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Published: January 28th 2008
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I arrived in Manila Wednesday morning without incident. This was a relief since the last time I was here the airlines delayed my luggage by more than 24 hours. This is a beautiful time of year in Manila. Hardly any rain - just an occasional sprinkle pushing through the clouds while the sun is still out. It has been warm but breezy, which is a nice break from the unseasonably cold weather we’ve been having in Atlanta (snow last week!). I’m staying in Makati this trip at the Somerset Olympia Makati. It is a fairly nice apartment-hotel in a bustling neighborhood. The purpose of the trip is to visit a couple of my company’s vendors: one in Manila and one in Baguio. The Manila vendor was opening a new office after being acquired by
Allsec Technologies. I met and had a drink with the owners from India at a cigar bar at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel - Makati. They are very nice, well-traveled gentlemen who have had good success expanding their business. We talked about South Africa (they’ve been, I’m going soon), golf, Microsoft, etc. The opening of the new office was a nice event. The new office space is beautiful and
big - a huge change from the old offices of my vendor here. The agents are all excited to move, and it is obvious why - newer, nicer space, new computers, more room, etc. The new office is in Market! Market! which is essentially a large mall not far from Makati.
As typical of my trips here, my time was split between office time during the Manila night, and shopping, wandering during Manila day, without a lot of sleep in between. The nicest meal we had was at the Japanese steakhouse Inagiku in the
Shangri-La Makati. A host greeted us with an iron grill mask thingie over his face and traditional Japanese warrior clothes. You walk down a dark hallway with interesting lighting to get to several different areas to dine, including the low tables where you remove your shoes, regular tables, hibachi grill seats. Rich and I sat at the grill, and had a gorgeous and delicious meal of sushi, salad, seafood (and beef for him) grill, wine, etc. It was nice to have dinner at dinner time and NOT be headed to the office afterwards! That night I also slept for the first time at night, which is
a wonderful thing over here!
We went shopping two days in a row at Green Hills. I’ve now been there all three trips and I do love it! Such bargains on pearls, jewelry, purses, clothes, watches, house stuff, DVDs (Except here it isn’t really allowed like it is at St. Francis, so people just suddenly appear beside you saying “DVD ma’am?” and shove a hand-written list of the latest movies in front of you. They want to take you down a hallway out of the main area to get said DVDs. I say NO THANKS to that.), phones, electronics, electronics accessories, the list goes on and on. I bought a ridiculous amount of purses (I always think this could be my last trip here!) and some jewelry as well. I’ll give some away as gifts, but I’m definitely keeping a lot too! Rich bought even more stuff than I did and he’s fun to shop with.
I got to meet and share a meal with the parents and aunt/uncle of the founder of the original Manila company I’m visiting. They live in Baguio now and are Filipino. They introduced me to my first mango shake, now an absolute
favorite food/drink of mine on visiting this country. It’s delicious! I also enjoyed talking with them, hearing stories, getting their advice on things to do. The father is 81 and very fun. They were all extremely nice and welcoming to me at their family lunch. I enjoyed the time very much.
Rich and Paolo (both from the US also but who work for Allsec) left on Saturday night. I went to dinner with Gilbert and Jericho, the two managers I work directly with at Allsec on web design and call center respectively. We ate at Café Caruso in Makati - a nice Italian place recommended by my boss Duane. They thought there were more Americans than Filipinos there - just an observation. It was a nice setting, great pasta and bread, and a good last Manila dining-out experience.
And my final Manila experience for this trip was a visit to the
Ayala Museum. It was a great way to pass a couple of hours - Filipino artist Sanso had an exhibit called “Water” that I enjoyed (especially the paintings of Tagatay and surrounding lake since I’ve been there!). Other artists I enjoyed were Juan Luna, Fernando Amorsolo and Fernando
Zobel - all Filipino from varying eras.
Next stop: Baguio, Philippines!
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Marc
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Mango Shake
Truly, the best mango shake!