Destination Uno: Manila

For those of you that read my last post, you know that I made it on my plane from Seattle to Tokyo despite the issue I encountered. The flight was long and uneventful. We flew through daylight for the entirety of the flight. Upon arriving in Tokyo I had just under an hour to go through security again and find my gate before the flight to Manila would be boarding. I made it without any problems, boarded my plane, and was pleasantly surprised when we landed in Manila around 9:30pm, 30 minutes earlier than our expected arrival time. 

Jim had been in Manila for a day or two prior to my arrival. He’d been in charge of making sure we had a place to stay and he was going to meet me at the airport around 10 when my flight landed. It worked perfectly seeing as immigrations and luggage pick-up took a bit of time. I went outside and sat down for about a minute or so before noticing him walk by. We attempted to find the taxi he had set up and failed before finally settling on a different taxi to take us to the hotel. The room was a very unique room, and no, I do not have a picture. You walk through the door into a kitchen with one small round table and 2 chairs. There is a bathroom and a closet. Then there is a ladder. You go up the ladder and what do you find? A bed! It was a strange little loft room full of biting ants. One of those crazy little guys even decided to bite me in the belly button! I didn’t even know ants went there.

The original plan and been to meet up with Jim in Manila, spend a couple days catching up on sleep and then fly off to Palau, an incredible little island you can only reach through Manila, Taiwan, or Guam. Unfortunately we didn’t plan in advance and it turns out flights are at least 400+ each way! We then decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to extend Jim’s visa again and head south while remaining in the Philippines to visit Apo or Coron. The fact that it happens to be the rainy season put an end to that plan. That is not something we really wanted to put up with, so we spent a day or so figuring out other options. Hong Kong won. We decided to fly up to Hong Kong, mainly so I can see Disneyland and eat delicious food and so Jim would have decent internet for a change, and then we would go to Macau for a few days. With good internet we’d also be able to plan our next course of action. 

Our time in Manila was pretty uneventful. We went to the Mall of Asia one day. I saw Monster’s University in the comfy theatre at Resort World. The ticket price included a free medium popcorn, but unfortunately this popcorn was covered in a taco or pizza flavored powder. Jim and I spent some time catching up on Game of Thrones (neither of us had watched the most recent season yet). We didn’t venture out much since I was still pretty tired. We weren’t able to meet up with my friend Pam, as I had wanted to, so that was sad. Anyway, we departed Manila on Thursday, June 27^th and headed to Hong Kong. Hooray.

(Written around July 8/9, 2013)