Oh Manila Bay!

Many times in my life I have attended parties where I was not invited and knew little or nothing about my hosts, but this is probably the best uninvited party I have ever attended. Unfortunately I did not bring my camera and so I will have to ask my mates for the pictures (hope to upload them soon).

Basically we were invited by a friend of a friend…and so forth, and all of the sudden we were standing at Manila’s yacht club, waiting for a speed boat to take us to the party Yacht “The King of Sports” in the middle of the bay. Please note that when I say Yacht it means three story’s high and 20 metres long.

If being in a Yacht on party mode watching the sunset was good already; imagine when they tell you that all drinks are free (we did bring some I must say) and that dinner would be served soon, after we set sail.

Oh wait, I did forget to mention that the place was crowded with two kinds of people: a) Bohemian and wealthy expats that have fallen in love with the Philippines and b) really hot Filipino models (plus a Mexican Californian and a strinkingly beautiful French-Filipina).

To sum up, there was constant drinking, wild dancing and lots of improvised singing (these people were into jamming and we had a couple of international DJs attending).

In such an environment it is easy to feel small; but then again, the people here are so nice to strangers, and my embassy business cards help a lot; all of the sudden I was making loads of friends.

Hong Kong II "Our Trp"

Our venture into Hong Kong’s (HK) heart took place from 16 to 18 January, year of our lord 2009.

I flew from Manila, with my good old mates Nacho and Pablo, together the three musketeers of The Philippines, and joined our friend Carlos (Our very own correspondent from news agency EFE Manila) at HK’s airport.

On Friday’s eve we tried the traditional Chinese Hot Pot, which is basically a Fondue, they set a large pot in the middle of the table and then you can cook your own food and vegetables (funny story the waiter got messed up and we stole a fish head that belonged to another customer).

After supper we visited world famous party district Lan Kwai Fang, a very fun place indeed, loaded with all sorts of bars, pubs and discos and located in the old part of the city, beside the city walls and the giant escalator. This was a fun night out and a expensive one too, I kept talking to the waitresses in Tagalo since I kind of forgot I was in China.

On Saturday morning we finally teamed up with Conrad (an HK native since January who seemed to be eluding us by getting drunk and not answering my phone calls, but who finally found his way out of bed) , and set up for a city tour, we visited some of the main spots, the peak and the bay and had lupper (lunch+supper) at a floating Chinese restaurant; I was very impressed by the architecture, the overall neatness of the place and the strikingly beautiful local women .

That evening we went to visit Kawlooon , HK’s peninsula, and saw a light show that by the sea. Later on we went for some house drinking at our hostel in Causeway-bay (a very lively commercial district), they got decent Russian vodka here and affordable prices although the soft-drinks have that very odd and really sweet taste loved by the Asians. Finally we went out to Lan Kwai Fan again.

On Sunday morning we visited some of Conrad’s workmates at “Discovery Bay” which is a very neat area where rich people hang out and that looks like an American beach resort.

Right before taking of we went shopping and I decided to race my credit card into default at the shopping malls in Cuaseway-bay, I bought a really cute mini-computer.

Finally, at the airport, an I-pod also jumped into my shop bag, it was 40 euros cheaper than in Spain (in HK there is no sales tax). I also fell in love with the teller she was very cute and I basically asked her “quieres venirte a España conmigo” surprisingly enough she said “me encantaría” ,in fairly good Spanish with a funny Chinese accent, and then she told me that she studied Spanish in college. Because women in Hong Kong go to college!

In a nutshell I love HK and I am going back

I WANT TO LIVE IN HONG KONG

I think that I can claim to be a well travelled person, I have visited the some of the main cities in the world Paris, New York, London, and Tokyo amongst others and thoght there were cool…..but

I WANT TO LIVE IN HONG KONG

How could the British ever let this place go, I would have waged a war for it and then the morons stick to a worthless piece of rock like Gibraltar; what a shame!!!!!!.

Ok, let me be somewhat more objective:

Hong Kong has more or less the looks of Tokyo (clean, big, high tech) plus some hills and mountains, but:

· The locals speak English, thus being a 100 times more helpful than the Japanese or Singaporeans
· There are few cars (mostly taxis and other commercial vehicles), because they have the best public transport I have ever seen, it is like Madrid’s but cheaper. Metro is 50 euro cent y Ferry 30 euro cent, all of it high-tech.
· The place is crowded with “expats” from everywhere in the world, lots of blond women for my ego, plus the most beautiful Chinese/Hong Kongese women (taller, cleaner, educated and more sophisticated than the other Asian women) I actually fell in love with a teller at the airport and guess what; she was learning Spanish)
· The city is surrounded by forests and hills, hiking being the national sport
· The party district is outstanding, pretty much like Madrid’s “la Latina district”
· And right now it is the best place to buy electronic goods (I mean the real ones, not Chinese imitations, which you can get in Kawloon if you want, Hong Kong’s peninsula) in Asia, Japanese quality but around 15% cheaper

Ok now some drawbacks

· Hong Kong bay is not for swimming (neither is the coast of any other metropolis in the world)
· It is expensive (similar to Rome more or less)

In a nutshell Hong Kong has the good things made in China without the nasty mainland Chinese habits, some people will say this is not authentic but I believe it is an improved version; they only have 50 years before the Chinese are allowed to invade so feel free to visit. I will comment on our trip later I leave you with the skyline

Intramuros

This was made on 29 December 2008, I believe; featuring my good old Corad and Mr Oscar. We went to check out Manila´s historical centre the old Spanish city of "Intramuros".

The city was destroyed by both the Japanese and US soldiers at the "battle of Manila" in World War II; so I am only posting pictures of the buildings still standing (it is good to see that the Spanish architecture resists natural desasters and wars, I can´t say the same for most the buildings in modern Manila), plus a cool Cathedral, made completelly of steel and imported from Belgium, which is located nearby.

Boracai 2009

So finally (shaken but not stirred) we arrived to Boracay on January 1st 2009 and stayed until the 4th. Since the weather was a bit cloudy we dedicated ourselves to some relaxation in the beach enjoying the food and the booze.

We had some casualties; my natural hate for crustaceans saved me from some nasty food poisoning that almost did away with my workmates (Nacho and Pablo), Conrad also decided to go for a swim at 4h00 in the morning and tried to get himself a cold (he did succeed in screwing himself for one whole day), Oscar did go for alcoholic poisoning (but finally got to the plane).

Apart from “chilling out” we decided to ride some quads and to visit “the bat caves” (yeah finally some decent climbing and caving); these caves were like a vision of hell; a dark hole with vapour fumes coming out of it, filled with thousand of screaming bats (including the occasional bat poop) and last but not least poisonous snakes! (do watch the snake, third photo on top, the guide thought it was very neat to wake the thing up to take a picture; luckily this snake was lazy).

This was actually pretty cool trip, because we only had two torch-lights; that were used by our guides, who would occasionally illuminate our way in order to avoid falling into the watery death waiting at the bottom of the cave. I was also attacked by my arch-nemesis, the common rock crab, but survived.

Update: Just added some of the pictures at the nightclubs (including one with a random Estonian guy from the EU Commission, I think his name was Vido).

New year in Manila? Thank you Cebu Pacific!

Starring my good old workmates Nacho and Pablo, Mr Conrad, and Ms Virginia Lopez (marketing manager of a successful wine exporting company, good friend and a little tipsy at times).

Basically our flight to Boracay island was cancelled; the first time at 13h30 in Manila because of “aircraft problems” and a second time around 20h00, right over the island, when our pilot was unable to land “because of bad weather conditions”; you can also see that, to make things more thrilling, our transports shuttle to the hotel in Manila (second top picture) burst into smoke in the middle of the highway.

As a result we got pretty drunk and went back to our hotel in Malate, celebrating new years over there, at Remedios Circle (not a bad party; lots of fireworks thrown around all night Pilipino Style, meaning complete chaos), I truly recommend the “Bedrock Bar” because it has good live music.

We finally arrived to Boracay around 9h00 the next morning.

Karting in Manila

Karting in Manila with Mr Oscar Sanz (Emabssy of Spain in Yakarta), Mr Conrad Turley (Good old friend from Brussels) and my dear workmates and musketeers (Pablo Barbero and Nacho Orfila)

2009 NEW YEAR’S EVE RESOLUTION

To publish my Blog in English; in the meantime I will be posting some pictures of our Xmas holidays.