It became clear rather quickly that my body wasn’t going to let me sleep in any later than 8:45am. The consolation prize being that I would definitely be able to catch the illustrious breakfast buffet my buddy Trevor had been describing for months. [One foot outside my hotel room door] “Mr Erik so good to see you this morning. What kind of hours will you be keeping so that we know what is best time to make up your room”. Wow.
Walking into the buffet to the right you have about 6 or 7 varieties of freshly squeezed juice…apple, papaya, mango, orange and a few others I had never heard of before. To the left about 25 varieties of pastries. If you turned right after the juices you will find the two sushi chefs rapidly preparing sushi concoctions. Straight ahead is the fruit and granola table. Chalk full of absolutely mouth wateringly delicious fruit. Likely the beginning of long love affair with Mangos. Then to the left of that is the start of the ‘main’ courses, as if the rest wasn’t enough. There’s a guy cutting up sausage and some other meat that I think was pork. Hard boiled eggs, sausage, salmon, beans, French toast, more sausage, and then the Indian section with about 7 varieties of rice, a handful of different curries and various meat adornments for the rice. It’s exhausting just to list it all. Oh I almost forgot the omelette bar.
Sticking with rule of thumb I then laid by the pool a good hour before hopping in for some laps. Learn from my mistake and wait much longer after eating before swimming actual laps. Lets just say that, while extremely scrumptious, my trip to the buffet was, in terms of long-term nourishment, a waste.
At this point I had enough of this lollygagging around the hotel. Armed with my laptop (or my baby Apple as pops likes to say), my ipod and walking shoes, I headed out. The only directive was to go as the wind took me. Fifteen miles later I find myself at this wifi enabled coffee shop. To tell you the truth I have no clue where I am at. I’ve seen a lot throughout this journey.
I had read a good deal about Spain and the USA’s colonization of the Philippines, and within a few miles found much evidence of both. You’ll notice a wide array of religious
signs amongst my pictures: “Pray to the Rosary”, “text BIBLE to #”, and countless pictures of the Virgin Mary. Trust me when I say those are just the beginning. Not too long after taking many of those I stumbled upon a gorgeous church/mission. After a little smile and wave the security guard decided it would be OK to allow me to walk the grounds, even though it was 
clear my intentions weren’t to kneel at one of the many Mary statues. I don’t think any of my pictures can really give you a grasp of how massive this mission was. It was a nice change of pace from the stucco mega-churches I’m used to in Arizona. 
A lot more flavor and frankly a lot more people flowing in to pray. The Philippines is 85% Catholic. Unlike many countries today this number doesn’t indicate those who simply label themselves Catholic. These people are devout church attenders. A few miles and a few random turns later I found myself staring at a sea of white crosses. I approached the entrance quite cautiously. Knowing full
well the atrocities my own country had committed against the Philippine people. The last thing I wanted was to stroll in there rocking out to Radiohead on my ipod only to find myself at the memorial for an American massacre. Fortuitously it was the Manila American Memorial. Based on my limited knowledge I think it is a burial ground for American servicemen who helped the Philippines overthrow the Spaniards. It is because of this assistance that Filipinos still seem to love 
Americans despite the brutal acts we committed not too long after helping them. Which is why after they eventually squashed us in battle they were, from an American perspective, unusually generous in post-battle negotiations. Whereas virtually any country, the USA especially, would have booted us out on our asses, they gave us land for bases at a price that for all intensive purposes amounted to nothing. In my walking I also developed an itch that will inevitably need to be scratched. And that is the desire to ride in one of those pimped out extended jeeps you see scattered amongst my pictures. Those things are zipping all over the place. Generally full with people of all walks of life and socio-economic backgrounds. It would help if I actually knew what direction I was going.
Those things are pretty cool looking.Time to find my way back to the Shangri-La.
Coming Up Next – Fight night at Fort Bonifacio. I walked right by then turned back around to check out this oddly located giant white tent. At the opening I met Juno who was the director of the event, and quite a salesman. Next thing I knew after a quick tour I was buying a ticket to said Fight Night. Fifteen different fights, one night. The woman who sold me the ticket said the fights don’t last very long. Which I interpret as, “There’s going to be a lot of ass kicking going on”.
I’m going as much for the crowd interaction as for the fight itself. There should be one picture in there I took of the workers setting up. Many of the fighters were laying around under the bleachers resting up for the nights festivities.
All Photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/sstarlinus/ManilaDay1
Until next time…..
