Manila, Philippines

I can't believe we're here in the Philippines and only scheduled one day to see what we could. We flew into Manila yesterday at 1:30 pm. After hearing all the horror stories of kidnappings, and killings I was a little nervous to arrive. But we couldn't have asked for a smooth arrival. The taxi knew right where to take us and 45 minutes later we were at our hotel. We spent quite a bit more money than usual to be in a safe area and nice hotel but it's been worth every penny. We're staying at the Malayan Plaza and were greeted at our taxi by the bellhop and his luggage cart, something we haven't encountered once yet. We checked in and were told our room was on the 36th floor. Once in the elevator, the floors stopped at 35 but our bellhop knew exactly what button to push. It was the LP button meaning Lower Penthouse. Josh and I just looked at each other and panicked! I knew what I had paid for the room when booking it and knew it shouldn't be a "penthouse" room! All we could do was laugh as wait to see what we were in for. Besides the great view, our room ended up being nothing too spectacular which was a relief in terms of finances. It's definitely one of the nicest rooms we've had so far though, including a kitchenette and shower door (something we haven't seen in quite some time!).

We walked across the road and did a little shopping at the SM Mega Mall. Not quite as big as the Mall of America, but close. Josh had left my swimming suit hanging out to dry at one of our hotels in Vietnam so I was on a mission to buy a new one. We spent some time in the pool here and then got ready for dinner. Manila is by far the most Americanized city we've been in yet, besides Europe. And the selection of restaurants is unbelievable! We settled for Texas Roadhouse which ended up being pretty close to the chain back home We were in heaven eating our BBQ bacon cheeseburgers with ranch dressing! And it was real US beef, even better!

I guess we can't really say what the Philippines is all about but from what we've witnessed so far, I'd definitely come back. The people here are so nice, we've never been called 'sir' and 'mam' so much in our lives. And I think the reputation the country has here is the same as many big cities back home. Even Milwaukee and Chicago have pockets to avoid just like here. So now we only have a few hours left and we're going to spend it eating dinner, probably at the Texas Roadhouse one last time! And then we fly to San Francisco. We have to prepare ourselves for this journey. Many layovers and changing of time zones will definitely test our attitudes by the time we reach Lima, Peru on Sunday afternoon. But there's a lot ahead of us to look forward to yet.