Mabuhay!

... that's "Hello" in Tagalog : )
Do you know that Tagalog has it's link to the malay and spanish languages? The malay influence is progressively stronger in the local dialects as we move to the southern parts of the country.

The People
The locals' Hospitality and their Creativity left a deep impression. The Filipinos are proud of their heritage, culture, country... and a fun lot to hang out with. They are good singers too! Whenever i'm in Manila, i always feel a lil' overwhelmed with their hospitality, hassling over me... making sure that i feel at home, and well fed. :P Really appreciated that... : )
Felt real bad that Beng and Jean hafta take turns to fetch me from hotel to office... and made Andrew send me to the airport during office hours which took 1hr one way during non-peak hours. They don't trust the taxi drivers... and the traffic condition is horrendous!

Hanging out in Manila...
... felt v. uncomfortable when not within the compound of the heavily guarded hotel. Probably that's the result of hearing the scary stories of kidnapping the rich local ethinic Chinese from Mark & co when we made our way from the airport to the hotel in Makati. So, only hung out at Glorietta, ShoeMart and the GreenBelt area for the saturday morning before our flight home in the afternoon. One peculiar thing about these malls... you gotta go thru' the security check at the entrance. Hmmm... and i thot it's only the posh hotel next door would conduct such checks coz it's paranoid/concerned about the safety of its guests. Then again, the security guards at these shopping malls are not exactly very serious when checking the bags... govt trying to create jobs, i guess?

Well, the collection of designs of the more familar brands like NineWest, Guess, Ferragamo, etc... were not as extensive as S'pore. So, we found that it's more enjoyable checking out the shops selling local wares. It's a Real Bargain picking up those knick-knacks from the small outlets selling creative crafts. They have v. nice bags (all shapes and sizes) and cheap sandals in interesting designs! : )

Both times in Manila, went this marketplace (Greenhills Shopping Center) that sell evthg from fake LV, fake Nike to export overruns from Baby Gap, etc. It seems like every country in southeast asia has their own versions of such markets...

I'm LOUSY @ bargaining. *bleah*
Only managed to get some decent buys when i buy in bulk so they gimme bulk discount. The papercrafts are very cheap vs the kind of prices we pay in S'pore. Hmmm... maybe i should start considering importing such stuff?

Food...
The local cuisine is a mix of somewhat asian + somewhat spanish... quite interesting.
Didn't get to try the famous Jollibee tho'...
San Miguel is dirt cheap... many times cheaper than in HCMC!

Nice, Beautiful country to visit...
They've got many tourist attractions too.
Alan (my personal trainer) mentioned that there's this dormant volcano, where you hafta ride on a horse to reach the crater lake (i think). According to Alan, it's very beautiful... he stayed in Manila for a couple of years when he married his filipino wife, and decided to move back to S'pore when they were having the 2nd kid.

Why travel all the way to the over-hyped carribean islands when there are many beautiful white sand beaches in the neighboring philippines?
Boracay <-- Almost got our way to have our quarterly conference there, until HQ sent the instructions to freeze all non-biz critical travels. #@!%#$
Cebu, Palawan <-- v. popular beach resorts for divers over at these 2 locations
Bohol <-- Andrew & Wife spent their honeymoon in Bohol late last year