Manila - Day 2 - The smoggy city (part 1)

So, I think I left Day 1 off with the word "smog." I'll get to that in a minute.

My first morning in Manila was experienced from the wrong side. As in I arrived a bit past midnight and did my normal unpacking thing. Took a bit but I have some sweet closet space an extremely tiny chesser drawer, but the room was awesome. Man I was thirsty so I walked over to the sink and drank from the faucet.

Kidding.

There's a reason I got a Typhoid shot, and it wasn't so that I could drink the water. It was in case I was an idiot and exposed myself to unfiltered liquid over hear. Well, I look on the handy-dandy room service list and boom - water. Yay. A 1 liter water bottle was only 30 Pesos. Sweet. Oh wait, what's this, a 5 gallon jug of water for 140 P?!?! I'm there.

Now, you as an intelligent reader say to yourself, "Jeez, 5 gallons? Isn't that the size of a water cooler?" I respond to your internal logic saying "Of course it is. It's one of those huge water jugs that sit on this dispenser machine found in most work break areas. Who wouldn't know that?" Well, me apparently.

So the dude shows up with jug and I kinda laugh. How the hell am I supposed to drink out of it? So many funny scenarios went through my head about how to make this work, but sadly/luckily the guy said something along the lines of "oh, you don't have a dispenser?" loosely translated as "wow, you're a stupid American." So I proceed to rent a water dispenser at 500P per month - that's only about 10 bucks. Deal.

So now I have my very own water cooler. It's there right now as type. It's there as you read this. Think about it. Do you have your own water dispenser? I didn't think so.

Well, after this funny incident I get on the internet, email the fam that I'm alive, check work stuff, read my book. Next thing I know it's 4am. Crap, I gotta get up for work in 3 hours. I hate jet lag.

So, I wake up to lucid dreams of a phone ringing. Not dreams apparently, actual phone ringing. Guess I set up a wake-up call. Time - 7:00am. Ugh. I trim the beard, take a shower, iron my wrinkly polo, frock myself, and head on down to Mr. Breakfast Buffet. Mmmmm.

Did I mention The Ascott is awesome? Well, their breakfast is killer. I'll work from left to right here: 8 kinds of cereal, 4 kinds of nuts, 8 kinds of dried fruit, crunchy peanut butter, choco-hazel-nut spread, milk, fresh fruit, yogurt, all kinds of spreads and spices, honey, syrup, sandwich meat, sandwich fish, cheeses, lasagna, bacon, eggs, oatmeal, congee, rice, french toast/pancakes, potatoes, orange/mango/apple/cranberry/?other? juice, bagels, soft pretzel, english muffins on steroids, 10 kinds of breads, 5 kinds of rolls, 4 kinds of pastries, muffins, and an omlette station.

Yes, they had lasagna.

If you've witnessed me walk into my parents kitchen after it's been a while, you know that I make "the rounds." Open the fridge, check out the food droors, the pantry - you know, scope the place out. I've so far done this exact routine every morning at Mr. Buffet. It's fun, rewarding, and filling.

Time - 8am. Brush teeth (using water from my water cooler of course), check email, sit for a sec. It's time for my first foray into the city. Let's do this.

The hotel provides a car service every morning for me so I went down to B3 and hopped into the car. The driver is dressed up in a white and black security-like uniform. No gun, just the uniform. Reminded me of The Transporter except not British, no tie, and no BMW. However, the car was indeed nice as was the driver.

We wheel out and the fun begins.

So there is this highway interchange in Atlanta called Spaghetti Junction. It's where I-85 and I-285 cross paths. The "spaghetti" is due to the crazy number of elevated pieces of concrete required to give us humans all the choices we'd ever want. I mean, mathematically, you should only need 8 different ramps right? Well, that's only if you plan things out and if you've been to Atlanta you know city planning isn't the best. I mean, Sherman burned the place down and we couldn't get it right the second time. Ah well.

The most prominent ramp of Spaghetti Junction is the one from I-285 East to I-85 North that soars over all the rest. Call it the uber-ramp. (I'd recommend trying it sometime if it didn't mean sitting in traffic for about 5 days.) Needless to say, the view from the top of this ramp is pretty sweet as long as you like looking at traffic the vast amount of absent green space. Well, imagine driving up a similar ramp, except not as high but it doesn't matter because it's relatively flat around you. The road curves to left and you're looking at city-sprawl that goes off in all directions. As your car reaches the apex of the ramp, your eyes batter your brain with images that can only be described as imagined reality but the first thing your mind registers isn't large amount of busses, not the vast traffic jam waiting to greet you, not the large posters pasted on dirty skyscrapers, not even the fact that there isn't any blue in the sky.

All you notice is the smog.

I'm not saying it's the worst in the world, it's just the worst I've personally seen. Icky. Well, we're driving straight towards it. Where was I? Oh yeah, we wheel out and the fun begins.

So I talked briefly about my drive from the airport and some of the quirks of driving in Manila. Well, here are some more:
5) There are a lot of buses. They don't mind getting in your business. People hang out of the doors too.
6) Either left-turn signals don't work or nobody has left arms.
7) There are no speed limit signs. This may lead one to believe you can drive as fast as you want, but this would be an incorrect assumption. I mean, I typically want to drive faster than 30mph, however even when there isn't a traffic jam, people only go about 20-30mph. Don't ask me why, I don't know.
8) The exit ramps don't have side-walks, but the highways certainly do.

Well, I think I'll leave off here for now. More to come on day 2, but I'm done typing.