Eric's Big Adventure - Part 2: The First Few Days

Wow, still recovering from the travel. It was weird traveling in total darkness for almost 24 hours. I guess I didn't think about it before my trip but when I left @ 6:40 pm on Thursday that was the last time I saw the sun until it came up @ 6:00 am in Manila --- on Saturday. Subtract the twelve hour time difference and that's almost 24 hours without sun.

Sometimes I forget I am in another country but other times I am very much aware. One of those moments of awareness begins when you pull into the drive at the Hotel and there is a bomb check-point out front. Men with mirrors inspected underneath the car while a K-9 police officer and his dog checked out the trunk of the car.

Most everybody that I've met has been very friendly and helpful, and they all speak English remarkably well. The hotel is fairly large at nearly 20 stories tall. My room is very spacious and the decour is quite contemporary. How about this for smart in a hotel room --- upon entering the room you have to insert your room key into a device which then turns on all of the lights in the room.

The room has a good-size closet as well as a refrigerator. I did have a bit of an adventure with the iron. Overseas many of the electrical outlets are 220V, not 110V. Apparantly the iron in my room is meant for a 110V circuit but I plugged it into the 220V outlet. Ooops, all I heard next was zap and then off went the tv. Since I was ready for bed anyways I waited until the next morning to report my incident. A maintenance guy had to come to my room and crawl in the ceiling to reset the breaker. So sorry about that - Silly American !!!

So the number and types of the vehicles on the road are amazing. There are many which you don't see in the States, including something called Zeepneys and motorcycle sidecards called tricycles.


Pictured: A variety of Jeepneys in Manila. Check out this link for more info: https://amr.mail.accenture.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeepney

Most intersections do not have red lights nor stop signs. It's like everybody makes their way into the intersection at the same time and somehow they make it through to the other side, without a scratch to show for it. Amazing ! On top of that, the lines on the road are really a waste of paint. They're not even used as a guideline. The car horn is a better tool than the lines on the road !

My first couple of days in the hotel were a bit of a blur. I didn't know if I should be awake or asleep and how to best adjust to the time change. After getting settled in my room I gave in to my tiredness and hit the sack. I was hoping to get just a few hours sleep but it turned out that I didn't awake until about 5:00 pm. Imagine waking up from a long sleep and realizing the night is only a few hours away. Soon most everybody else in the city would be going to sleep.

I had to get out of my funk so I got changed into some shorts and walked around the hotel. It didn't take me too long to circle the complex before I ended up back where I started. It was then that I realized that a mall was close by. Turns out it was actually right across the street, so off to the mall I went.

To get to the entrance of the mall I had to pass by a large taxi-cab pick-up area. Definitely not the typical taxi's that you see in the US. These were more like mini-vans with seating to hold a lot of people. I couldn't believe how many people were crammed into some of these vehicles. If I didn't know better I would have sworn they were part of a college fraternity and they were trying to set a record for cramming people into a vehicle. Unfortulately for the people inside that wasn't the case.

To get into the mall you passed through a security area. Males went through one entrance and females went through the other. I entered the mall through the anchor store (SM) and once inside was amazed at how big the place was. The mall itself is five stories tall, but the department store was also five stories tall. It was like a Super Wal-Mart on steroids. In addition to the department store, SM had a full-service grocery store in an adjacent building. I wandered around and checked out the goods before proceeding into the heart of the mall.

Pictured is Building B of SM Megamall. Check out this link for more info: https://amr.mail.accenture.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM_Megamall

I was thinking to myself that back home we don't get this many people into a mall unless it's Christmas time. Here it occurs most everyday. I was hungry at this point in time, so I was on the prowl for some food. What did my eyes spot next but my favorite restaurant in the whole wide world - McDonald's. And this time I literally meant, whole wide world. I'm sure that I'll get chastised for coming to Asia and having McDonald's as my first meal here. After see some of the food on the airplane, however, I wasn't taking any chances.

The Asian version of McDonald's does not contain your normal menu. No Sir, extra products like the McSpaghetti and the new McRice burger were on the menu. I settled for my normal meal, a double-cheeseburger and fries, but instead of costing me $5 it was only $2. Wow, McDonald's for only $2. Now I could get used to that :-)


Pictured is the McDonald's McRice Burger. Check out this link for more info: http://goingglobal.corante.com/archives/2005/09/28/mcdonalds_scores_with_mcrice_burger.php

Next Blog: Adventures In Food