What a difference a day makes. I went from sleeping on a tiny bunk bed where I banged my head every time I got up, and eating boiled corn on the cob and bottled water (and not much else) in Hong Kong, to having an entire (and rather spacey) room to myself, private bathroom and all, dining on tuna sashimi and expensive wine, in Manila.

This place is amazing. I am so grateful to Leanne's brother, Dale, for taking me in. He has a really nice apartment, and a fabulous helper, Jasmine, who is so sweet and helpful. The Filipino people are, just like everyone said, so incredibly nice. They all say hello when you walk by, and are dying to help you out if you're lost. Actually, they say "Hello Mam" (sounds like a cross between Ma'am and Mom....but more like Mom). 

The scary thing is the traffic. I braved the streets today for a Starbucks (you know me...), and was totally baffled at how anyone gets anywhere in this city. I mean, the pedestrian signal is more of just a suggestion that none of the drivers seem to take, so you kinda just have to run out into the middle of the line of traffic and just hope for the best. I stood there for about five minutes and finally, after I saw an old lady walk out into the traffic, I figured I'd better do the same or I'd be standing there all day.

Dale lives in a very interesting apartment complex called Makati Cinema Square. It's a series of apartments built on top of a mall, and there is actually no cinema anywhere nearby. It's quite convenient because you can just go downstairs to buy absolutely anything you may want - from McDonalds, to a SIM card, to a portrait of Angelina Jolie, should you be so inclined. But the elevators do take forever, and are usually far too packed to even consider entering, so I usually take the stairs, and when it's 34 degrees or whatever crazy temperature it is, that can be quite the feat.

I'm planning to go back out and explore some of the city - maybe take some pictures. But I'm a bit intimidated. Jasmine taught me a little bit of Tagalog today (the national language) but I believe I've forgotten it already. Nevertheless, everyone speaks English, so I should be fine. 

Well I'm at the Hong Kong airport and I've just finished a rather disappointing breakfast. But at least I've got free wifi.

The weather in Manila today is 33, with a 50% chance of thunderstorms. Not too bad I guess, considering that last week the storm was so bad, my friend's brother Dale (who I'm staying with in Manila) took a plane from Cebu to Manila, and upon landing, a baby landed on his lap, wet diapers and all. A baby! Now, I don't know much about mothering, but I am pretty sure mothers hold on to their babies pretty tightly, especially during turbulent landings. That's a turbulent landing if I ever heard of one.

Fingers crossed for better luck on my flight.

My plan right now is to stay in Manila until Sunday, but it all depends on when I can get a flight to Bacolod, and the thought of having to deal with Cebu Pacific again makes me slightly nauseous.

Manila is meant to be a pretty nutso place - it's actually 13 cities in one. WTF!!? What does it think it is, LA? Well I guess I'll find out soon enough...

I'm excited to count how many people are wearing (useless) masks on the plane. 

Being alone in Hong Kong has really given me a lot of time to do what I already do too much of: think.

I've started pondering things I'd never thought about before, like: is rude short for rudimentary? Why do men wear ties? And what's up with Labour Day? I've even invented a new form of punctuation. I call it: The exclama-comma. Because sometimes you just need to exclaim in the middle of a sentence!

I've found that being frustrated with a place is fantastic ammo for my writing. This I also noticed in Japan, where I wrote one of my favourite travel pieces: Memoirs of a Gaijin. So I guess if I'm frustrated all over Southeast Asia, I'll become a fantastic writer (and this is why my travel article from Mexico sucked). But I do hope that's not the case...

I don't really have much of a point here. I guess I just wanted to share the path my brain is on. It's pretty strange, I guess, but it keeps me amused.

Bring on Manila!

ALSO

Happy Mother's Day mommy-cakes:) XxxxxBEST MOM EVERxxxxX

Here's an adorable Mother's Day present for all you moms out there. Check out these adorable little boys I saw last week performing Kung Fu (and watch for their doting mothers in the background encourage them when they completely forget their routine):

Well I made my second friend in Hong Kong. Don't worry, this one didn't come with a criminal record (or at least he was smart and didn't tell me about it).

His name is Alvin (you heard me, Alvin!), and he's from Korea. Of course, Alvin isn't his real name, but his English name. He chose it from a name site on the internet. I wish I could do that!! Just randomly pick a name that sounds cool. Although I'm quite fond of my own. Anyways, he was very excited that I knew about Alvin and the Chipmunks, because he's just come from Australia, where no one had heard of them.

I met him on the tram up Victoria Peak. You can see the whole city from the top of Victoria Peak. It's probably the best view of the most famous skyline in the world that you can get.

And wouldn't you know it, I forgot my camera.

But, no worries, Alvin had a camera, and he made sure to take lots, and lots, and lots of pictures. He took my e-mail address and says he will send them to me.

Alvin doesn't really like Hong Kong. He had a very unpleasant experience with an Indian watch salesman, who tricked him into paying $3000HKD for a Bvlgari watch that turned out to be fake. So he says that all he thinks of when he looks down at the shiny watch adorning his left wrist is how he got cheated in Hong Kong. It's too bad...it's a nice watch.

I've spent most of today in my old hangout, Pacific Coffee Company. I'm afraid to leave because I had a look, with shock and horror, at my bank account this morning. Hong Kong is eating my finances alive. And you have no idea how badly I want to go back to Granville Street to buy a dress.........

Oh and remember how I was having all that trouble last week with Cebu Pacific? Well they've gone ahead and charged my credit card $120CAD for the flight that I wasn't able to book online. AS IF!!

Oh and btw to my faithful readers, there is now an RSS feed at the bottom left-hand corner of my blog so you can subscribe and get updates whenever there's a new post! Yayy. Here's the link if you can't be assed to scroll: I love Kaila's blog.

I visited the Time exhibition at the Hong Kong science museum today. It explained that our perception of the speed of time is influenced by how many memorable things happen to us. This means that if you have no memorable experiences over a span of, say, a year, in your memory a few years down the line, it will seem as if that year just flew by. However, if you have numerous memorable experiences in that year, it will seem that the year lasted longer. I found this concept intriguing. In a sense it means that if we enrich our lives with out-of-the-ordinary experiences, exhileration, romance, hedonism, and achievements, we can, in a sense, slow time down (since time is, as we know, relative).

Woah sorry I'm getting a bit too deep.

So anyways, I thought that I would tell you about some of my moments over the past few days that have slowed time down just a little bit.

• Monday, I made my first friend in Hong Kong. Sure, he's a Pakistani ex-prisoner who sought asylum in Hong Kong 10 years ago only to be jailed once again in Hong Kong for another three years, but hey, beggars can't be choosers. The funny thing is, Mogul, as he's called, started talking to me while we were sharing a bench in a park – and right away he told me about his rather shady past. I would think that one might be better off to save that kind of information until after we've gotten to know each other a bit better. Like, even 10 minutes longer would have been slightly less shocking. Then he asked me, quite abruptly, my name, age and marital status. And then for my phone number. I felt bad for him. He has no friends and this city can be cruel. I gave him my e-mail address (I figure I can always block him). I'll probably never see Mogul again but he said he would worry about me on my travels, which I thought was sweet since he'd only known me for approximately two minutes.

• Tuesday, I booked my ticket to MANILA!! Yayyy! My flight's at 11am next Tuesday. Fingers crossed that the tropical storm screws off to bother some other country like Japan by then. But I figure, I can't stay in Hong Kong forever (nor can I afford to!!). It could rain for all of May, for all I know. Might as well get Manila over with so I can move on to BORACAY!!! I mean...Manila should... be fun...

• After I booked my ticket, I hopped on a ferry to Lamma Island. I was pleasantly pleased to find the island far more accomodating to tourists than most of Hong Kong. Nearly everyone spoke English, there were signs pointing you in the right direction for each attraction, and they didn't just stop randomly, leaving you turning around like a crazy person in a circle, trying to figure out where to go. The views were spectacular, and there was even a white sand beach! I ended the day eating freshly caught scallops with “smeared garlic” and stirfried bok choy.

• Wednesday (today), I went to see some of Hong Kong's museums. This may sound boring to some, but Wednesday is free admission day at Hong Kong's museums, and we all know that free shit's good shit ;). In all, I hopped about four museums. Everything but the art museum was pretty cool. The art museum didn't really seem to have much art in it and was lacking in the intrigue and substance which exuded from the others (I guess you could say time went quicker at the art museum).

• Walking home from the museums today, I took a wrong turn (as FREAKING usual), and miraculously came upon one of the coolest shopping streets I've ever seen. The stores were full of the hippest, funkiest, shinest, glitteriest dresses, shirts, pants, hats, belts....oh god. Knowing I couldn't buy anything was sort of like being stung by a hundred mosquitos and having pillows for hands.

• SPEAKING OF WHICH. My legs are actually ONE BIG mosquito bite. It's ridiculous. I've got so many bites on the back of my legs, I'm actually slightly worried people might think I have some kind of disease like leprosy or something. I feel like such a tool, stopping in the middle of the street to reapply my After-Bite, which seems to wear off all too quickly. I finally found some Tiger Balm, which is like a god send. I pretty much covered the back of my legs with the stuff and now I smell all pepperminty but at least I'm not longer contorting my face into strange grimaces as I try to stop myself from reaching down and stratching the shit out of them.

So that's it, that's a time-adjusted list of my past few days in Hong Kong.