August 1: The Adventure Begins

Well, the vacation began just like most of the other ones: crashing in Seoul the night before so I can make my flight. Well, it nearly did. I got my flight times for the Philippines and Japan mixed up and was on my way out the door when I finally decided to check my flight times and realized I was leaving 3 hours later than originally assumed. But I did remember my passport this time.

After a brief stopover in Seoul to meet up with Jamie and Chris and grab some grub, Jamie and I headed on to Incheon (but not before shedding numerous tears about being away from my Chris for a whole 2 weeks). Incheon was fast, efficient and effective, like always and we were through in no time at all. The only hangup was when I attempted to mail my documents for me new Seoul job. The recruiter asked that the documents be sent via FedEx or some other courier rather than standard old snail mail, I figured I would save some time and send the package from the FedEx stand at the airport (I researched this shit). No problems, right? Only the FedEx stand is at the shipping airport terminal, which is apparently nowhere near the airport I happened to be standing at. Crap. After deliberating, I decided to just mail it using the Korean post office stand at the airport. I'm starting my Seoul job next week, so I guess it worked.

6 or so hours later, we arrived in Manila. 2 hours to Hong Kong, brief layover in Hong Kong, then another 2 or so hours to Manila. Other than Jamie asking me every 5 minutes (at least it felt like that) what time it was since he didn't bring a watch, it was a uneventful flight. As soon as we set down in Ninoy Aquino Airport in Manila, I knew we were in for something different here. Hell if your international airport is as divey and dirty as Ninoy Aquino is, imagine what the rest of the country will be like. Needless to say, I was excited. Exiting the airport I ran into my second point of frustration with dear Mary: his hopeless lack of direction or destination. It was like traveling with a infant. Sure he didn't wander off whenever I turned my back, but he would just pick a direction and go. Sometimes it was right, usually it was wrong. I understand going the wrong direction in a place where the signs are in a language you don't speak, but everything was in English. When the clearly visible signs say the taxis are to one's right, why go left? Thankfully, he was completely okay with me making each and every decision on the entire trip, so there was no repeat of our drama with being the "chief" whilst in Tokyo. Soon enough we found a taxi and were on our way to our hotel room in Manila to sleep for the evening before boarding a plane to Cebu the next morning. We chose the Malate area on the recommendation of my Lonely Planet book (love those babies) and off we went. During the 30 minute cab ride (which cost a whopping 10 bucks, I think), we were able to get a good grasp on Manila. It's dirty, polluted, slummy, dangerous in certain spots, sprawling, difficult to navigate and exactly what we were looking for as a foil to Seoul. We loved it. I like Seoul, but its usually much too nice, too high class, too well lit, etc. Manila is much more my style. Once settled in at the hotel, we headed for the nearby bars to drink as we had fuck else to do at 10pm.

The bar we selected was more than divey enough for us. Pretty much a iron awning over a bunch of shitty plastic lawn chairs, they hooked us with their 27 peso beers. That's 50 cents. That was the cheapest we found in our entire trip. Not like booze was expensive anywhere, though. We quickly realized the culture of street vendors and street peddling that is nonexistent in Korea. You need a smoke? You need a lighter? You need a newspaper? Can you spare some change sir? Explains why the bar had security....not to kick folks out but to keep vendors from getting in. How divey was the joint? Well, when Jamie asked for the bathroom, the waiter guy showed Jamie around to the back of the building and pointed at a brick wall. Ladies did at least have a toilet. The oddest moment of the evening was when a sketchy old man wandered up and tried to sell us some stuff in small boxes. At first, I couldn't tell what is was, but once I got a closer look, I burst out laughing. Mother Fucker. He was trying to sell us boxes of Viagra and Cialis. Yep. He was also selling unwrapped condoms. Somehow I just don't trust either of the products given the source. Must be my spider sense or something. We politely declined. At last count, I was offered Viagra on 4 different occasions. I really must be giving off some massive "I need as much help as I can get" vibes or something. Jesus. To close out the night, we spied on the two Korean ajosshis (middle aged men) sitting next to us. One actually inspected and eventually bought a condom off the vendor, then tried hitting on a couple of local girls using a mix of English and Korean (which they didn't understand). Classy.

Pics: See Album 1, Pictures 1-5