March 20, 2012, we woke up at 2:15 in the morning, Manila local time. We have complimentary coffee, so I did use that to waken up my body. Breakfast was at 6:00 in the morning, so it was a long time waiting for starving people like us. I took the shower, while my husband was enjoying his coffee. (Yeah, he started to drink coffee, that day.) After shower, we talked about what we are going to do the whole day, so we will not miss something before we travel to Mindoro Province.
So around 6:00 am we went directly to breakfast hall, (we were first actually, ashamed but what should we do, we were so hungry) I immediately grab some Filipino food to taste, because I am craving for that the long time. My husband grabbed something for his diet, well, also some meat. He mostly ate watermelon (One of his favorite fruit.)
Our next plan was to use the GYM of the said hotel, located at 6th floor of the building. Even though I wanted to do exercising, I felt that I have this strong mood for learning, so I did refused to exercise but instead, I grabbed my book with me, and learned something while my husband was exercising and building his muscles. It’s not that, I don’t want to go exercising with my husband; it’s just because I still wanted to enhance my knowledge and improving my Czech language while I am away. I don’t want my brain to get stagnates, in few weeks of vacation.
THAT IS HOW HE STARTED. 🙂
STRONG HUSBAND 🙂
ANICKA LAUGHING OUT LOUD. 😀
These are photos from the GYM. As you can all see, we were alone using it.
So after he exercised, we went back to our room, to get some clean towel and his swim wear. We went to swimming pool, at 31st floor. The view from there was fantastic, but of course I don’t focus much with the view but with my beloved book, and taking my husband’s photo as well.
VIEW FROM THE POOL.
MY HUSBAND, ENJOYING THE VIEW AND COLD WATER.
THERE IS ANICKA, HOLDING HER BOOK. KEEPING HER BRAIN WITH KNOWLEDGE OF CZECH LANGUAGE.
After we spent a little time at the swimming pool, we went back to our room, and talked about what are will be our next plan? We decided to go to shopping mall, and buy some stuff we need before going to Mindoro Province. So we waited until 9:00 am and we decided to go. He wanted to go by walking, which is a little bit bad idea for me.
IN THE CITY, THERE ARE LOTS OF SNATCHERS, RUBBERS, ETC. ON THE STREETS. MAKATI CITY IS A NICE PLACE. IT CAN BE CONSIDERED ONE OF THE SAFEST PLACES IN METRO MANILA, BUT… THERE IS SOME AREA WHICH IS NOT SO GOOD FOR WALKING ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU ARE NEW TO THAT PLACE, WITH FOREIGNERS, AND WITH SOME SHINY JEWELRY ON YOU. I DON’T SUGGEST WALKING, BUT TO GET TAXI. (BUT IF IT’S JUST 5 MINUTES WALK TO YOUR PLACE OF DESTINATION WHY NOT, JUST KEEP SAFE AND ALERT.
So anyway, it’s like 20 minutes of walk to the shopping mall and my husband insisted to walk. Not even half of our way; we encountered this group of children with around the ages of 9-13 years old (4 kids). They were asking for money; and we didn’t want to give them because I knew that it wasn’t good to give them money, because they usually using it to buy some drugs, or cigarette instead of food. Aside from that reason, they won’t let us to go; they were surrounded us, and don’t let us pass through. Reason why I got mad, and I tried to scare them, but they won’t go away. So I started to be so scared, because I knew they are those children who tried to snatch bags, while doing the different movement like surrounding us. My husband can’t do anything because he was a foreigner and he can’t do anything with children (Young, and Filipino Citizen-ALWAYS RIGHT.) So I needed to find way to get rid of them. Few steps away from our location was a security guard of one bank, standing, with his firearms. So I did call him, and told him what are those kids doing to us. He was polite, and kind; he immediately did something to make them go away. He also called one traffic enforcer that scares most to children. One kid was hiding behind me, and I told him to go away, or I’ll send him to jail.
When the children go away, the security guard said that it isn’t safe when situation is like that (Surrounded by street children with foreigner) so I don’t want to risk it even more. I told him, if he can help us find taxi. He was willing to help, so we did go by taxi. We arrived to shopping mall and buy whatever we need, and then we found taxi going back to our suite hotel.
That was the horrible, scary first day in the Philippines. Sad to say, but honestly those people existed. (Children at their young age do snatching and robbing)
After that we spent our last night to the hotel.
Anickaworld 