The Philippines Day 1 and 2

I was feeling pretty apprehensive about the Philippines before I started this journey. Although it's different from my home country and of my adopted country it wasn't necessarily bad. The people have been very friendly and I haven't been plagued by what travel books and websites made it sound like the hordes of touts. I was asked a few times about taxis, but one no was all it took for them to leave me alone. One surprising thing was that the cops were even asking if I wanted a ride.

My first few hours in the Philippines went very fast. I arrived, found my friend and then went back to her house. Her dad fixed us up some really good Chinese style noodles and after that we went to bed. I must say it was a pretty strange night. I kept hearing strange, scary sounds and had a kind of unrestful sleep.

The next morning I was treated to a great breakfast with tons of great food. I was really digging my friend's dad's specialty: a spicy bacon and vegetable dish. It was awesome. After breakfast we headed to one of my friend's other friend's house. This guy turned out to be really nice and he drove us (me, my friend Tiff, and 2 Japanese people) to the city of Tagaytay.

Tagaytay was really nice. It overlooks the Taal volcano. It was very picturesque. The only bad thing was that it was crowded and pretty rainy. We would've gone to the island in the center of the crater lake, but the adverse weather put the kebosh on that. Still it was a nice time. After Tagaytay we returned to Manila for our last activity of the day.

As we drove back to Manila my new friends decided to go to karaoke. We made plans to meet up with another Japanese guy in order to have a larger and thus funner group. Everything was going good until we hit Manila. The main highway we were on was closed. We had to get off in a section of town that the two locals didn't know. We wandered for over an hour looking for familiar ground. Finally we collected our friend and went to karaoke.

I've gone to karaoke before many times. I've gone to karaoke in several cities in Japan and ranging from small dingy places to magnificent hostess bars. All of those experiences differed from last night. First off we got about 5 different kinds of food and 10 beers for about 1,999 pesos. That's for everyone for two hours. You'd be lucky to get that in Japan for one person. It was awesome. Everyone could sing really well and we just had a blast.

Today was much quieter and slower which was fine with me. Tiff and I went to the University of Saint Tomas and quickly learned that the University was open to visitors from Tuesday to Friday. So we headed over to a mall near her house. This mall was straight out of America. The shops were nearly identical to anything in America. It was pretty amazing. The strangest part was that you are briefly frisked before entering. Also, armed guards are everywhere. The supermarket was very close to an American one. There were tons of American foods. It was pretty great. After browsing around we ate at Jollibee. This is a chain fast food restaurant. It's everywhere in the Philippines. It's pretty good and very reasonably priced. I bought Tiff's food and mine and it was only about 5 bucks. It was very nice.

After that we went over to a massage place. No, it wasn't one of THOSE massage parlors. No, this place was reputable and very professional. The girl who massaged me was very good and worked out the tightness in my shoulders. It was a very relaxing time. The other workers were very friendly too. They all chatted me up after I was done. It was fun.

Now we're waiting to go see Inception. Apparently movies are super cheap here.

More tomorrow.