I woke up around 6.30 today. Although it’s still 6.30, the surrounding looks like its already 9 am. its really bright.

after done all of the morning stuffs, we went down to have our 1st breakfast in Manila. No, not breakfast around the Manila… Just a quick breakfast at the hotel lounge.

What I had? Well all is vegetarian stuffs… cereal, toast and some juice. I wanted to take the eggs, until I found out that they fry the bacon on the same pan. Oh shit… So we had one quick meal there and now back to the hotel room.

We’ll have our first meeting with the hotel IT around 8.30 am. After that maybe we will have the tour around hotel so I will try my best to snap few pix and post it here… The reason I don’t post pictures on my post is because I don’t took any; it’s kind of dangerous to take out your camera and point it on the street.

Zam “painkiller” Hizami

… continued from previous post.

So after I refreshed myself and relaxed a bit, Ift asked me out for dinner and the destination is Quiapo Street. The reason we are heading for that direction is because there’s Islamic center there and surely there would be halal food around the area. It was around 4 km away from our place, so we took a jeepney there. Jeepney is like a mini bus in Malaysia, but 10X of its roughness and fear factor. Hahaha!! Cost us 10 pesos (RM0.70) per person for the journey.

I would not go into the details on the food and all, but what I want to share now is about the condition around Manilla city as I saw through the jeepney ride. As I said previosly, Manila is quite a slump city whereby people sleep around the side of the road. It was a really sad and eye opening experience for us. The condition there reminds me of the slump area particularly around south america… its a very sad view.

Another particular thing that I would like to share is the safety around Manila. Don’t go out after dark if there’s not local accompanying you to the places. It’s really dangerous. Me and Ift was followed on a street.. luckily he realized about it and we entered a shop to break their attention to us. I think for the rest of my stay here I would have my dinner inside the hotel unless there is local accompanying us.

I always told my friend that Phuket is an example of the world’s paradise. But if people ask me what is the example of world’s hell; I would say without hesitation that Manila is one of it.

end of day one.

Zam “painkiller” Hizami

note: finally after few months of waiting and delays, my business trip to Manila is confirmed from 25 April – 1 May 2010 (tentative schedule). i thought it would be another normal business trip experience, but it is all different from what i imagine. so i decided to share my experience with you guys and i will try to update as much stuffs as possible everyday. stay tuned, and keep reading guys!

A Week in Manila – Day 1 (25 April 2010)

I arrived at Diosdado Macapagal International Airport, Clark, Philippines around 11.00 am today. The flight arrived the airport 10 minutes early, so I thought this would be a good start of my journey to Manila.

As I cleared all the immigration and custom checks, I walks off to the arrival hall. Since there’s no one here to pick me, I have to choose my own mode of transport. I went to one of the taxi counter and I was shocked knowing that the fees to Manila via the airport taxi would cost me around PHP (phillipines pesso) 3,900. The guy said my destination, Traders Hotel Manila was 100 km away from the airport. I have with me roughly PHP3,400 so I told the taxi guy that I would need to find an ATM as we travel to Manila. He agreed and he took me to the taxi. As I entered the taxi, he “forcefully” asked me for RM50 tips. I was like WTF?, but he insisted on his 50 bux tips. Knowing I have no choice, I hand him over my last 50 ringgit and the taxi moves to the destination.

As we move to find the ATM, taxi driver introduced himself. His name is Jass, and he speaks in a fluent english although I have few hard times to understand his accent. He explains that the place that we are currently in is called Clark Field, and it was a former US military base in the Philippines. Nowadays, the national force replace US existence there, as American abandon the place in 1991 due to the Pinatobo volcano eruption. When America left, it  caused a great depression to economy of the area because their existence keeps the economy in a healthy loop. When they left, no one buying as much as they do anymore causing business to close.

We went from 1 mall to another, but because of some unknown issue the ATM wont withdraw me any money at all. Fuck. What should I do? Im stranded in foreign country with not enough money to take me to the hotel. I insisted to Jass that if the taxi-counter guy didn’t force me for the 50 bux tip, I would have enough to pay for the taxi fare. After Jass made some phone calls, he decided to still take me to Manilla although that means that his salary will be cut for the short amount of the fair as he won’t leave me stranded here alone. Nasib baik.. I really grateful for his courtesy decision. So we left Clark around 12.00 pm following the 100 km journey to Manila.

Highway conditions in Philippines was not really in a good shape. It’s called highway, but I think jalan kampung around Sabak Bernam can easily surpass the highway quality here. And as my journey approaching the destination, I can see that Manila is actually a slump area. I believe the gap between poor and the rich here is very wide. I mean, I saw people sleeping at the roadside but there’s people driving in good car too. Speaking about car, there’s a lot of my fav car, the toyota SEG around here.. damn!!

Ift calls me as I’m reaching the city center of Manila. He said that he arrived in the hotel already and he’s waiting for me on the room. Alhamdulillah, so I told him that I would need to borrow him 1000 pesos and I told Jass that I can pay the fee in full amount. Jass was relieved as that simply means that his salary wont be deducted =P Long story short, I arrived Traders Hotel Manila, the place where I would stay and work for the following whole week around 2:30 pm.

… to be continued

P/S: This whole post is dedicated to Kew Kok Wei since he can’t make it to the party today. Wakakakakaka

It’s 20th December and it’s baby Keith new full-moon anniversary!

Wait a sec.. Who’s is the baby and what is full moon party anyway? Well, here’s the cute pix of Baby Keith:

Hello Keith!

Keith is actually the newborn of Tim Chan (my boss) and his wifey, Wendy. According to Jean, New full-moon party is some sort of chinese customs to celebrate the newborn’s first month. So to celebrate this boss has invited us to the party which is held at The Mills, Grand Millennium KL.

So we (me, Zaki, Iftitah and Jean) hailed over to GM for the celebration (and more importantly, for the food XD).

The food selection. It was actually longer and got more different section but I was too busy with the food that I forgot to snap the rest of the sections pix

The first “victim” of the day. Dim sum, pizza and some animal called sheep!

Jean with her V-pose after finishing her first round. Zaki was too busy handling calls from various aweks and don’t really mind for his food. Hahaha

Me on the other hand was too busy with my food that I forgot about anything else!

Iftitah took his chance to snap all of the “victims” before he eliminated em’ all

My second round. Had some more of the dim sums. It’s really yummy.. mmmmm

Some lobsters with more dim sums and turkey with baked vegetables.

Iftitah with his next “victim”. Some nice looking sushi although I had doubt about the taste (I can’t eat sushi actually.. say no to uncooked dead fish!)

There’s a lof of Tim’s relatives and friends coming on the day. He actually booked almost all of the buffet tables for the day. Bravo boss! (looks like there’s a chance for good bonus this year )

The desert – ice cream with toppings

Fruits dipped in the chocolate fountain (yummyyyy) with some coffee cake

A view on the battle-zone after all of the victims has been eliminated

Muka-muka gembira selepas kenyang

Jean was so happy after the meal that she did the V-pose twice

After the nice meal, we went to the office for a while because Iftitah wanted to pickup some stuff. Unfortunately, when Zaki was trying to adjusting his car at the parking he did something terribly bad to his sparkling brand new rims.

Ouch!

Here’s a closer look

Well Zaki, “takziah” on your unfortunate event. Anyway, brand new sparkling rims are meant to be scratched! Wahahahaaha XD *cabut*

More coverage (and pictures) at Iftitah’s and Jean’s blog.

Zam “painkiller” Hizami