Manila (Makati City), Philippines (Day 1)

Welcome to my travel blog! It's time to start jotting down impressions of what I see when I travel around the world. So here we are in the Philippines for day 1 in Manila.

After getting 8 hours of sleep (waking up at noon!), I ventured out and immediately went shopping. It's a little hard not to go shopping when there is a HUGE mall right across the street from the hotel.

Apparently there are 3 or 4 malls connected into this monster of a shopper's paradise. Even better, there are no duplicate stores! But I've only seen perhaps a third of it. I figured I have 3 more weeks see the other third.

The mall has your typical American stores (e.g., 9 West, Nike, Gap, Esprit, etc.) and some UK stores (Marks & Spencer's, Debenhams, Zara). Lots and lots of food courts and restaurants, although I've only seen one Starbucks so far. Happily, I found a Papa Beard's cream puff store although it's just not as good as the one in Hawaii.

My colleagues tell me the mall is across the street from the office so I believe we will be eating here a lot. I found the Japanese restaurant for lunch and a Hong Kong noodle shop that has a selection of my favorite soups. Food is cheap. Lunch was less than $8 for a bowl of tempura udon, plate of edamame, and iced tea.

Sure it's a mall, but here are some observations that are a bit unusual.

• You have to go through a metal detector at all entrances. Some higher-end stores have an additional metal detector at the entrance.


• There are security guards everywhere inside and outside the mall. At the hotel we not only have to go through a security check to enter, the undersides of vehicles are searched with a mirror (they do this in Malaysia as well) and dogs sniff all suitcases.


• There are lots of store personnel ready to help you, but there's usually only one cashier to check you out, which creates a bottleneck. To an auditor having one cashier is a good control, but bad for customers who have to wait to checkout.


• The ATM machine had 2 choices for languages - English or Taglish (I guess it's a mix of Tagalog and English!)


• Everyone wears jeans when it's 95 degrees and humid outside. I'm comfortable in a skirt, but I can't imagine wearing jeans in this weather. Ugh!


• There are no maps whatsoever of the malls. No directory, no information desk. It's a maze and trying to remember where you saw that cool store (or the alterations shop) required mental mapping capabilities.
  
• Stores close at 9 on Sunday and 10 during the week. It's like shopping in Shanghai!

After lunch I met a fellow Houstonian, Desiree, at a kiosk getting her cell phone pimped with a decal and jewels. She's been here for 6 months and is leaving on Tuesday. She was here getting the Chase customer service department off the ground (interesting....a guy I met on my flight to Minneapolis was doing the same thing, but for Shell Oil).

She passed along her knowledge of Manila such as where to buy knock-offs and jewelry (pearls and jade), the spas she frequents for massages, mani-pedis, facials, etc., and sights to see (the volcano nearby, the fort where the Filipinos defeated the Spanish). She bought an extra suitcase (you can bring 3 in business class) because she's bought so much in her 6 months here.

Ohhh...this is not good! I immediately got a decal added to the back of my phone (they can put decals on anything including cameras, laptops, game boys) for $19. I then decided to go get my eyes checked since I noticed that my distance vision has been getting worse at night. The eye exam and a pair of cute red glasses cost $90! Then the clothes shopping began in earnest. I even got the jeans altered for $4 and I dropped off a pair of shoes to be reheeled for about $8.

Here's the back of my cell phone:

I am so glad I decided to bring my larger suitcase with lots of room for my purchases. I'm also considering getting my teeth whitened since I've heard it's really cheap to get it done here.

I think you're getting an idea of how I'm going to be spending these next 3 weeks - work, shopping and the pool (the mornings are nice, but it usually rains in the afternoon). There are also a couple of yoga studios nearby and one of my auditors practices so I will get some exercise as well!