Yooooo japan is awesome...well, this airport is. Things are pretty cheap here, people are extremely polite. My sister and others have told me about the politeness from the people of japan, but experiencing it first hand is pretty amazing. There were tiny jungle gyms and park structures there for kids in the "kid zone". And oh my snacks galore. This is definitely marked on my radar. If this is only the airport, I can only imagine what weird amazing shit they have outside.
I board the plane to Manila. I'm writing this post after going to Manila a few times now so I'll try and express what I was anticipating. At the time, I had no conception of what the Philippines was like. All I knew was what my dad has told me about it, and that there were darker Asians living there. Father told me that it was a dangerous place, that it was very "messy", meaning the country ws politically corrupt and the streets were feeling the repercussions. Of course, like always, I acted like I didn't listen, but actually heeded his words while ignoring his underlying anxiety. I got into the city at 9:30pm which wasn't particularly late, but still late enough to heighten my awareness. I head straight to the metered taxis after I land. The line ws pretty long, and I was way overdressed. Definitely not ny weather. I show the taxi driver my hostel address, and he goes. He tells me I should have gone over the skyway first it avoid paying the fee. In case he was a scam artist, I start talking to him about his family to loosen him up. He talks about his kids, Christmas plans (huge in the Philippines) what he cooks, adobo, and things to check out in the city. Talking to him may have backfired on me. My intentions were to humanize myself so he dosenT see me as a moneybags opportunity to exploit. But it ended up humanizing him so I felt like I needed to give him a tip. Gahhhhh. Well, he got me to where I needed to be, in addition to passing by many prostitutes and the driver explaining they may be ladyboys. There were not many street signs and the building numbers were scarce, so when we hit the correct street, he had me look for the place with him. Finally arrived, the cab fare was around 350 pesos. I went into my hostel "where 2 next" thinking it would be a lot cleaner than it was. There was a smelly leather couch, the beds were ok, the bathroom in the dorms were oh man, wtf. It w only for a night so I didn't care. I decided to check up on the district online and decide where I should head outside. After a few reviews on Malate, I noped out of going out. I could only see so many posts on "be careful" , "prostitutes everywhere ", "you are in a red light district", "tourist beware" before I'm like "I think I'm in a bad part of town". I was jet lagged out of my mind so I stayed up, reading up on the distrust, emailing, finally checking my itinerary, doing a bunch if last minute shit. I was mostly avoiding having to sleep in that bed, but eventually my tiredness unclenched my balls and I took a 2 hour nap.
I woke at 6 and decided to explore the place. Shit, I'm bad at blogging the are getting needlessly long. I'll truncate and pull more important shit. On the morning streets of malate, there were stray dogs, stray children, stray trash, stray steaming piles of shit. I usually like to get lost and find my way back, but this was not the place to get lost. My lack of preparation led me to get lost anyway. I immediately got looks. But I eventually found a recognizable street and got back to the hostel right when breakfast was served. I spoke with some people there. One was some German mechanic dude who left his job and has been traveling for a few months. Is going to dive, scuba a nd snorkel around the Philippine islands. Was a cool anyways guy, I'm not sure if that's my lifestyle yet. Another dude was an Australian medical student doing his internship in a nearby hospital. He mentioned something interesting about Americans, that he doesn't see much of them backpacking, and mostly Europeans. I'm not sure why this is. Alec had mentioned a shocking number, that only around 1/3 of Americans have passports.
I decided to meet up with some of the people in the trip early. I decided I wanted to walk the entire way to see them. I decided to bring my bags with me = recipe for "hi I'm obviously a tourist that has no free hands. Come ask if I need help and overcharge me" I should make a video of 10 hours walking around Manila, looking like a tourist and seeing how many times I get approached. I had no idea it would take me an hour to walk there. Saw many children come up to me to beg for money. I kept swatting them away. It just started to rain as I got to my destination, but I had no wifi to tell the people I was meeting up with that I was there. I went t a nearby 7eleven to check if they had wifi. Nope. On a whim, I asked the guy next door to give me his wifi password and luckily huge was a kindhearted dude. Finally met up with some people from the trip, and finally let my guard down.
I board the plane to Manila. I'm writing this post after going to Manila a few times now so I'll try and express what I was anticipating. At the time, I had no conception of what the Philippines was like. All I knew was what my dad has told me about it, and that there were darker Asians living there. Father told me that it was a dangerous place, that it was very "messy", meaning the country ws politically corrupt and the streets were feeling the repercussions. Of course, like always, I acted like I didn't listen, but actually heeded his words while ignoring his underlying anxiety. I got into the city at 9:30pm which wasn't particularly late, but still late enough to heighten my awareness. I head straight to the metered taxis after I land. The line ws pretty long, and I was way overdressed. Definitely not ny weather. I show the taxi driver my hostel address, and he goes. He tells me I should have gone over the skyway first it avoid paying the fee. In case he was a scam artist, I start talking to him about his family to loosen him up. He talks about his kids, Christmas plans (huge in the Philippines) what he cooks, adobo, and things to check out in the city. Talking to him may have backfired on me. My intentions were to humanize myself so he dosenT see me as a moneybags opportunity to exploit. But it ended up humanizing him so I felt like I needed to give him a tip. Gahhhhh. Well, he got me to where I needed to be, in addition to passing by many prostitutes and the driver explaining they may be ladyboys. There were not many street signs and the building numbers were scarce, so when we hit the correct street, he had me look for the place with him. Finally arrived, the cab fare was around 350 pesos. I went into my hostel "where 2 next" thinking it would be a lot cleaner than it was. There was a smelly leather couch, the beds were ok, the bathroom in the dorms were oh man, wtf. It w only for a night so I didn't care. I decided to check up on the district online and decide where I should head outside. After a few reviews on Malate, I noped out of going out. I could only see so many posts on "be careful" , "prostitutes everywhere ", "you are in a red light district", "tourist beware" before I'm like "I think I'm in a bad part of town". I was jet lagged out of my mind so I stayed up, reading up on the distrust, emailing, finally checking my itinerary, doing a bunch if last minute shit. I was mostly avoiding having to sleep in that bed, but eventually my tiredness unclenched my balls and I took a 2 hour nap.
I woke at 6 and decided to explore the place. Shit, I'm bad at blogging the are getting needlessly long. I'll truncate and pull more important shit. On the morning streets of malate, there were stray dogs, stray children, stray trash, stray steaming piles of shit. I usually like to get lost and find my way back, but this was not the place to get lost. My lack of preparation led me to get lost anyway. I immediately got looks. But I eventually found a recognizable street and got back to the hostel right when breakfast was served. I spoke with some people there. One was some German mechanic dude who left his job and has been traveling for a few months. Is going to dive, scuba a nd snorkel around the Philippine islands. Was a cool anyways guy, I'm not sure if that's my lifestyle yet. Another dude was an Australian medical student doing his internship in a nearby hospital. He mentioned something interesting about Americans, that he doesn't see much of them backpacking, and mostly Europeans. I'm not sure why this is. Alec had mentioned a shocking number, that only around 1/3 of Americans have passports.
I decided to meet up with some of the people in the trip early. I decided I wanted to walk the entire way to see them. I decided to bring my bags with me = recipe for "hi I'm obviously a tourist that has no free hands. Come ask if I need help and overcharge me" I should make a video of 10 hours walking around Manila, looking like a tourist and seeing how many times I get approached. I had no idea it would take me an hour to walk there. Saw many children come up to me to beg for money. I kept swatting them away. It just started to rain as I got to my destination, but I had no wifi to tell the people I was meeting up with that I was there. I went t a nearby 7eleven to check if they had wifi. Nope. On a whim, I asked the guy next door to give me his wifi password and luckily huge was a kindhearted dude. Finally met up with some people from the trip, and finally let my guard down.
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