Philippines

Monday, December 18th
- finally leave Bangkok after a whirlwind weekend; our friends give us a departing gift of yellow golf shirts with the King's 60th anniversary crest; somehow we feel like honourary Thai citizens.lol
- arriving in Manila we have dinner with Tito Nestor and family and take a rest after a long day of travelling

Tuesday, December 19th
- take our first 'tabo' bath!! lol! boy is the water cold and do you stand or squat when doing this? lol!
- head to Greenbelt this afternoon so the girls can get manicures and pedicures but the result is not the greatest since they are kinda sore after the 2hr ordeal. Kuya Henry and I just walk around the mall and check out local sights..
- at night, we head to Pasay to have dinner with my family there
- Kuya Henry and I walk to the corner store, have a couple of SMG Lite and blend with the locals..
- see the PVC-pipe gun; a long PVC tube that is used with denatured alcohol to produce a very loud bang when it is ignited..nothing comes out just a huge ass noise...actually illegal here but oh well..haha..
- old relatives come over, Tito Glenn and tito Manny and their sons, Paul (the dude who dislocated his knee playing basketball when i was here 15 yrs ago!!! and Louis....these guys are such jokers, Tito Manny is called the Godfather of the area but he's hilarious....lol!

Thursday, December 21st
- go to Tito Nestors place for the first time in Arenas - amazing house!!
- have a late-night drinking session with the titos and Kuya henry there - tons of SML flowing there

Friday, December 22nd
- wake up with a small hangover again...lol
- view of Mount Arayat from Titos front porch is amazing
- Jorie and JR's wedding day in Clark, Pampanga
- we will NOT get married in the Phils..lol...too many people walking aroun during mass and there's even paparazzi snapping pics during the ceremony and trying to sell them after
- nice wedding and bakla wedding planner...reception is at Palazzo, nice place but no alak or even soft drinks..party ends at 10pm and mvoes to a small reception at Tita Cel's house

Saturday, December 23rd
- go to Nepo mall and its packed again as well
- wicked deals here and end up buying Lacoste shoes for $14CDN and Michelle buys a Gucci purse for $5CDN
- BOOM TARAT TARAT is the biggest song of the xmas season!!! lol!!


Sunday, December 24th
- spend Xmas eve at Tita Cel's place in Angeles..
- played a lot of games there, blindfold and find the candle to blow it out, videoke is super-popular here!!
- carollers come into the house at the backyard and sing a few songs
- get to fire the PVC cannon finally!! we had a lot of fireworks as well....big rockets, etc...


Monday, December 25th
- visit SM Clark and man the mall is packed on Xmas Day!!
- leave Angeles for the last time and say good bye to Kasseys cousins and her rich gracious Tita Cel
- have a late-night drinking session with Kuya Henry, Dee (his gf), Chris, Eugene and Michelle - tons of San Mig Lite flowing and we finished a bottle of Jose Cuervo tequila..lol
- took a late-night visit to the cemetary to visit Michelle lolo and lola
jokes
- Chris saying that he thinks Kassey is a true Filipina because 'she's darker than me!'..lol


Tusday, December 26th
- wake up with a small hangover from last nights drinking session..lol
- finally have internet again in a small internet cafe in Magalang, small town here, hot as hell in here
- bought some firecrackers - Judas Belt, Fountain, Trapsillio or something - judas belt was the best
- had one more night of drinknig and got PJ to give us a dance before we left! lol!
- "one for the road......where's the road!?"

Wednesday, December 27th
- leave Arenas for Manila at 3am - fly Manila to Kalibo, take a 1.5 hr bus ride to Caticlan and then a 20 min ferry ride to Boracay
- check into Boracay Regency (station 2) and snuck in Kuya Henry, Joy, Kassey and Natalie into our room
- at night, checked out the nightlife - Hey jUde, Summer Place and Wave
- Boracay is amazing even though there were many signs of the typhoon that devastated the island in the beginning of December

Thursday, December 28th
- surprised Michelle with a Mandala Signature Spa at Mandala spa - involved a private villa and personal masseuses, 1.5 hrs of wicked massage, foot wash and herbal tea, rose petal bath, at the end
- afternoon we went to the beach (nice and warm and you can go out almost 50 m out and it will only be chest deep)
- went to visit Tito Jimmy Flor, Steven and Jaime in Ma...
- their house is about 10 mins past station 1 on a hill and has an awesome view of the island and the water, had dinner and drinks there before proceeding to Club Paraw in station 1 and drinking our asses off that night!
- had milkshakes at Jonahs
- best moment - Kassey barfing twice in the club...lol

Friday, December 29th
- new call signs come out - Longanisa 1 to Longanisa 2 - used by Kuya Henry and me to communicate on his walkie talkies.
- go Banana Boating this afternoon - when hitting the water, it feels like hitting a brick wall, fun as hell..lol
- day was a bit windy and cloudy today but very nice enough for us to hit the water for a bit again
- at night hit Club Paraw again and meet Steven there, not as crazy as the night before but a good time to end the trip to Boracay
- Joy was a hit with the local "borritos"
- see a couple stars in Boracay - Alex (white PBA player), Andrew (male model), Diana (FHM model), some Ginebra PBA player

Saturday, December 30th
- leave Boracay for Manila again, have dinner with family in Pasay and check into our hotel - Rennaissance Marriott Makati City Manila (another amazing hotel!!)

Sunday, December 31st
- Michelle goes to GreenHills with Tita Helen, Ching, Chris and Jing to go shopping
- I go to Santa Ana Arena to watch a cock fight; bets are made using hand signals so it is very advisable not to put your hands in the air as you may place a bet and not even know it..lol
- also watch Real Spicy (#1 Phil racehorse) through a fence win the big horse race
- New Years is spent in Pasay with my cousins
- firecrackers and fireworks are nothing like we've ever seen; firecrackers (Piccolo - like matches are thrown at each other and make a loud bang, Trompillio - spinning firecrackers nailed to a post, sawa 'Judas Belt' are like rapid bursts of explosions, look like a long snake and sounds like a warzone)

Monday, January 1st
- meet with Rey and Vida and Mek Mek for lunch at Fridays in Glorietta
- have dinner with Tita Nene and family and Tito Sonny and family at Haiku (Japanese restaurant in Greenbelt)

Tuesday, January 2nd
- spend day packing and saying goodbyes to everyone in Pasay

Wednesday, January 3rd
- spend 29 hrs of travelling back home - 3hrs in Manila, 2 hr planeride, 8 hrs in HK airport, 15 hrs planride home
- spent time in HK airport in Thai airways lounge! so nice!!

Sunday Dec 10/Monday Dec 11th

- Take off from Toronto around 9am - flight time was 16 h 44m!
- Arrive HK and because of an Air Canada change in flight plan, we miss the connecting flight to Manila, so do 100 others apparently. End up torturing a very nice airport hostess, Moon, for 6 hrs in HK airport because we think we've misplaces the flight tickets for rest of trip, boy were we wrong! Stay at Novotel Hong Kong overnight --- awesome hotel!
- After endless texts and phonecalls from HK to Toronto, we find out that we may need to go to HK downtown to Air Canada office to get tickets reissued since they are AC tickets. Sleepless at 3am, i stumble to our luggage for the 30th time to look for the tickets and guess what i find...so instead, we go to HK airport at 6am and miraculously find 2 seats on a 2:45pm flight to Manila - about 100 other filipinos have 'missed the boat' so to say and are PISSED. Actually see my friend Joselito who is one of the stranded travellers - all flights to Manila are fully booked until Weds at least!
- Have to cancel trip To Thailand for now since the flight to Manila will come in too late and we will miss the flight to Bangkok -shitty. We might be able to go to Bangkok only on Weds, flight permitting and energy permitting since we have been up for about 30 hrs by Sunday and only got about 2-3 hrs sleep before heading back to HK airport.....we're running on pure adrenaline right now but have since relaxed a bit since al our flights are now good to go and especailly good to go on the way home.

Jokes
- not knowing how to use the plane washroom tap, so therefore not using it at all...
- Michelle wondering if id get noticed in the Phils because 'you know, by Filipnio standards you're good looking'

- currently in HK airport waiting for our flight in about 4 hrs. HK airpport is massive and awesome!! Best airport by far for sure...oh and flight attendants for asian airlines are 10x better than NA flight attendants...

Monday, Dec 11th (in Manila)
- Get to Manila airport finally on Mon afternoon and MIchelle's family picks us up from the airport; WOW IS IT HOT AND HUMID HERE!
- After eating at Barrio Fiesta, Michelle's uncle, who is an attorney here, "hooks" us up at the Manila Pavillion hotel - very very nice hotel located right in Manila
- driving in the Phillippines is crazy man; the road paint and lines are simply decorative and everyone fights for any possible inch to make their way through the high traffic; even people crossing the street make their way through moving traffic; one of the reasons why cars and people can be super aggressive here is the pace of the flow is pretty slow and i guess everyone is used to it; try this in Canada and ill either get a ticket, damaged bumper and serious road rage..

Tuesday, Dec 12th
- Meet with my family from Pasay and have dinner at another Filipino restaurant in Makati
- Makati malls (Greenbelt, etc..) are enormous, row upon row of stores and lahat lahat ang tao naman
- Michelle's understanding of tagalog and kampangan are awesome; my personal translator
- starting to understand more tagalog and kiling my attempts at trying to speak it..still going to try...

Wednesday, Dec 13th
- morning we take a stroll to Jollibee for breakfast; this fast food is much better than i expected; sarap ang corn beef and chicken tocino
- head to Rizal park after breakfast and check out Orchidarium and statue of Rizal
- MIchelle's cousin Kuya Henry meets us in the afternoon and we head to Robinson's, another huge mall just down the street from our hotel - so much to buy and prices are very good here but we're told prices are even better at other places so we hold off on shopping for now...
- night time we head to Baywalk which is a new bayside area by Manila Bay which has lots and lots of outdoor bars with each bar having their own stage and performers doing cover songs and requests. One of the bars we have drinks (San Miguel Lite of course) at is Manny Pacquiao's bar, MP Knockout. He's a huge national hero here and all attempts at getting a Pacquiao t-shirt are tight since their all sold out, well the authentic ones anyway...
- drive through Malate area which is known as a red light district here; tons of people just sitting on patios drinking and others well, doing their thing...
- phrase of the trip so far - when looking at buying something - "Good evening MAAMSIR..' -- yeah, guess you have to be here..hahah

Thursday, Dec 14th
- head to Mall of Asia today - malake naman!
- it has an outdoor mall and an indoor mall, the main mall. Has a beautiful view of Manila Bay and we even got to watch the sunset over Manila Bay
- Tons of shopping to do here but it seems like the north american brands arent very bargain-priced but the Filipino brands are so guess which stores we shopped at...
- my tita comes through for us in the last hour and manages to confirm and book a flight for us to Bangkok tomorrow! Our Thailand trip has been shortened but nonetheless we are going and are so excited!.

Friday, Dec 15th
- leave for Bangkok today and see the first few 'epis' in the morning before we leave.....malake naman!!
- staying with my friend Sor at his condo in downtown Bangkok; amazing location , right beside the BTS and Siam Paragon, huge mall here
- Sor and his girlfriend, Tai, are studying for their MBA here and are two of the nicest people you wil ever meet; their insistence of showing us around Bangkok, even with a mid-term to study for on Monday, is very very much appreciated
- Patpong - checked out this place after dinner, known as a lively market and also a notorious go-go district (red light).
- menus here have unreal offerings...'......pingpong, fire-breathing, etc..'
- rode a Tuk-Tuk to the Suan Lum Night Bazaar - another famous night bazaar with rows upon rows of vendors selling tons of stuff; souveneir items are dirt cheap
- traffic in Bangkok is just as bad as in Manila and the scooters weaving in and out of traffic at a stoplight to get to the front is hilarious

Saturday, Dec 16th
- street vendor food and thai coffee are off the hook; full lunch with rice and two items is like $1.50
- went on a 4 hour tour of Wat Phra Keo and the Royal Palace
- Wat (temple) here are so beautiful and grandiose; biggest Wat in Bangkok is Wat Po
- had dinner at an amazing restaurant with Sor and Tai overlooking the Chao Priya river and playing live Thai pop music
- authentic Thai food is cooked spicy, no need to add chilis or peppers to add spicyness; tom yam goong soup has more flavour, more herbs

Sunday, Dec 17th
- went to Chatuchak weekend market for 6 hours, -- think outdoor Pacific mall but 10x bigger and 10x better..
- Lunch was 40 baht for Pad Thai or Noodle Soup (about $1.33 CDN)
- King is very well-loved here and this year is his 60th anniversary as King - royal colour is yellow and lots of monuments and pictures of him around Bangkok
- Red Bull is a travellers best friend..
- Overall, Bangkok is an awesome place to go to and visit and any notions that it is purely a red-light district-type of city is dead wrong. Parts of it are as developed as Toronto and the place is kept very clean. We will definitely come back here and spend a few more days in Bangkok and then explore the beaches to the South (Phuket, Koh Samui, etc.) and explore the jungles of the North (Chiang Mai where we were also originally headed for a few days..)