November 10th-11th
My friend's wife gave us a ride from San Diego to Los Angeles. We flew
from Los
Angeles to San Francisco, from San Francisco to Tokyo, and then
from Tokyo to Manila.
Altogether (including layovers), it took 24 hours.
We met my friend at Manila Airport
and waited for his brother to
arrive. After he arrived, we took a taxi to the Royal
Bellagio
hotel in Makati City, arriving at 12:30am. After cleaning up, we went
out to
some bars and returned to the hotel at 3:30am.
November 12th
I had breakfast by myself at 9:30am. I met my friends at noon and they
had lunch while
I walked to CitiBank to cash a travelers check.
Unfortunately, I couldn't do it because
all of the banks in The
Philippines are closed during the weekends. So, I borrowed some
money from my friend. The four of us went to a mall, returned to the
hotel, and took
naps (because we were both tired from the night before
and it was hot that day -- for us).
We had Thai food for dinner and then
went out partying until 2:00am.
November 13th
I got up at 11 o'clock. I packed my bag, met my friends at the hotel
lobby, and we took a
3-1/2 hour minivan ride to Subic Bay. (We
saw some monkeys along the road in Subic
Bay during the ride.) We
watched a (American) college football game and then took
3-hour naps.
We went to the 'Blue Rock' bar/restaurant, my friend's favorite hang
out,
for dinner. Then, we went to a few bars in Subic City and
returned to the apartment at
12:30am.
November 14th
I woke up at 2:30am and got up at 6:30am. Later, my friend from the U.S.
and my
friend's brother said that they also woke up very early in the
morning. We weren't sure
why all three of us woke up so early.
After my friend woke up, we made steak and eggs
for breakfast.
My friend from the U.S. received a phone call from his wife's relatives
(His wife's parents were Filipino.) and they arranged to pick him up and
take him
sightseeing for the rest of our trip (7 more days). I
washed my clothes. Afterwards, my
friend, his brother, and I went
golfing. We each had caddies who were 20 to 25 year old
Filipinas.
(Mine was the best looking.) I shot a 46, my friend shot a 50,
and his brother
shot a 54. Wow, did we sweat up storms! We
returned to the apartment, took showers,
and had dinner at the 'Blue
Rock' again. I met around six of my friend's friends, we
went to
four bars, and then we went back to the apartment at 3:00am.
November 15th
I woke up at 8:30. I got a ride to the grocery store from my friend's
landlord. I bought
items from both my list and my friend's list.
When I returned, my friend's brother made
egg sandwiches and then
I washed my clothes (again). We drove to Angeles (3 hours).
We ate
Mexican food for dinner at a restaurant named Zapata's. We checked into
the
'Orchid Inn', took showers, and and went to some bars. At
4:30am, my friend's brother
returned to the hotel and my friend and I
went to breakfast. We returned to the hotel
at 5:15am.
November 16th
I slept until 11:30. I checked out of the hotel and we went to breakfast
at 'Cottage Cafe'.
We drove back to Subic Bay in 1 hour and 30 minutes
and we took naps. At 6:30, we
ate dinner at an Indian
restaurant (owned by a man from Nepal). We went back to the
apartment and watched a movie ("Team America"). We were so tired
that we crashed at
10 o'clock. (Finally, we went to bed at a decent
time!)
November 17th
I got up at 6:30 and I took a 2-mile walk around the neighborhood. We
ate breakfast
and then watched the movie "Family Guy".
(It rained overnight, the only time that it
rained during the trip.)
My friend's brother and I got a ride from a Federal Express
pilot
to a pig roast. It was held on a floating bar at the 'Blue Rock'.
It is located
approximately 100 yards offshore from the beach. We
partied until 8pm and then went
to the 'Blue Rock'. We stayed
there until 11pm and then returned to the apartment.
November 18th
I got up at 8am. We ate breakfast and then went to the 'Blue Rock' to get
a scuba
diving lesson. I didn't make it past the swimming pool --
stage one. I couldn't handle
the pressure of the oxygen and also
the exhaled bubbles in my face freaked me out. I
asked the
instructor if I could change the oxygen pressure and he said that they didn't
have regulators. So, my friend and his brother went out in the
ocean while I hung out
at the bar drinking banana shakes with the women.
That's not a bad alternative, eh?
We returned to the apartment
and my friend's Thai girlfriend cooked Thai food (pad
kia pao, tom hum
kung (shrimp soup), pad ka lam (pork), and a couple of other dishes).
Wow! After dinner, we were so tired that we went to bed at 10:30.
November 19th
I got up at 7:15 and we went to a Federal Express employee's house for
breakfast. At 9
o'clock, we all (approximately 40 men and my
friend's Thai girlfriend) took a bus to
'San Miguel Golf Course' on a
Filipine navy base. The tournament format was a 2-man
scramble
although they called it a 2-man best ball and the different teams played
different formats of their own choices -- 2-man best ball, 2-man scrambles, and
hybrids
of both. The winning team's score was a 72 (2 over par)
and my team's score was 78. I
did win something though -- the
"closest to the pin hole" award. It was a trophy made
of wood and in the shape of the tail fin of an airplane. The ball ended up 3
feet behind
the hole and we couldn't understand how it didn't go in the
hole. After the tournament,
the bus full of guys (and one woman)
went to the 'San Miguel VFW', a go-go bar, and the
'Midnight Rambler'.
We ate dinner and had free drinks there. My friend's brother and
I left at 9:45 because he was having foot problems and my sore throat (that
start ed
during the third day of the trip) was getting worse. My
friend arrived at the apartment
with his girlfriend about 15 minutes
later and I went to bed right away.
November 20th
I got up at 8 o'clock. We ate breakfast, washed clothes, and watched a
movie ("Old
School"). We packed our bags and left in my
friend's car for Lamao. We took a 45-
minute ferry ride to Manila,
arriving in Pasay at 4:15. We took a taxi from the dock to
the
Westin hotel. (Note: It is wise to always ask the taxi driver to turn on
the meter.)
We had minor problems at the hotel. In particular, we
asked for 3 non-smoking rooms
with either quenn- or king-size beds.
Instead, we were given 3 smoking rooms with
small twin beds in
each one. They switched us into non-smoking rooms with large
twin
beds. Also, the air conditioning wouldn't work better than low power.
Oh well,
we weren't planning on spending a lot of time in the
rooms anyway. We cleaned up and
went to a Chinese/Japanese
restaurant for dinner. Afterwards, we went bar-hopping at
a place
called International Entertainment Complex ("IEC"). We returned
to the
hotel at about 1:15am.
November 21st
At 6:50am, my friends left the hotel to go sightseeing at an ex-U.S. military
base. I
decided to sleep in and go souvenir and gift shopping.
I had breakfast at a Wendy's
restaurant and ate "tapa",
a type of beef with an egg and rice. I took a local bus to a
mall
and started shopping. I went to four malls until I found where I bought
several
items for my family and friends. For lunch, I ate chicken
adobo and a couple of other
Filipino dishes at a restaurant named
"Goldilocks". I took a local express train to the
fifth
and final mall. I bought the rest of the items for people. I took
a taxi to the hotel,
took a 45-minute nap, and met my friends in the
hotel's bar for a couple of drinks. (It
was the last chance that
I would see them before we all left Manila.) After that, I went
to dinner at 9:30 at a Chinese restaurant, went to one of the bars at the
"IEC", and
went to bed at about midnight.
November 22nd
I got up at 6:45 and checked my email messages to make sure that my friend in
San
Diego could give me a my traveling friend a ride from LAX to San
Diego. (He
responded that he would be there.) I checked
out of the hotel and took a 20-minute taxi
ride to the airport. I
arrived at 8:30, 70 minutes before the flight. I met my friend at
the gate at 8:50. We flew from Manila to Tokyo and had a 4-1/2 hour
layover there.
We flew from Narita to San Francisco in 8 hours.
In San Francisco, our flight was
cancelled, so we ran and caught a flight
that left 1 hour and 25 minutes earlier. We
arrived in Los Angeles, but my friend's bag didn't make it. It turned out that my friend
giving us a ride couldn't arrive earlier than scheduled to give us a ride, so waiting for my
friend's bag wasn't an issue. My friend picked us up and we arrived at my traveling
friend's house at 5:30. His wife arrived there at 6 o'clock, so I was able to go home after
getting my things from inside their house.
And yet another fun, adventurous, interesting, and sometimes scary trip to
The
Philippines. The "scariest" part was when my friend
from Subic Bay got into an
argument with the mama-san at one of the go-go
bars and I had to step into it in order
to settle things down, get the
bill paid, and leave. Compared to some of my previous trips
to
Asia, this was the least scariest of them all. "What was the
funniest thing that
happened during the trip?". It had to be two
things. One was one of the golfers in the
Federal Express
tournament riding a caribou/water buffalo for three holes. The other
one was a girl walking alongside a road selling seafood on the street,
carrying a sign that
read "I've got crabs".