Wow is not the word to use, it’s more like, “Geezzz!” I’ve been in Manila for about five hours and it hasn’t stopped raining since I’ve been here. I haven’t seen rain like this, both in duration and shear amount in years. Streets are flooded, sewers are backing up, and umbrellas are virtually useless. Regardless, I’m only going to be here for a few days and I don’t have the luxury of not going out and exploring. Because of this, the first thing I did when I got to my hotel at about 3 was to start walking around. In no time I was drenched and hadn’t taken one photo. I ended up taking some photos just to show the rain coming down.

There a couple of things that I noticed here though, crime may be a big issue. Everywhere I turn there are armed guards standing in front of banks, malls and other places. Seeing security guards is nothing new, in Dubai they’re everywhere, but here they’re carrying shotguns and hand guns, some with semi-auto. At one point I stopped to take a photo of the rain and as I was fumbling with the camera an alarm goes off behind me. I turn around and I see two guards staring at me. I don’t know for sure, but it seemed to be their way of telling me to move on. At least when I moved away the alarm stopped. Another is that I think Philippine women are pretty. It’s no surprise to anyone that knows me that I like Philippine women, I always have. In fact I don’t think there has ever been a time that I didn’t think they were pretty.

So now I’m sitting in a Chinese restaurant having just finished my lemon chicken and debating if I should order another beer or just go back to the hotel. What to do? Isn’t that the age old question… What to do?

I really need to decide how to spend my time in Manila. I’ve done some research but haven’t really found anything that gets me excited. For the most part I’ve always just wanted to come here, I never really figured out what I’d do when I actually arrived.

I also got a couple of photographs from my hotel room of the sunrise in Singapore.