Monday in the Philippines was considered to be an off day. Sent here to work, though, this relaxing day of wishful sightseeing and recovering from a touch of jet lag no worse than the Phillies current Wild Card standings was instead spent upgrading our soon-to-be sold-and-recently-downgraded-to-three-star Hyatt Hotel to the very opulent five-star rated Pan Pacific deeper into town and going through my work for the upcoming two-day Q&A blitzkrieg presentation for which this trip was all about. Plus, the monsoon season, much like Kevin Smith’s humor, had yet to fully surrender saturating the island with rain and humidity.
The Pan Pacific features two lounges, one public, one strictly for guests, and boasts a casino, nightclub and eleven different eating establishments. We tried two that night, and kinda wished that number was divided by itself.
Initially my boss, and Indian-by-decent who can generally eat anything, and I were coaxed into the Shabu-Shabu. Sort of like Benehana back home, Shabu-Shabu had a grill sitting in the middle of the table. You then selected from a long, stainless steel buffet table your choice of raw – let me say that again, raw – meat to go into the pot and see it cook before your very eyes. Well, in front of eyes that were interested, which this American was certainly not.
We then settled, no, I think the proper word should be resorted, to eating at a Chinese restaurant across the main hall. Where everything was deep fried. And covered in some sort of seafood-based paste with appetizing names like “oyster paste”. And greasy. And stringy. Haven’t the Philippines yet discovered the ancient recipe for general’s chicken?
Fortunately the Palm Lounge, residing at the top of the hotel’s twenty-one floors, became our saving grace. I was introduced to San Miguel, the Philippines’ answer to Heineken. The lounge offers comfortably-dim lighting and a smashing pool table. Smashing, of course, is what I ended up performing on it as I am certainly no Minnesota Fats. Although, I can twirl a pool stick just as charmingly as Tom Cruise. Plus I’m not a freako Scientologist, so I have Tom beat there as well.
It is with a belly full grease, a bladder waiting to pass San Miguel and my boastful one-upping of an A-list star that my first full day on the other side of the planet came to an end. My room has a magnificent view of both the bay and the streets below me. And it’s still raining. Tomorrow, clients await.
As Always,
theJOE
1 comment:
I just read your blog entry for your journey to Manila. I always adore reading your essays and blog entries. You could write product descriptions for fur ball remedy and I would probably find them enchanting. I especially love your description of the lightening popping outside the window of the plane like a flash bulb. I also think it's adorable that you said you were hundreds of feet in the air. Likely you were tens of thousands at that moment :) but then your sense of scale and proportion was never your strong suit...unlike your writing.
When I read your writing, I'm reminded of what passion you have, of what a romantic you are and how you use words to reflect your feelings and impressions of the world...someone who views the world as an intriguing, miraculous curiousity, like when you mentioned that you enjoy the drive into any new foreign city for the first time, observing how the road signs are laid out. I am the same way. I adore that. I love peeking in the "7-11's" of the world to see what the local tastes, reads, smokes and unfamiliar habits people have. It's fascinating to take in all of the variations in culture, variations on such simple themes like the direction of traffic.
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