Our First Weekend

Ok, so I'm finally back again with some info about our first weekend. Saturday we had the morning mostly to ourselves, and we met up in the lobby to go out to lunch with some folks from the office. They took us to a very nice French (I think?) restaurant, and unfortunately I was too brain dead at that point to snap any photos. Some people got a few shots of the group, and if I get any of them I'll add that to this post. It was all of us who came from MN, plus my manager Mary Jo, plus the Site Manager from the office here - Roel Roque, and the two Operations Managers for Codes and Cases - Kay and Aida. I had a nice grilled tilapia meal, and some creme brulee for dessert. Again - wasn't thinking of snapping photos at that point!


After lunch, Kay was nice enough to walk us over to the grocery store that is steps from our hotel, and we were able to change some money to Philippine pesos, as well as pick up some essentials for our rooms. We are staying in a nice hotel that is sort of like an Extended Stay, so we all get kitchenettes. It's nice to be able to keep some food on hand and also cook if we feel like it. But there are so many restaurants, in the hotel and nearby, that we haven't done so much cooking! There's even room service, so if we're really fried we can order in. But we haven't done much of that, either.


Unfortunately, that morning Karen happened to trip over her suitcase that was still sitting in the middle of her floor from our arrival the night before, and she twisted her bad ankle. So she missed the lunch and hung out in her room for the day. I spent the evening visiting her and getting my very first knitting lesson! Here you can see what I've been able to accomplish - almost a Barbie-sized wrap, or the world's tiniest dish-towel. Hey, it's a start!!




Sunday we decided to venture out a little on our own. There are SO MANY MALLS all around us!! And they're all connected with tunnels and skyways, so we were able to walk around a bit and explore. One of the first things we happened to stumble upon was a little used book stand that carried two West pamphlets!! Here are Karen and Gretchen with a copy of Washington Court Rules and Arizona Revised Statutes. From 2002 and 2003, I think, but since the library has not yet arrived at the office, we purchased these volumes so we'd have some training examples to show our trainees. Who knew that we'd be able to build our own library right here?!?!

We eventually found ourselves in SM, a local department store/grocery store, in the biggest shoe department I've ever seen!! The whole floor was shoes and purses and bags, and we quickly became overwhelmed with the selection. In addition to the department store options, there are little boutique shoe stores all over the place in the mall. No wonder Imelda had so many! I may be coming home with a few new pairs myself... But we'll see.

By that time we were getting hungry for some lunch, and we landed at a little spot called Gilligan's Island. We wanted to try some new things, but we weren't too adventurous. There's a lot of squid on the restaurant menus, but none of us really eat squid. (Rubber bands - no thanks.) Karen had heard from someone that the Chicken Lollipop was good, so she gave it a try. Little chicken drummies with the meat all bunched up at one end so it looks like a lollipop. Cute!



I ended up having a Monte Christo with fries, but the surprising twist is in the ketchup. It looks normal...but it has banana in it! Yes, banana ketchup. Mostly still tastes normal, but there's a definite extra sweet fruity taste at the end.

After our meal, we were getting pretty wiped out. We had been waking up around 4 am, so by 4 pm it was time for a nap. We each went back to our rooms and just hung out for the evening. I Skyped with my mom and dad, cause I didn't have a phone card, yet. And then took a nap, ordered in some food, talked to the boys at home, and tried to sleep. Jet lag - it's a beast.

Next up, our first day at the office.

Getting Here

Hello everyone!! Welcome to my blog, where I'll try to record all of the interesting, or not so interesting, things that happen during my travels to Manila, Philippines. Let's start with how I and my co-workers, Karen and Gretchen, got here in the first place.

We started out in the MSP airport, and got to hang out in the Delta Sky Lounge. From left to right, here's Gretchen, Karen, and me!

We were able to check email and have a couple snacks and beverages before we loaded up onto the plane for our loooooooong flight to Tokyo. That flight took about 12 hours, I think. It actually passed pretty quickly, with some dozing, eating dinner, watching a couple of movies, more dozing, playing some video games on the tv at my seat, a little more sleeping, and some more eating. We had dinner when we first got on the plane, and then breakfast shortly before we landed in Tokyo.

Our plane was an hour late leaving Minneapolis, so we didn't have much of a layover in Tokyo. No time to check out Delta's loung there, though we've heard it's really nice! We found our gate, lined up, and boarded the next flight. Here you can see what my seat looked like:

And here are Karen and Gretchen. We each had a little light on our seat-backs, and we decided it looked like a microphone to take someone's order at a drive-thru. Would you like fries with that?

Even though we had just eaten some breakfast, once we were on our way from Tokyo to Manila, they fed us another dinner! It was evening in Tokyo when we took off, so that fit their schedule, but our bodies were very confused. And we weren't hungry at all. They had an interesting "Champagne Dinner", so I decided to try that. It came in a Japanese bento box, and was very cute.

I wasn't very hungry, but I tried a few things. And of course I ate the dessert! It's in the upper right-hand corner - a cheesecake, but very light, with some fresh fruit.

After some food, I watched another movie, played some more video games, and tried to sleep a little. The flights were all pretty smooth, and we had no problems. When we landed in Manila, we were all feeling very strung out and exhausted. We had to get through the Immigration line, then collect our checked bags, then go through Customs. There were some vans lined up to take us all to the hotel (there were 3 other people from Thomson Reuters who travelled with us from Minneapolis), and we finally made it to the Ascott Makati at around midnight. We all got checked in, and collapsed into our beds.

Next up - our weekend adventures!