Let the adventures begin...

Alright. Blogs are funny. Guess it's my time to do one. So..

The last few days have been cool. No rain.

Sunday night we went out with the only co-worker we have so far, Monica, and her fiancé. They took us to this cool place called S&R --don't ask me what it stands for-- but essentially, it was an exact replica of Costco (woot woot!!--no samples when we went, if ever, so maybe not exactly). Needless to say, we loved! This was in a part of town called The Fort, which is pretty nice! Very modern-like, and clean.

After that, we went out in a part of town called Eastwood. We ended up going to this Mexican place and getting bottomless Margaritas. Which we may have over-done.. Lost count after 3... Chris and I were both confused, as these majestic margaritas kept disappearing and then quickly being replaced! We ended up having a great time filled with good conversation and info about travel and trips to take!

After one night in, we decided to have another adventure.

Tuesday we went down to a place called Malate, which is known to be a kinda happenin' part of town. Lots of bars and such, as well as Roxas Blvd., where you can take a stroll, view the sunset at Manila Bay, and buy a guitar for $30 since you had to leave yours at home. Manila Bay was nice to walk around but it you look at the beach, there's a TON of trash all over it, which is sad.

After these fun times, we headed over to The Hobbit House, a bar with tons of imported beers and run by (hm, what's PC?) "Little People." Hobbit House it pretty cool, especially because around Manila, pretty much the only beer you can find is San Miguel. Don't get me wrong, it isn't bad! It's cheap, fairly tasty, and easily accessible. Liquor here is also dirt cheap. You can get a fifth of rum for like $1.10. Yeah. Nutty. Wine, however.. neither cheap nor tasty. Unless it's just been bad luck, we seemed to have struck out in this department, drinking wine that burns as it goes down.

Wups, rant. After Hobbit House we hop into a side car with our guitar and proceed to get pedaled by a skinny Filipino to a bar called Sky Lounge. This bar has lights, stars and constellations on the ceiling. I'd tell you more but we never actually made it over there. Apparently the "driver" had no idea where it was and took us on a fairly long goose chase. It was all fun and games when we first got in...

We ended up getting out some place random and wandering into a bar called Bed Rock. Not a bad place! Free bands every night (pretty decent ones, too!) and a sweet theme (dinosaurs on the walls, etc).

As I conclude, I'd like to remind myself of some lessons: stick to san miguel- save money and taste buds. Don't trust a driver to know where they're going. Don't drink the water & keep Imodium close by. Toilet time!

Weekend Update

Our first weekend was kind of a bore. We went out Friday night to the mall (that's where the bars are...) to get a beer and about 9:30 rolls around and the jet-lag starts to kick in so we call it a night. Saturday we took it pretty easy and just stayed around our part of town and decided to get a few things at the store that we forgot the other 8 times we have gone. Our friend Mylene was supposed to go out for dinner and then head to the happening part of town, but it was raining so we called it an early night again. I don't think I saw 10:30 PM before I was out for the count.

Yesterday, we headed to "The Fort" or Fort Bonifacio which is an area in Metro Manila called Global City. This is a spitting image of everything American. The streets are named after American streets, such as 5th ave, and the buildings there are so modern compared to the rest of Manila. This is the really new, young, hip, upcoming part of town. We met our friend there for lunch at Sentro and tried some interesting Filipino fare. It is hard to find Filipino food that is vegetarian friendly. Everything has some sort of fish or shrimp paste in the base, or it is fried beef or pork. I expanded my horizons and gave everything a try, but didn't really care for any of it. We left The Fort and headed home for a dinner date with Monica, the Creative Director of our office here. She brought her fiance Ricky and they took us back to Global City/Fort Bonifacio to S&R. S&R is the Philippines version of Costco! It was pretty awesome. After only being here less than a week, there were definitely a few things that were great to see. They had Costco muffins, and more importantly Monster energy drinks!! I only bought 4 and I am going to try and save them for special occasions, but it is great to know that they are available her in Manila.

Today I am meeting up with Monica at the office to start our 2 week frantic race to get the office outfitted and hire graphic artists before the July 1st launch date. Wish us luck!

Philippines

So we landed in Manila Tuesday morning and got situated into the condo that day. After a few days of running around and trying to get internet set up from 5 different companies, I think we finally have one coming out on Monday. One other company services our building, but not above the 15th floor and luckily our condo is on the 27th.

All is well here in Manila. We experienced a category 1 typhoon the other night (Wednesday?) and it wasn't that bad. I guess 1 is the lowest and 3 is the highest. Should be interesting to see what a category 3 is like. We are going to a friend's birthday this weekend and once we have a stable internet connection we will post photos of the condo, office, and maybe some of the shenanigans from this weekend if we get into any. Hope all is well in America. Send me some Tapatio or Cholula!! : ]

Love,

CV & DS