Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Manila

I spent my whole day traveling, even though Manila is not that far from Malaysia, about 4 hours flight. I took Singapore Airlines so i need to transit to Singapore before fly to Manila, so approximately 6 hours of travelling. Singapore Airlines is quite ok to me, lots of people said it's the best in Asia and i was so lucky to take the plane. I dont know how true it is cause i never fly MAS yet. Tried Cathay Pacific, compare to SIA i think SIA is more spacious. The service not much different. The flight is just ok. Lots of movies and the game is so boring compare to Cathay pacific.




Arrived around 4pm in Manila. Not much interesting view and quite small airport. We took a metered taxi. Unfortunately there was bombing incident in Makati on the way to my Hotel happened in the afternoon. Police shut down a few major road and that cause a heavy traffic jam. It is suppose to be a 20 minutes driving to my hotel, but it took me 3 hours to reach there! Can u imagine how terrible the traffic is?


Nothing much i can do except just sitting in the taxi looking at the traffic, try to compare and find what unique about Philipines. I see lots of Toyota and Honda on the road, fancy jeepey passanger or kind of mini bus. Philipinos driver is more crazy than Malaysian driver. U can imagine how close they drive whenmotorbike can't even drive through. I saw lots of people walking on the road selling junk food too.


Jeepey
PIG plate

After 3 hours, we arrived at hotel- Edsa Shangri La. They have big sniffing dogs and lots of security which they said a normal procedure. They will check the car and the bags. So, the hotel was awesome, nice lobby very friendly services. So i went up to my room it was just ok, not so big for an expensive hotel. After throwing everything and had a nice bath, we went down to find our dinner at the mall. 2 big malls next to my hotel.

Edsa Shang Ri-la lobby
Pool area

My Room
View from my 18th floor room


Shang Ri La Plaza

On the next day, we had our User conference and it was awesome as our big boss from US and also my idol came to make the preliminary speech. It was tiring day, on the evening i went to the mall again and had dinner with all the delegates and caboooom fall asleep.

The next day, i went to few workshops, went for shopping. no where to go except shopping mall as they close everything at 9pm except for pub arund 10-11 pm.

So the conclusion is, i dont really explore Manila cause i have not enough time and the bombing thingy, so my pictures also not so interesting. Maybe next time. :D

Monday, January 24, 2011

Manila here I come!


New entry after 25 days! Time really flies like rocket, i didn't notice it at all. So sorry, no new interesting updates except all about my tonnes of workloads. I told u how i hate my work right, well a few thing has happened in the office and i'm hoping there are sunshine after rainy days or i can say rainy years :P.
I foretold there would be a change management if they totally serious about it. I felt so relief that i can spilled all my thoughts n hatred about that company to the managements, i hope they taking it seriously if they want to keep all their technical staff there. If not, cry me a river lah...
Anyway after all the thoughts given, my boss actually sending me and 2 of my collegues to Manila to attend a user conference. I'm a bit happy about it, i love travelling especially a free 1 :P. Since it's a very short notice which i think my boss purposely did, i can't plan for extended vacations there, if not i 'm sure i will go to one of it's beautiful island --> Boracay or probably Bohol. U know how much i love beaches! I felt like crying when i c these beautiful pictures, white sandy beach, crystal clear water.... if only i have a house there or better, own a resort in a beautiful beach.. everyday is vacation to me :P
Boracay

Bohol


1 day i will definitely go there. Puuffffff.. back to reality, I will stuck only at Manila. Will it be good? Fun? I dont know, most reviews from my friends said Manila is dangerous. They wont dare to go out at nite. Well, i will see how it goes, i really want to go out at nite, check out their cheap nite market or at least go to the SM mall, biggest mall in Asia. I want to do some shopping. Wanna find cute key chain that represent Manila and probably few clothes. or else i will stuck in the hotel and just jump into swimming pool.

I will continue to update this blog again tomorrow. Hopefully everything will be fine :D