Manila

Apparently February marks the "real" beginning of work in this company, and so I was spent a-packing to a new city ... Manila.

Amazing how I have been more or less brought up by various domestic help from Philippines but I have never picked up any Tagalog. Well, I guess that is a proof of their english competency. So I already knew I was not going to have any problems with language in the country. But what else could I expect?

I was definitely not prepared for the shocking pink roadside toilets that they had for males! Nor the amount of security that they had! Every big shopping centre and hotel had its fair share of semi automatic toting guards, along with the cutest guard dogs! In my short 10 minute walk from hotel to office, my bag gets checked no less than 5 times... thats an average of once every 2 minutes. 

Two weekends in Manila... I had plenty of time to "explore" the shopping centres. This was my next "shock" point, the shopping has been so "localised" that even the international brands are filled with clothes in shocking pink, dark brown, dark green, purple and orange. Walking shop after shop, I could not find any thing to buy! Anything that I thought worth a second look was always tagged with a price tag that I could not afford! And the stuff that I could afford... well, let's say that Bangkok or Hong Kong are safe from being replaced as my shopping destinations. Not too sure who could afford shopping in these shopping centres... hmmm... 

One "fear" my mum had prior to my visit was security... and she gave me a "sagely" advice: try and look like a local. Well, mum really should not have feared overly as besides the extremely tight security in the place, I was mistaken as a local throughout my entire stay, despite my many "blank" looks when spoken to in tagalog.

All in all, did learn alot from my trip to this new city, not to mention had alot of fun in the water during my weekend dive! Kinda amazed that the country has not done better as they are equipped with the infrastructure for success, but then again, most people I spoke to were very happy with their work life balance... so who am I to assume that a booming economy is necessarily the better thing?