in some generic shots of The Philippines instead*

She went to Manila a little earlier than she needed to. By arriving in the middle of Holy Week, she was able to spend a few days with her family and get in a little vacation time at their house up in the mountains (it's actually a big volcano that's not really active). Up until today, she's had it fairly easy, just the usual office work. But the boss arrived a few hours ago and everyone switched into hyper mode. I probably won't get to hear from her nearly as much now.

At work, nothing too dramatic has happened. Our one little adventure had nothing to do with the actual job. My boss is having some family problems. More accurately, her family is having health problems (I won't go into the details). Some of the problems have been building over time and wearing her down, little by little. Friday she had one more added to the pile and she pretty much snapped. It wasn't a serious breakdown mind you but it was fairly obvious the stress was just a little too much for her. I went and got the general manager and told her all about it because really, apart from CC, I'm not very good at dealing with all the emotional stuff face to face. You have a crisis, get the emotional people out of the way, turn me loose and I'll solve the problem. I can do that. Dealing with someone having a nervous breakdown? Not my strong suit.

Anyway, the GM calmed her down and pretty much sent her home for a few days so she could get all the family stuff under control. That left the rest of us to cover the holes in the schedule. Ok, that left ME to cover the BIG hole in the schedule. Saturday I pulled a 12 hour shift. Just wasn't any way around it. She couldn't handle it. The other groomer wasn't available. We had customers. So there ya go. In exchange for that though, I got Sunday off, which was nice. That allowed me to visit with MY family a bit and celebrate my niece's birthday.

So now you're all caught up on things around here. Any gaps in the story you can just fill in with boring, mundane housework, which is what I've been doing. With CC gone again naturally I have to do the chores that she'd normally do and since I'm not really a pig like most men, it means I have to clean.

Oh yes, I do get to play War Craft as well. That's how I relax between chores and work. And there's the reading of course. But until CC gets back next week or so, I doubt I'll have any adventures to post. Sorry about that.

Too much time on their hands

You know, sometimes I wonder if the guys in prison have just a little TOO much time on their hands. Case in point, this little video clip from a prison in the Philippines. It reminds me of something you might see in a Stephen Chow movie . . .





"We're just trying to work out whether being picked out of 1,500 rapists, bank robbers and serial killers to be "the woman" is lucky or terrifying. Still - the moral of this story? The Philippine prison system has completely lost its mind. And it. Is. Awesome."

-FHM Magazine

You've got to admit it though, they did a pretty damn good job of it :-)