Waiting to Return Home

This is my final entry for now as I arrived home safe/sound. But prior to going back to work....

I arrived in Manila Friday morning and after 1/2 day of touring the city was ready to go home. While the people are friendly, the city is not. All the traffic lights we hate, I wish Manila had - not that anyone driving really pays any attention to the traffic lights that are present. The general rules of the road are: the bigger vehicle goes first; you are considered a vehicle. Honking is a courtesy... Collectively pedestrians serve as a vehicle when crossing streets to stop traffic in whatever directions they choose. Friday nights are difficult nights to get a taxi; jeepneys are 10x cheaper but are open to the diesel fumes and smog. They are also subject to the same rules as cars, busses, horse carts, and taxis: hurry up and wait.

I did manage to get into Intermuros to visit some of the sites not destroyed during the Battle of Manila. Much of the area was restored in the 1980s. The guide I ended up hiring knew a tremendous amount about the sites and history of the area. He said that he had been a guide there for over 20 years and that he was in a TIME magazine article for it in 2002. He also took me into Chinatown to see the Philippines wealthiest inhabitants, which he obviously did not like. We went to the Chinese Temple and the City of the Living Dead, where the wealthiest Chinese are buried. I was tired, not very impressed, and ended up finding my way home early via Metrorail and jeepney.

Over the weekend, I mostly found myself in shopping malls. On Sunday afternoon prior to my departure, I paid for the health club and spa at The Peninsula Hotel of Manila, which is where Imelda Marcos can still be seen weeknights and most Saturdays. Very nice place and great food.

My airline would not give me a voucher for my 11-hour layover in Seoul since I had a free ticket to Manila and back from the States. This ended up being a good thing, since it forced me to take a 1-hour bus ride into downtown Seoul for the day. I found out which bus to take so that I could be mostly indoors (Outdoor temperatures were about 3 degrees below Celsius, and I only had a t-shirt to wear under my nice new short sleeve shirt from Makati). Even though I was unfortunately back in the shopping malls, I had a great time in Seoul's most upscale shopping and financial district. The international and domestic airports actually allow you to check in downtown and then take the 1-hour bus ride directly to the airports - very convenient.

I also grabbed a taxi to drive me around Seoul with no particular destination other than to take pictures and see what I could before returning to the airport. The driver could not speak English, but I managed to communicate what I wanted. He obviously did not want to take me anywhere, but when I laid down the equivalent of about $20US, I remarkably started moving. Despite the cold, I found Seoul and the outskirts of the capital to be extremely clean. The architecture is very impressive. There was no major traffic, likely due to the many double decker freeways and bridges connecting the various city districts. Apparently, Korea is the cleanest country in all of South East Asia, Singapore included.

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