I woke up early again this morning. I think it was around 4 AM this time. I just can't sleep here. This morning I just stay in bed instead of doing something productive. How many times can they replay Oregon vs USC? This will be the 4th time I've seen this friggin game. Oh yes, another Wesley Snipes movie on...this guy is the king of the Philippines. I decide to go in the office a bit later this morning. I get dropped off at 8:45 this time and I'm dead tired when I get to the office. The day goes pretty quickly since I'm catching up on the 50 e-mails I've got overnight from Chicago and trying to organize deliverable due dates (deliverable...another of my favorite terms from Accenture).
We leave the office around 6:30. Mike, Ekki, Mike, Fruj, and myself go back to the Dusit for more big beersk. I have more San Miguel Light along with some tasty abobo pepper pizza and an assorted sausage plate. I'm thinking that the American is being accomodated with the food ordered. I have no problem with this. My teammate Sean arrives later with his girlfriend Omi. I've been told that Omi can outdrink Sean and she doesn't disappoint. Sean can't drink very much, but he makes for a cheap date for Omi. He drinks one liter of beer and is ripped. The good times continue. I find myself dancing at some point to Lisa Loeb...this can't be happening. Fruj and Mike go up to the band and sing along. The band plays my request for Marvin Gaye...doing their best Filipino version of 'What's Going On?'. Mike tells me how good the worms taste in Palawan. I eat more pizza in response. I think we finish around 1:30 and I'm feeling top notch. I get home and IM with Breezer and some work buddies. It's obvious that I have a few under my belt. 2:30 rolls around and I'm ready to pass out...good thing I don't have to work tomorrow.
Monday, November 5, 2007
A Day In The Office - 10/30
So I didn't sleep well last night. I was up at 5 AM wide awake and still not used to the time difference. That gave me time to check out the work out area before work. I was full of energy so why not. 6 AM rolled around and I ran 7K because everything here is metric. I'm going to guess it was close to what I usually run because I was sweating profusely. Anyway, I finished then finally got to hit up the breakfast buffet. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as it had been built up. Chocolate banana waffle should taste better than this I thought. Am I am waffle snob? Sure...but the coffee was pretty good. These guys have the best papaya and mangos I've ever had. Well worth the 24 hours to get here. I finished off and my driver took me to the office. It didn't take long, only 15 minutes which was surprising since these guys have worse traffic than we do in Chicago. Speaking of which, I know I've mentioned this previously, but these guys really don't care about traffic laws. How do you pull off a 3 lane change at a stop light in front of all of the lanes? I saw this morning. Buses are the king of the road here. They'll take your lane whenever they like and will pollute the air quicker than you can say 'Radmanovic'.
Okay, just arrived at the office and there is a guard with a sawed off shotgun at the front door. I feel safe. Up to the 30th floor, where apparently no one told them I was arriving today. Gravy. I finally get my badge and figure out that I shouldn't get to the office at 8 AM. It doesn't work that way here. Everyone starts showing up at niner here and they work late. I win some points since I brought a bunch of candy for the team. A feeding frenzy ensues...four bags of candy are gone within 30 minutes. There are 10 people on my team that I've never met and it's nice to finally meet all of the people that I have indirect contact with on a daily basis.
Around noon everyone starts getting loud...lunchtime. All of the leads on the team go out for a team lunch. Me, Ram, Sean, Nick, and Jona go to a Spanish restaurant called Uno Mas for lunch. They have good paella and I get to see lettuce for the first time here and it's great because everything is fried here. We take a two hour lunch and talk about what we need to accomplish while I'm here. Jona (the testing lead) doesn't say more than four words the whole time we're there. She's shy, but we keep harassing her and she comes out of her shell. The rest of the afternoon goes slow since I'm exhausted which means its time for drinky...
Alfred, Elison, and I go to the Dusit Hotel for big beersk. We go there and we all get the bottomless beers. You can get bottomless beers for 350 pesos ($8) here from 5:30 - 9:00. Yeah I think this will be worth it. I end up having 2 liters of beer in the few hours we're there and I have something I think is weird to eat. I had whole fried shrimp. Whole fried shrimp with the head, legs, tail and shell on. The first couple I couldn't do it. There's no way they de-turd these things. Then I tried it. It just tastes like fried. It came with this delicious spicy vinegar dip that takes any remnance of flavor away. We stayed there until 9 and then I went back to the hotel and got on a call for work at 10. I don't think anyone noticed...
Friday, November 2, 2007
My First Day in Manila
Advil PM...you genius. I woke up at 4:00 PM, 13 hours later. That helped a lot. Good thing it was a holiday in the Philippines for general elections...I got online and pinged my buddy Alfred to see that he was up to (on a side note I used to hate that word ping when I first started working at Accenture, but I guess I got used to it). I finally got to take a shower and after being on a plane for that long I needed it. Unpacking took a while since I had a 70 pound bag and a 40 pound bag...I'm from the Brigid school of packing.
Alfred picked me up at 5. He asked if I wanted to go see the sunset from the Mall of Asia. I laughed and remarked that I didn't know he was such a romantic. We went straight to the mall where our car was inspected for bombs...they do that every time you go in to a parking structure here. I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse. We found a spot and walked to the area outside where you can view the coast. Unfortunately, it was very overcast so we didn't see the sunset, but I still took a few pictures (for those of you I haven't sent it to you can view my pictures here). It's very humid here. Like 100%. All the time. I've been sweaty a lot. Insert joke here. We wanted to cool down so Alfred suggested we go get a halo halo. This would be my intro to Philipino food. It was good. It was served in a glass, on the bottom were sauteed bananas, then a bunch of shaved ice, and on top a chunk of flan (tastes like tira misu). You mix it all together and you get a refreshing beverage. Most excellent. We walked around the mall a bit more and saw an ice rink where mostly inexperienced children were falling on their faces trying to ice skate. Very amusing to me. I decided I needed to buy some water since I was afraid of drinking the water here. I have a fear of intestinal diseases, so I don't want to take any chances. We went to the grocery store in the mall and I picked up four 6 liter bottles of water and four 1.5 liter bottles of gatorade. Total cost? $10. The dollar goes a long way here. We loaded everything up in Alfred's car and we were off in search of dinner around 7 PM.
I mentioned I like Chinese food, so Alfred first drove me thru Chinatown. Unfortunately, there wasn't parking and Alfred said he didn't know where to go when it was dark. I'll take his word for it. We headed off to this place called Gerry's Grill. Alfred ordered since I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Every meal here is served family style, so we shared three dishes. First was sisig. Sisig is meat from the face of the pig along with the skin, fried up with some spices and onion. It's very tasty and served with rice. Next was Bicol Express. I really like this one. It reminds me of Thai food. It's pork (I don't know which part), cooked with green and red chiles in coconut milk. It was good and spicy, just like I like it. Finally, we had grilled squid. The Pinoy (slang for Filipino) name escapes me, but it was great. Very fresh. Much better than American squid since it wasn't chewy at all and I'll assume it was caught that day. All in all a great meal.
After that Alfred wanted to show me where to go in the case of an unexpected bombing or new people's revolution. That's right...the US Embassy. I'm glad I know where that's at now. Very close to there is Intramuros. Intramuros is the famed walled city that the Spaniards built when they first colonized Manila. Their used to be walls surrounding this area around 16 square blocks, but most have been brought down now. I'll be back during the day so I can check it out before I leave. I was getting a little thirsty at this point, so we head back to Alfred's pad. It's about 20 minutes away, close to the airport. Filipino condos are a bit smaller than that of American so I was kind of surprised where I got there even though Alfred told me it's 150 square feet. It was 150 square feet and no more, but the San Miguel Ice and San Miguel Light was flowing like water and we played Madden '08, NBA Live '08, and Fight Night on XBOX 360 for a few hours. Alfred drove me back to the Ascott around 11 PM and I attempted my first night of sleep in Manila...
Alfred picked me up at 5. He asked if I wanted to go see the sunset from the Mall of Asia. I laughed and remarked that I didn't know he was such a romantic. We went straight to the mall where our car was inspected for bombs...they do that every time you go in to a parking structure here. I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse. We found a spot and walked to the area outside where you can view the coast. Unfortunately, it was very overcast so we didn't see the sunset, but I still took a few pictures (for those of you I haven't sent it to you can view my pictures here). It's very humid here. Like 100%. All the time. I've been sweaty a lot. Insert joke here. We wanted to cool down so Alfred suggested we go get a halo halo. This would be my intro to Philipino food. It was good. It was served in a glass, on the bottom were sauteed bananas, then a bunch of shaved ice, and on top a chunk of flan (tastes like tira misu). You mix it all together and you get a refreshing beverage. Most excellent. We walked around the mall a bit more and saw an ice rink where mostly inexperienced children were falling on their faces trying to ice skate. Very amusing to me. I decided I needed to buy some water since I was afraid of drinking the water here. I have a fear of intestinal diseases, so I don't want to take any chances. We went to the grocery store in the mall and I picked up four 6 liter bottles of water and four 1.5 liter bottles of gatorade. Total cost? $10. The dollar goes a long way here. We loaded everything up in Alfred's car and we were off in search of dinner around 7 PM.
I mentioned I like Chinese food, so Alfred first drove me thru Chinatown. Unfortunately, there wasn't parking and Alfred said he didn't know where to go when it was dark. I'll take his word for it. We headed off to this place called Gerry's Grill. Alfred ordered since I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Every meal here is served family style, so we shared three dishes. First was sisig. Sisig is meat from the face of the pig along with the skin, fried up with some spices and onion. It's very tasty and served with rice. Next was Bicol Express. I really like this one. It reminds me of Thai food. It's pork (I don't know which part), cooked with green and red chiles in coconut milk. It was good and spicy, just like I like it. Finally, we had grilled squid. The Pinoy (slang for Filipino) name escapes me, but it was great. Very fresh. Much better than American squid since it wasn't chewy at all and I'll assume it was caught that day. All in all a great meal.
After that Alfred wanted to show me where to go in the case of an unexpected bombing or new people's revolution. That's right...the US Embassy. I'm glad I know where that's at now. Very close to there is Intramuros. Intramuros is the famed walled city that the Spaniards built when they first colonized Manila. Their used to be walls surrounding this area around 16 square blocks, but most have been brought down now. I'll be back during the day so I can check it out before I leave. I was getting a little thirsty at this point, so we head back to Alfred's pad. It's about 20 minutes away, close to the airport. Filipino condos are a bit smaller than that of American so I was kind of surprised where I got there even though Alfred told me it's 150 square feet. It was 150 square feet and no more, but the San Miguel Ice and San Miguel Light was flowing like water and we played Madden '08, NBA Live '08, and Fight Night on XBOX 360 for a few hours. Alfred drove me back to the Ascott around 11 PM and I attempted my first night of sleep in Manila...
The Long Road to Manila
Per Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiike's request, I figured I would let everyone know all about my fascinating trip so far. So my last day in the US started with a delicious breakfast with Brigid and Christy at Mitchell's. If you haven't gone it's an awesome diner on the corner of Cortland, Armitage, and Clybourn in Lincoln Park. It's highly recommended by this guy. We had breakfast and then I was dropped off at the airport a bit earlier than I usually get there. My flight was scheduled for 12:50 and I got to O'Hare at 10:30. Luckily I was able to locate a local establishment where I was able to persuade the bartender to turn off some horse racing pre-game show to see the Iowa/Michigan St game. I figured that would be my last football game for a while and the Hoosiers were sucking against Wisconsin. To answer your question, I didn't have anything to drink which was hard because I saw some dude take two shots of whiskey and a 70 year old man order Grey Goose on the rocks at 11:30 AM.
To cut to the chase my flight was delayed until about 2 PM before we finally took off. Now I didn't know that we didn't fly a straight line directly to Tokyo. I guess Chris Columbus figured that out a long time ago that the world is round and the quickest route isn't a straight line. Luckily I got an aisle seat so I could stretch out one of my legs in coach. Flying coach for 13 hours isn't fun! Luckily there were little tvs on each on the seats in front of the passengers, so I was able to watch tv the whole time.
I watched 2 piss poor movies, one OK, and one good one during my flight. Evan Almighty and License To Wed qualify as piss poor. Steve Carrell played it safe in the epic family comedy. Just go back to the Daily Show, Steve. Or pick better roles or something. License To Wed was just brutal although it did feature many members of The Office. Hopefully that's the last time I get to see Mandy Moore attempt to act her way out of a bag. The okay movie was Invicible. It really wasn't that great, but it was sports related so it kept me going. Finally, I saw a good movie - Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. It's cool how the dialogue that he came up with 50 years ago is still relevant in today's world and much better than you see in cinema currently. If you haven't seen it, it's recommended. The story stars Jimmy Stewart, as a magazine photographer who is recovering from a broken leg. He has nothing to do, but stare out his rear window and watch all of his neighbors comings and goings. A mystery unwinds that keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time. I won't give any more details, but it's a good time.
The food on the plane was better than expected. They kept serving the whole time. I didn't sleep a wink even though I took some sleeping pills which made for a loooooong flight. I ended chatting with the guy that sat next to me for the last hour of the flight. It turns out he's a 20 year old that is two years in to the Navy. He's based out of Japan, but he was on his back from a two week leave. He's originally from Dayton and had gone back because his brother had been hit by a dump truck in a traffic accident. His brother had a bolt put in his head and the only broken bone was his cheek bone. He told me cried the whole time up to his flight back because he didn't want to leave the US, as that was the first time he had been back in over a year. He also talked about seeing a girl he really liked that he wanted to date, but knew it wasn't right since he is 6000 miles away. He finished by saying that he's been sent to Iraq in January. I felt really sorry for the guy.
We finally arrived in Tokyo at 5 PM local time (12 hours ahead of Chicago) and I wished my neighbor good luck and he told me not to eat the balut in the Philippines. He said he vomitted both times he tried it. Balut is an 18 day old duck egg that is steamed and then dipped in vinegar and salt. Sounds good? 18 days is enough for the beak, bones, and feathers to form on the duck. I'll do what I can not to try this while I'm here. The Narita airport was packed when I got there and I walked around for a bit to check everything out. I was surprised at the amount of Hello Kitty merchandise available for purchase. However, I didn't have any yen so I passed on a decorative purse. I sat down because I had 20 minutes till boarding, but then my flight was delayed by about an hour so I sat more. I was pretty tired at this point.
We finally got on to my Japanese Air flight. The seats were not built for a 'powerful' American like me so it was a bit tight. However, the service was excellent on the flight and the booze was free. Japanese beer is pretty good so I had an Asahi dry and a Sapporo during the flight. It was very relaxing and I was ready for the inflight movie. And the inflight movie is...Evan Almighty. You gotta be kidding me. I wonder if this will be more entertaining in Japanese. No, strike that. Oh well...at least the booze was free.
We arrived at Ninoy Aquino International Airport at midnight local time (13 hours ahead of Chicago). To say the least I was thrilled to get the hell off the plane after a total of 16 hours of flight time and 5 hours of waiting around. The customs lines were big and I thought it would take an hour to get thru, but luckily it was only 15 minutes. I was able to get my luggage within 5 minutes and I was out the door ready to find my driver. The hotel I'm staying at sent a driver to pick me up to take me to the Ascott. I finally witnessed a jeepney that I'd been reading about. A jeepeny mostly resembles an american military jeep, but smaller. Somehow they fit 33 people in these things. I'll be taking a picture for reference at some point. I also notice something called JollieBee which looks like a whacked out version of every American fast food restaurant I've ever seen. The next thing I notice is the blatant disregard for traffic laws. There is no way I could drive here. I would take someone off the road. There are constant 3-lane lane changes, cutting off other drivers, using the shoulder as another lane, everyone going over the speed limit, no one using turn signals (except my driver), but I had been forewarned of this so it didn't bother me too much since it was 1 AM local time now.
It took about 20 minutes, but I finally got to check in around 1:30 AM and I was pleasantly surprised by the outstanding accomodations here at the Ascott. This place is sweet. I immediately set up my computer, so that I could call my lovely wife and my parents. I turned on the TV and immediately spotted the Giants vs Dolphins live. I've been saved by the sports gods. I finally got to sleep around 3 AM after one long day (thanks to you, oh Advil PM)...
To cut to the chase my flight was delayed until about 2 PM before we finally took off. Now I didn't know that we didn't fly a straight line directly to Tokyo. I guess Chris Columbus figured that out a long time ago that the world is round and the quickest route isn't a straight line. Luckily I got an aisle seat so I could stretch out one of my legs in coach. Flying coach for 13 hours isn't fun! Luckily there were little tvs on each on the seats in front of the passengers, so I was able to watch tv the whole time.
I watched 2 piss poor movies, one OK, and one good one during my flight. Evan Almighty and License To Wed qualify as piss poor. Steve Carrell played it safe in the epic family comedy. Just go back to the Daily Show, Steve. Or pick better roles or something. License To Wed was just brutal although it did feature many members of The Office. Hopefully that's the last time I get to see Mandy Moore attempt to act her way out of a bag. The okay movie was Invicible. It really wasn't that great, but it was sports related so it kept me going. Finally, I saw a good movie - Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. It's cool how the dialogue that he came up with 50 years ago is still relevant in today's world and much better than you see in cinema currently. If you haven't seen it, it's recommended. The story stars Jimmy Stewart, as a magazine photographer who is recovering from a broken leg. He has nothing to do, but stare out his rear window and watch all of his neighbors comings and goings. A mystery unwinds that keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time. I won't give any more details, but it's a good time.
The food on the plane was better than expected. They kept serving the whole time. I didn't sleep a wink even though I took some sleeping pills which made for a loooooong flight. I ended chatting with the guy that sat next to me for the last hour of the flight. It turns out he's a 20 year old that is two years in to the Navy. He's based out of Japan, but he was on his back from a two week leave. He's originally from Dayton and had gone back because his brother had been hit by a dump truck in a traffic accident. His brother had a bolt put in his head and the only broken bone was his cheek bone. He told me cried the whole time up to his flight back because he didn't want to leave the US, as that was the first time he had been back in over a year. He also talked about seeing a girl he really liked that he wanted to date, but knew it wasn't right since he is 6000 miles away. He finished by saying that he's been sent to Iraq in January. I felt really sorry for the guy.
We finally arrived in Tokyo at 5 PM local time (12 hours ahead of Chicago) and I wished my neighbor good luck and he told me not to eat the balut in the Philippines. He said he vomitted both times he tried it. Balut is an 18 day old duck egg that is steamed and then dipped in vinegar and salt. Sounds good? 18 days is enough for the beak, bones, and feathers to form on the duck. I'll do what I can not to try this while I'm here. The Narita airport was packed when I got there and I walked around for a bit to check everything out. I was surprised at the amount of Hello Kitty merchandise available for purchase. However, I didn't have any yen so I passed on a decorative purse. I sat down because I had 20 minutes till boarding, but then my flight was delayed by about an hour so I sat more. I was pretty tired at this point.
We finally got on to my Japanese Air flight. The seats were not built for a 'powerful' American like me so it was a bit tight. However, the service was excellent on the flight and the booze was free. Japanese beer is pretty good so I had an Asahi dry and a Sapporo during the flight. It was very relaxing and I was ready for the inflight movie. And the inflight movie is...Evan Almighty. You gotta be kidding me. I wonder if this will be more entertaining in Japanese. No, strike that. Oh well...at least the booze was free.
We arrived at Ninoy Aquino International Airport at midnight local time (13 hours ahead of Chicago). To say the least I was thrilled to get the hell off the plane after a total of 16 hours of flight time and 5 hours of waiting around. The customs lines were big and I thought it would take an hour to get thru, but luckily it was only 15 minutes. I was able to get my luggage within 5 minutes and I was out the door ready to find my driver. The hotel I'm staying at sent a driver to pick me up to take me to the Ascott. I finally witnessed a jeepney that I'd been reading about. A jeepeny mostly resembles an american military jeep, but smaller. Somehow they fit 33 people in these things. I'll be taking a picture for reference at some point. I also notice something called JollieBee which looks like a whacked out version of every American fast food restaurant I've ever seen. The next thing I notice is the blatant disregard for traffic laws. There is no way I could drive here. I would take someone off the road. There are constant 3-lane lane changes, cutting off other drivers, using the shoulder as another lane, everyone going over the speed limit, no one using turn signals (except my driver), but I had been forewarned of this so it didn't bother me too much since it was 1 AM local time now.
It took about 20 minutes, but I finally got to check in around 1:30 AM and I was pleasantly surprised by the outstanding accomodations here at the Ascott. This place is sweet. I immediately set up my computer, so that I could call my lovely wife and my parents. I turned on the TV and immediately spotted the Giants vs Dolphins live. I've been saved by the sports gods. I finally got to sleep around 3 AM after one long day (thanks to you, oh Advil PM)...
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