June292011
Helping Alejandra up the steps of this cool fountain thing. This is in a really fancy plaza called Bonafacio High Street where the designers went all-out in cramming as much cool architecture, fountains, and other random artsy stuff as they could....

Helping Alejandra up the steps of this cool fountain thing. This is in a really fancy plaza called Bonafacio High Street where the designers went all-out in cramming as much cool architecture, fountains, and other random artsy stuff as they could. Very upscale place full of great restaurants. The one we ate at, Conti’s, was a death trap. The food is unbelievably good, but what I had (chicken a la kiev) was so coated in butter and garlic that I thought I was going to die afterwards. I didn’t even touch the crazy-ass dessert that we got (Mike has a sweet tooth the size of his giant head.)

Manila fountain restaurant food 

4PM
The view from Padi’s Point part 2.

The view from Padi’s Point part 2.

Padi's Point Metro Manila Antipolo view cityscape mountain 

4PM
This is more or less the entirety of Metro Manila, taken from Padi’s Point in Antipolo (which is built on a mountain.) Effectively, you are looking at the entirety of the world’s third-largest metropolitan area, all in one image. (Okay, to be fair,...

This is more or less the entirety of Metro Manila, taken from Padi’s Point in Antipolo (which is built on a mountain.) Effectively, you are looking at the entirety of the world’s third-largest metropolitan area, all in one image. (Okay, to be fair, you can’t cover the whole view in one image, so I’ll share a couple more angles.

Metro Manila Philippines Padi's Point Antipolo 

3PM
I took a metric shitton fuckassload of pictures on a drive through downtown Pasig City yesterday, which I’ll need to sort through extensively, but what fascinated me the most was the insanely tangled electrical cords on these telephone poles (if you...

I took a metric shitton fuckassload of pictures on a drive through downtown Pasig City yesterday, which I’ll need to sort through extensively, but what fascinated me the most was the insanely tangled electrical cords on these telephone poles (if you can still call them telephone poles when they’ve got so much other shit going on).

Pasig City Manila Philippines telephone poles 

3PM
I can only guess at what this means.

I can only guess at what this means.

pawn shop manila pasig city philippines 

3PM
Can’t remember the name of this place, something Italian. Founded by an Italian dude who came to the Philippines and mentored the pizza place Amichi before breaking off and making his own restaurant. Both this and Amichi are unique to the area, but...

Can’t remember the name of this place, something Italian. Founded by an Italian dude who came to the Philippines and mentored the pizza place Amichi before breaking off and making his own restaurant. Both this and Amichi are unique to the area, but both serve unmistakably delicious Italian style pizza. I like Amichi just a bit more, but this place’s pizza is definitely gorgeous.

Manila Quezon City pizza amichi Philippines 

12PM
This is most of the toys I’ve bought in Manila. Not included are a Flandre Scarlet nendoroid, a Sanzenin Nagi nendoroid, a big set of Railgun character keychains, and the Master Gundam, which I bought for Victor. (For Shade, there are those little...

This is most of the toys I’ve bought in Manila. Not included are a Flandre Scarlet nendoroid, a Sanzenin Nagi nendoroid, a big set of Railgun character keychains, and the Master Gundam, which I bought for Victor. (For Shade, there are those little Cirno and Flandre miniatures pictured above and half of the Railgun set). Yes, all I’ve bought here are toys. They have lots of rare toys for ridiculously low prices, so I went crazy. Also there was a FUCKING TOY CONVENTION (more on that to come).

Toy Con Manila Philippines figures toys nendoroid collection anime 

June212011

I Got WASTED

It’s the post you’ve all been waiting for!

Since day 1 of my trip, Alecon’s been impressed that I didn’t get a hangover after my first few alcoholic experiences. Mike, however, said that I hadn’t drank nearly enough to have any bragging rights. The thing is, I *did* want to try getting drunk, but alcohol tastes so fucking disgusting that I can’t stand it. So Mike decided we should get some more drinkable alcohol, and I proposed we have a drinking game to make the magic happen.

It all went down on Sunday night. That day had been ToyCon, where we’d met up with all the Filipino anime bloggers, and the next day we’d be meeting them again for a group-watching session. That night, Mike and I took Shance and Zeroblade with us for the drinking extravaganza.

We started off with rum'n'cokes. Zeroblade, who’d have to leave the earliest, had been totally determined not to drink too much because he was sworn against getting hung over. Of course, there was no way we’d let him get away with that.

So we started drinking and watching Heartcatch Precure, which we got through three episodes of while guzzling alcohol. Zeroblade and I had four rum'n'cokes apiece, and both of us were quite drunk. Mike had six and was just a bit tipsy, and found that he really enjoyed Heartcatch Precure (which is awesome and I had a feeling he would, too.) I’m not sure how many drinks Shance had, but he was holding it pretty well.

After four drinks, Zeroblade stumbled (in the most literal sense) out of the house, and reportedly passed out in the cab on the way home.

After he took off, we decided it was time for the drinking to become a game, and we found ourselves watching the first three episodes of Lucky Star. I say that, but this wasn’t like watching the Precure eps where that was all we did: it took us at least two and a half hours to watch three episodes of Lucky Star.

For the game, I was drinking some kind of delicious gay drink with “ice” in the title that Mike noted was every bit as strong as it was gay, and since it tastes good, it’s a fast way to get you completely fucked.

So, our Lucky Star drinking game went as follows:

- Every time Konata’s mouth becomes a triangle, take a drink

- Every time Kagamin has an anger mark over her head, take a drink

- Every time Tsukasa’s eyes go completely black, take a drink

- Every time Miyuki touches her face, take a drink

- Down your drink when Konata yells “apupue!”

We’d been discussing further rules, but we really didn’t need to: this shit happened often enough to get us wasted, and the “apupue!” is what officially did everyone in. (Fun fact: Shance was the one who’d made that rule, and he’d never even seen Lucky Star. None of us could’ve guessed it would happen so early (like ep 2).)

After three eps of Lucky Star, Mike and I were unable to keep drinking, our guts full and dead. I’d been determined all night that I’d be the last one to fall asleep, and would only do so after sobering up so as to avoid a hangover, so that plan started coming into action.

We watched episode 4 of Macross, during which Shance passed out. (We were watching ep 5, but I couldn’t pay attention to the text so I said we should stop.) Then for whatever reason, Mike and I watched episode five of Gundam Wing. This was a sobering experience because Wing is so fucking bad, and Heero deserves some kind of award for being the hugest douche in all of Gundam.

Mike passed out after that. Shance woke up, passed out again, and later said that his whole night went like that. I passed out shortly after an alarm on my phone told me it was 4 AM. I was woken up at 8:30 AM.

I didn’t end up with a hangover at all, though my stomach was pissed at me. Later, I took a big nasty shit, and that was that.

Mike’s commentary: “I can’t count how many times you told me you loved me, man.”

Both of us had “Ex Libris Rubio” stamped on our foreheads: Mike forgot about this and had gone downstairs before taking a shower. When I pointed it out, he was like “so that’s why everyone’s looking at me funny.”

Apparently, when I get drunk I start talking very fast and never stop. Mike kept asking me to talk slower, because it was giving him a headache. Alecon, who doesn’t drink, got to admire us all talking to her while on the ground, because it was difficult to stand up.

All in all, it was a lot of fun. Would do again.

drinking Lucky Star Heartcatch Precure drinking game drunk alcohol Philippines Manila Macross Gundam Wing 

June162011
As stated at the end of my last post, I was filled with the need for a hamburger, so I jumped onto google maps and found the nearest Jollibee. Jollibee is a Filipino fast food restaurant that was opened to compete with McDonalds and won. I knew I’d...

As stated at the end of my last post, I was filled with the need for a hamburger, so I jumped onto google maps and found the nearest Jollibee. Jollibee is a Filipino fast food restaurant that was opened to compete with McDonalds and won. I knew I’d need to try it sooner or later.

The walk was about fifteen minutes long, crossing one major road. (I filmed it, but the footage is unusable thanks to the fact that I couldn’t see the screen between the bright-ass sun and my wearing sunglasses. For a simplistic summary: it was hot as fuck and the roads were pretty chaotic.)

Jollibee’s menu is a strange one. They have their signature burgers, some spaghetti-like dishes, fried chicken and other kinds of chicken—it seems all over the place, but hey, different culture. I got their signature burger, the Champ.

They gave me a number and I took a seat, which was when I made, ultimately, a great decision because it allowed for such an interesting event: I sat by the window. Almost immediately, I realized that in doing so, I caught the attention of two little beggar girls who’d been sitting around outside (pictured above).

I never give beggars any quarter (pun intended), so when they knocked on the window to get my attention, I just ignored them. I thought about changing my seat, but me being myself, I ended up deciding to bear with it.

I went over the recordings of my walk to Jollibee whilst waiting for the food to arrive, finding the videos utterly worthless. Meanwhile, I observed the game that those little girls were creating outside. 

They had three one-peso coins between them, and they were repeatedly chucking them at the metal pane that went across the bottom of the window, off of which the coins would bounce, and the girls would scramble to recollect them. This entertained them to no end. Thankfully they didn’t make any noise or it might’ve been horribly annoying.

I did find it interesting, however, that no one stopped them. Here, there are security guards at the entrances to pretty much every place, but none of them went outside to stop the girls. I didn’t mind, but I knew it’d be a totally different story in the US (not to mention that where I live, there aren’t any beggar kids running around.)

When my Champ arrived, I removed the lettuce and tomatoes from the burger and started eating. There are definite differences from an American burger: for one, the cheese is white instead of yellow. Also, the whole thing is absolutely drowned in mayonnaise. I love my mayo, but this was taking it to a while new level. Anyway, once I’d eaten my fries and about half of the burger, I was already feeling really full. I tried to devise a way that I might take the burger with me, but the container it’d come in was rather inconvenient for carrying around, and regardless I knew I was going to be overstuffed back at the house.

While I was struggling with the idea of finishing the burger, the beggar girls had turned their attention again to me. They kept tapping at the glass by my head and pointing. After a little while, I realized that they seemed to be pointing at my burger. 

It was a sound idea. If I’m not going to finish it, I might as well give it to them. To confirm the message, I turned to the girl and pointed at the burger, and then at her. She nodded enthusiastically, smiling with excitement. “Good enough,” I thought, closed the box, and headed for the door. The apparent older of the girls met me at the door. She hoped I’d give her both the box and some money, but I just gave the box. As I did so, she said something in tagalog ending with the word “Jollibee.” For my own amusement, I want to imagine that she said “thanks for shopping at Jollibee!” I gave her the box, and then I was gone. 

I couldn’t help but wonder how straightforward this had really been. Had she really wanted the burger, and if so, were they really about to eat it? I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if they planned to resell it? Or if they got mad that I didn’t give any money and threw the burger at the glass window like they did the coins? Or maybe they’d eat the burger and then throw the box just for entertainment. I mean, there aren’t exactly trash cans laying around here. It’s only just occurring to me, but I’ve inadvertently littered a burger box by leaving it with those girls.

Whatever. I don’t care what happened so much as I feel satisfied that the responsibility of not letting that burger go to waste is no longer in my hands. 

Jollibee Philippines Manila Pasig City Ortigas Avenue beggars food 

1PM

Food Timing

If I didn’t say so already, I’ll take this chance to point out that there are a number of servants working in Mike’s house. They clean, make food and bring it upstairs, and do whatever else I don’t see because I’m upstairs all the time.

According to Alecon, the servants try to avoid me because they’re scared I’ll try and talk to them—all of them speak tagalog and not a spot of English. The extent to which they hope to avoid me is rather hilarious. Several times, I’ve noticed that someone comes up to remove a food tray or put another one down while I’m in the bathroom. As far as I can tell, the only way that they know I’ve gone to the bathroom is because the floor creaks a lot on that side of the room, so when they hear the creaking, they come up. It’s possible that this is coincidental, but I’ve noticed it happen at least thrice.

Anyway, the servants bring up food several times a day. When I wake up, breakfast is on the table. At noon, they replace it with lunch. Then Mike gets home at three or four, and usually has them send something up then. Finally, at seven or eight, they bring up dinner.

That’s a lot of food, and when I’m the only one here, they always give me a lot more than I’m capable of eating. Actually, today I think they tried giving me smaller portions for breakfast and lunch, but it was still poorly timed (and breakfast didn’t go over well with my stomach at all.)

You see, today I woke up at 11 AM. So I knew they were going to bring up lunch an hour later. And to make matters worse, I wasn’t even hungry to begin with. So two meals were going to pass in front of me while I wasn’t hungry.

I hope these guys eat the leftovers or something. If not, this is a lot of food going to waste, and I don’t know how to tell these guys “oh, I’ll finish that” or “don’t bring lunch, I’m not hungry,” or what have you.

It got me thinking about the way I eat at home versus the way we eat here. At my house, no one really cooks meals and shit except for dinner. So besides eating dinner at some point between six and eight PM, there’s no consistency to the timing of meals. We just eat something when we’re hungry from the pantry or freezer or what have you and that’s that. So basically, I’m not used to being “prepared” to eat something at a set time of day.

In any case, I may have finally found something to do on my alone time out of the house: go buy some damn McDonalds. I do feel like I could use a cheeseburger right about now.

food Philippines Manila servants 

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