MMLDC: Fun punctuated by random inconvenience

We came to MMLDC on 12/29 and had quite a bit of fun there despite some real issues with the hotel/convention center. The issue is that MMLDC claims to be both a hotel and convention center, but the reality is that it is really just a convention center. there were not very many people there and lots of things in MMLDC were closed, even things like the in-house restaurants, including the promised free breakfast on the last day, etc. So we had fun but we will never go back there again. [breathe] OK, I'm not going to get into that rant. lets focus on the fun.

The rest of the Americans got to MMLDC before Joy and myself. And spent some time checking out the nice aviary.



Joy and I were sharing our condo with her parents and brothers and sister on 12/28 and finishing wedding preparations and then met up with the group in the evening. We had good fun playing different games in their game room that evening.


We went out for dinner because of the aforesaid issues [rant excised] but we had a lot of fun doing it. we got into several tricycles and rode into the town of Antipolo. For the uninitiate a "tricycle" is actually a motorcycle and large open sidecar that you can cram 1-9 people in on and around depending on your size and determination (I think I have actually seen 8 people on one and yes several were children).



We got some fast food at Chow King and Joy was presented with a gag gift... a handbook for me. It mentioned lots of very important things, like me not having an off switch, there being no warranty, and that my primary fuel is mountain dew. We got a good kick out of it that evening.


here is a random video that Dan took that night evidencing the cuteness of the shortest Greenlaw:



On the way back we noticed a large Christmas tree at MMLDC.


On closer inspection we realized the tree was actually created entirely out of copper. It might help to know that MMLDC stands for Meralco Management Leadership Development Center Where Meralco is the electric company for Manila. So I guess they recycled some old copper into a gigantic Christmas ornament.

Commuting

Commuting in Manila is truly an artform. And by artform what I mean is that you are likely to do things that seem improbable and silly in pursuit of a particular end. This is largely due to Metro Manila being one of the top 20 cities worldwide in population and something like #4 in population density. Oh and traffic laws are essentially non-existent. I mean I've been to a lot of places and Manila is right at the top of traffic absurdity. The most funny thing is that most public transportation vehicles have a "how am I driving?" sign with a phone number on the back of it. It begs the question Erik West asked: "what would you say? He failed to cut off someone in traffic that he could cut off?"

Back in Manila

Joy, Matt and I flew back into Manila on the afternoon of Christmas, and sent our luggage ahead with Joy's Aunt and Uncle (Felix and Ceres) and went to the international airport to wait for Heidi. her flight was delayed a bit so we hung around, drank coffee and otherwise stared off into space waiting for her plane to arrive. The plane finally got there and Joy and I sent Matt Jennings and Heidi off to the SIL guest house they would be staying in for the next few days and Joy and I headed off for our new home. Here are some pictures of the guesthouse... a nice and clean though somewhat boring place (there are no TVs, or anything really to do except talk).


Joy and I are renting a condo, our landlord is an Italian guy who depends part of the year in Italy and part of the year in the Philippines with his girlfriend who lives in one of the condos that he owns in this complex. The unit is a two bedroom unit and is furnished which makes the whole deal a lot sweeter. The Italian's girlfriend is the one we actually give our rent to, and with whom we communicate; she manages his properties. But anyway, this was our first time to really see the place we would be living for the next 6 months which was kind of exciting (I'll have some pictures of this in later posts).

So we connected with Matt and Heidi the next day (12/27) for food and spent some time with them and then the next day the rest of the group began to arrive. Dan and Jenny Crank, Matt and Rachel Nikolaiev, Erik West, and Fuad Loutfi all flew in on the same flight and went to the SIL guest house.


Then we all met at the Greenhills mall (a nice mall near the guest house). There we ate a nice dinner and spent some good time catching up.


We met again the next day (12/28), this time at megamall. We needed to pick up barongs for some of the guys (myself included... apparently sending measurements made by untrained people to a tailor in another country is not so effective). We had some really great noodles at a place on the 4th floor of this mall. it was somewhat interesting that the noodles were hand-pulled. If you're wondering what that means, watch the video here:




That evening we all came back to Joy and my condo and Joy had a shower while all the guys went down to the clubhouse and did very little of anything. The guys part of this was decided on the spur of the moment and it was truly uneventful. The girls, though had good bonding time.

Christmas in Naga with the Nacions

Christmas in the Philippines is quite a fun event. This was my second Christmas in Naga, so I knew a bit of what to expect. As a bit of a downer we spent a fair amount of our time at the airport getting to Naga, and then coming back to get our baggage, then coming back to pick up a friend and then leaving the next day to Manila. Basically there was a daily trip to the airport for the entirety of my time in Naga but luckily the Naga airport wasn't far. As for actual points of interest over the Christmas period, there was a fundraiser being done by the young people of the church that was pretty good and then the next day was a reception held for Joy and myself/birthday party for Joy and my brother-in-law Darrell.(he's the big white guy in the pictures -- yes he did play football, specifically center for ole miss). I chose the picture below to show the somewhat humorous disparity of size (sorry Darrell).


It was supposed to be a few people, but as you can see in true Filipino fashion it turned out to be about 100 people (there are a lot of people out of the camera range on both sides) stuffed into the living room of mama and papa Nacion's house. But it was pretty fun, and we had good food and talked a bit about how we came together and Glenith (Joy's sister) and Darrell talked a little bit about how things were going in their lives. The next day was Christmas Eve (the big day in the Philippines) so after wandering around Naga a bit we had a wonderful dinner out on the patio including one of my favorites: barbequed pork (I highly recommend Filipino barbeque). Here are a couple pictures from that evening:

Barbeque in action:



The Nacions plus adopted Nacions taken by Matt Jennings:



Joy's two brothers and Matt Jennings:


We had a good time hanging out with the Nacions and one of my childhood friends (Matt Jennings). And then left the next morning for Manila to meet my sister at the airport. Of course it was slightly more copmlicated because there were no flights out of Naga on Christmas day so we had to take a van to Legaspi to catch a flight to Manila, so we also stopped along the way to see the remains of a historic church that was buried by a volcanic eruption 300 years ago from the volcano Mayon.

Travel, Travel, and more Travel

yay! 30-ish hours of travel... Houston to Seattle, Seattle to Taipei, Taipei to Manila. Houston to Seattle was uneventful, I arrived around midnight and I think there were maybe two people working in the airport at the time, I had to find this one poor lady who clearly had lots of other things she needed to do other than talk to me, several times to try to figure out what I needed to do to connect to my next flight.

But once I loaded onto the next flight I was blissful. It turns out that EVA Airways Evergreen delux is essentially business class at only slightly above economy prices. And this is what I was going to take on the last two legs of the trip so yeah the rest of the trip was quite comfortable. Here is a picture of the seat arrangement I was in from Teipei to Manila:



And there was much rejoicing...


And speaking of Taipei, here are a couple interesting pictures from the airport.
There was a huge Hello Kitty play area:


a sculpture garden:


and a real garden, yeah real growing flowery things:


inside the terminal. Cool albeit wierd.

Post Facto posting and ripping off lyrics from John Denver

This is my first post-facto post. I'm not going to try to keep the tense of things in line, I will use the present tense for things in the past, past tense for things in the past, and future tense for things in the past. In fact it is quite possible that I will use the past tense for things in the future just to shake things up. anyway... here goes.

"I'm leavin'... on a jet plane... don't know when I'll be back again..." Its a little eerie how well that fits my current situation. I've packed up my life and stored what I can't fit into a couple suitcases to Manila Philippines (we'll there's still some stuff in the apartment that my roommate and brother will hopefully be kind enough to pack up, and store as well). I'm not entirely sure when I'm coming back... I'm coming back when Joy's visa is done processing which is dependent on the Department of Homeland Security otherwise known as the black-hole of legal documents. So I really don't know when that will be done, and when I will come back, current best guess is six months from now.

Here is all that I have:


locked up here:


and yeah, its about 4 tubs of clothes, 3 of miscellaneous, and about 25-30 of books.

I have been on this sprint for the last month or so, trying to finish school, pack up, and still stay marginally useful at work. But its finally finished... at least I will get to sleep on the plane.

If you are wondering why there has been no action on this blog, well... I made a call to post-facto blog about the current journeys to our wedding, hong kong, macau, and Bangkok when we got back... we really aren't spending enough time in these cities to also write blog posts about the daily goings on without missing stuff, so... hold your breath... hold it... hold it... we'll be back in a few days with lots of pictures and random funny stories (like the beast of the dalisay paradise nest and the growing checklists of forms of public transportation).


talk to you in a few days....