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Published: December 19th 2008
I read about the transport getting from and to the airport and had prepared for the worst, but actually it wasn't too bad.
As long as you take a taxi that is. We decided to go for the cheap way; a taxi taking us from the airport to the nearest LTR station, which would take us near our hotel, and if needed, another one to take us there in case we couldn't find it or it was too far too walk. Oh my god, entering the LTR station, the line to buy a ticket was so tremendously long, it would've taken us an hour or something. No way, so ack down the stairs and into another taxi.
This took us straight to our destination; The corner of Nakpil and Adriatico streets. I had a map on my lap, following the taxi drivers every move, afraid of him driving us around the place and ending up with a fare too high.
The hotel was a little overpriced, surely the most expensive one I've ever stayed in, but very nicely located and rigt in the centre of Manila's nightlife. Seeing that we only had one night out in Manila, this was fine with
us.
Our mean reason for visiting Manila being shopping for all the things you either can't buy in China ot it being fake, we quickly set out to Makati's main shopping area; SM mega mall. A little afraid of entering a large building occupied by men in leather and ....... looking for a slave, luckily it turned out just to be another shopping centre like you find in every city in every country.
Sometimes there's no greater pleasure than splurging your money on a new decent set of clothes, books or anything else the eye wants. Aaahhh. And when the time comes your wallet is suddenly getting to the point where it's actually easy to get it out of your pocket you wonder if you still have enough to last you till your departure to go 'back home'. Ah well, who gives a sh**!
So looking like a proper footballers wife who's just returning from her weekly London shopping spree, hopping into her husbands private jet to fly back to Manchester (actually we were standing on the side walk for half an hour trying to get a f*cking taxi to take us for a price that doesn't involve having
to rob Wallstreet, complaining about the bags tearing the flesh out of our hands and sweat slowly dripping down our bodies, crawling into our shoes and starting to itch, but there's not a f*cking thing you can do about it, because with one hand you're trying to hail a taxi, and with the other your holding on to your bags, in fear of some idiot ripping them out of your hands, which would mean you'd have to run to catch the basterd, which in turn means more sweat and an increase of itchyness), we arrived back at our hotel, where we crashed our bed, enjoying the luxury of a few dozen (English!) channels and airconditioning.
When the time came we could finally drag ourselves out of bed, it was already getting quite late, and if we were going to hit the Manila nightlife, we would have to get a move on! But nothing is done well on an empty stomach, so the first restaurant in our hotels vicinity thatwas open had the privilege of serving us a meal.
In this case that meant Japanese at quite an extortionate price. (Well, not transferred in some other currencies, but in pesos
with what we'd been spending on average, it was) We did get a rather large amount of food on our table though, which we couldn't finish all off. Returning at the hotel, we felt too full to do anything for a while so went back to lying on the bed and flipping through channels. By the time it was almost midnight it really was time to go out, if it was going to happen at all.
So we headed out along Nakpil street towards Maria Orosa street where the nightlife was concentrated.
The street resembled a scene from QAF, most of the party seemed to be happening ON the street. We drank some beers in Che'lu first and then started dancing (that is, we tried) with the other 100 guests in the tiny bar. Met some really cool locals taking photo's of us and welcoming us to Manila. Very friendly and great atmosphere!
Second place we tried was some club I forgot the name of in the same street. With having to stand in line and 400 pesos entrance you'd expect a first class club, but it was a little small and too dark to dance. I preferred the street
really, more lively, air to breath and room to move around. We had a great night and I hope to come back to Manila, defenitly stopping over here!
Our last day...! We packed our bags and stayed in the room till check out time. The we shopped some more.... Oh yes.
Wanting to see a litle of what Manila has to offer the foreign visitors, we took a cab to the old Spanish town called Intramuros.
It was our lucky day, some kind of religious procession was going on, celebrating something that I still don't know.
(It was the 7th of December) Loads of decorated trucks carrying religious statues, various marching bands and young boys dressed in gowns carrying crosses filled up a corner of the park, ready to take the streets. Great fun following them on our visit to the Manila Cathedral and the rest of the Intramuros interior.
Late afternoon we found a spot right on the brick outside wall, overlooking the lawns and skyline of central Manila.
And that was the end of our holiday really..... sad to leave and go back to the cold of northern China, we contemplated on our trip and promised each
other we would soon come back again.
(For anyone flying from the new terminal three; 750 pesos airport tax is required to leave the country, so don't change all your currencies back at the booth just before, they don't warn you, meaning you have to exchange you money twice...)
We arrived at Pudong and with the information that I had, our next morning flight 8 hours later would take us from Hongqiao airport to Beijing. We arrived here by taxi at 1 a.m., sleeping on a bench for 5 hours and back in line to check in at 6, when we heard my information was wrong; We were flying from Pudong!
So basically it cost us 400 yuan to go from Pudong to Hongqiao to sleep on a rotten bench for 5 hours!!!
In Beijing Zhu traveled onwards back home to Hohhot, I took the bus to Qinhuangdao where I had get my photo taken to receive my new residence permit.
All in all, a great relaxing hoiday, it was my 9th Asian country, so a few more to go. Like I said before, 2 weeks isn't enough to see all tha the Philippines has to offer,
so hope to be back soon!
Salamat!
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Marc
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King of the Road
Love those jeepneys!