This report is going to be a bit different than past efforts due to the massive amount of time it takes to write me to write up all the details and the fact that my brain cells are rapidly disappearing and I can't concentrate for hours on end. So there will be more frequent posts about this trip, more random comments and less rigid structure. Hope you like --

Porker

THE TRIP OUT: Like always, I booked a cheap ticket on China Air, as I had on my first two trips, only to find out that Asiana had a much better deal that flew into Clark AFB instead of Manila if I had waited a month to book it. DOH! I also decided that in order to maximize time onsite this time that I was going to fly from Monterrey to LA instead of taking my usual bus odysseys and stopping to see family and friends en route. This still resulted in some MASSIVELY long travel time, however, as I had to connect through Houston to get to LAX. Here’s a pic of good ol’ George Bush from IAH. I’ve been wondering lately where William Jefferson Clinton aeropuerto is ever gonna be built/renamed? Little Rock?

The plane from MTY was a little puddle jumper, and the flight was REALLY short. Luckily we landed 5 minutes early because clearing customs in Houston would have been a BITCH as 3 full flights emptied out right after I got in line. The flight to LAX was uneventful except that I was SUPER excited about the upcoming trip. I listened to my MP3 discman the whole way, and being able to pack 10+ hours of music onto one CD is pretty damned cool.

Since I had a few hours to kill before the loooooongass flight to Taipei, I had set up a dinner date with Curiousone, a TJ buddy, who headed me to a Mexican restaurant near the airport and we discussed chasing TJ girls, one of my all-time favoriite subjects. He was also nice enough to take me to Ralphs so I could by some cheap chocolate and try and exchange a wad of 20’s for 100’s before dropping me off to catch the flight to Taipei.

As there was already a line when I arrived at the airport, however, I got fucked with a chainsaw on my seat assignment and got stuck with a middle seat. And I hadn’t been able to find any pharmacies in NE Mexico that carried either Ambien or Xanex, and I learned last trip that drinking myself to sleep on the plane is rather futile, so I basically didn’t sleep the whole flight, just listened to music. For FOURTEEN FUCKING HOURS. Again, the excitement was KILLING ME.

I think I got the oddest pair of seatmates ever: The guy on the aisle was a Taiwan-born U.S. resident 40ish dude that was with some all-male tour group headed for Bangkok. He asked me why I was going to the PI, and I asked him why he was going to BKK, and pretty soon we were discussing the white guy surcharges at the BKK soapies and how he preferred the milky white-skinned Asian girls, with Japanese being his all-time faves!

The window seat was taken by a 40-ish MEXICAN woman from Mexicali who worked as a supervisor for a Chinese-owned maquiladoramaking her first trip to corporate HQ outside Hong Kong. While her English was very good, we spoke mostly Spanish and talked quite a bit about life in Mexico. When the horndog next to me found out that I not only knew waaaay more than most people about the sex scene in Thailand and could speak Spanish to the Mexican lady next to me, he seemed to think I was some kind of renaissance man! Some people are easily impressed.

We must have been flying into some massive headwind because we landed a full hour late in Taipei, which seriously cramped my plan to shower and shave in the public shower area before catching my flight to Manila. As it was, I just had time to rinse the oil out of my hair before heading to the gate where they were already boarding. For those that have never done it before, flying into the PI is a pretty festive experience as the plane is always full of people who are DAMNED happy to be going HOME to see the relatibs.

Landing safely on China Air was always a cause for a spiritual rejoicing, but waiting a half hour for my bag was no fun as I eagerly anticipated heading outside to meet my email/chat penpal who was taking the day off to hang out with me in Manila. After finally claiming my bag, I changed a couple Benjamins at the bank window that did NOT have a ripoff rate (56.15 at one bank, 55.7 next door…), and lugged my bags out into the steamy arrivals area to look for my date for the day, thinking that MAN, it was good to be HOME again!

Oops. Musta deleted the pic of the cheesy statue of George Bush at IAH. My bad...

Porker, have you tried some of them sleeping pills? I bet those would make the 14 hour trip seem shorter...you can just pass out and dream of all of the fucking you're gonna be doing.

On my initial trip to Asia last summer, I had sat next to a Filipino guy living in L.A. who was going back home to visit his family. He was very nice and offered to show me around Manila if I needed anything, gave me his cell # there and I gave him my email address. Well, lo and behold, a couple months after I got back home, I got an email out of the blue from a 31 year-old Filipina office worker who said that her brother-in-law had given her my email address and that she wanted to correspond with a foreigner, would I mind having a penpal in the PI? Severely entrenched in Post-Philippines-Depression, it sounded like fun to me, and we exchanged a couple emails per week for the next several months. I never mentioned to her that I had gone to the Phils. Again at New Year’s, saying I only went to Singapore instead.

We had started chatting a bit and getting to know each other better, and had exchanged photos, and while I was not at ALL interested in any sort of romantic entanglements that I suspected that she was trolling for, we had spent so much time getting to know each other that I really wanted to at least meet her in person. So I set up a lunch date in Manila, figuring I’d spend the afternoon there before catching the early afternoon SEAir flight to Angeles. I didn’t tell HER I was going to Angeles, but rather meeting a friend in Boracay where I’d spend a few days before going to Thailand.

I lugged my bags across the street after exiting NAIA passing at least a dozen super-aggressive taxi touts who thought NOTHING of getting right in my face as I started pouring down sweat from carrying my bags. I merely said ‘Excuse me, Please’ before leading with the heavy bag to clear my path. I felt like I was outside a turista bar on Revolucion in Tijuana, except the Pinoys spoke better English and it was hotter than HELL.

I finally made it down to the arrivals area and stood around looking for my ‘date’. Luckily she approached ME, as I doubt I could have picked her out of the crowd that reminded me of the refugee camp in Scarface behind a big fence. ‘Z’ was a LOT better looking than I thought from her picture, about 5’1”, 95 lbs., wearing a blouse and tight slacks that showed she had quite a nice little ass. I immediately thought that her being that attractive might complicate things, but despite some extremely BOLD conversations on chat that verged on cybersex, I had promised her that I would keep my hands off, as she was a ‘good girl’ – admittedly a virgin.

Z suggested that we leave the airport area to get a taxi to save some scratch, so after exhanging some gifts (she gave me a pretty cool hits compilation CD, she got a $1.29 chocolate Easter Bunny from me), I lugged my bags all the way through the arrivals parking lot and out onto a main road that I think led to the domestic terminal. Oh, she also gave me some gag gift of some stretched out condom, as she vaguely knew of my plans to lay as many Pinays as possible in ‘Boracay’.

For all the walking we did, I doubt I saved a single peso, as the taxi we got outside the airport also wanted 300 pesos to head to Makati due to ‘Friday traffic’. Driving through Manila confirmed yet again what a complete SHITHOLE the city is – the whole place is simply filthy, rotting and there is TRASH everywhere. But after 45 minutes in traffic, we reached Makati, and things there instantly looked modern and way more upscale. Z pointed out the Oakwood complex where the aborted ‘coup’ had been the past July, and we ended up at the Glorietta Mall where the plan was to have lunch.

Glorietta is a nice mall, though no nicer than the malls in San Fernando near Angeles, but compared to MBK in Bangkok, was nothing special. It was PACKED with people, though, on a Friday afternoon, and as it was lunchtime, most of the eateries were filled, which bummed me out a bit because all I wanted to do was throw my bags down, stretch out in some A/C comfort in a quiet place and get to know my new friend a little better – she had seemed pretty shy in the car, and I had pretty much dominated all conversation, which for those that know me, know is not my nature unless I’m drunk or with someone I know pretty well.

So, lugging my bags through a throng of people, I ask Z to pick a place for lunch, and fuck if she didn’t want to eat at MCDONALD’S! What the fuck? I had given her specific instructions that I didn’t know ANYTHING about Manila and that I needed her to pick a place we could hang out that afternoon, and she came up with MickeyD’s? Big red warning flag #1.

We actually sat down in a packed McDonald’s and I told her I’d go get the food if she’d just stay with my bags, when she told me she wasn’t really hungry and only wanted a cheeseburger! AAAARGH!!! At that exact moment I was wondering if I could just blow off my afternoon flight that a guy from the AC2 board had held specifically for me with no deposit and just jump in a taxi for Angeles at that point, but I just decided to take the initiative and say, NO, I want to go someplace more QUIET and less crowded so we could talk.

So after doing a lap or two (or 20, as it seemed to me…) around the food court level in the mall, she decides on another place: A rather crowded PI version of IHOP! I almost shit a brick again, but I was fucking tired of carrying my bags, and knew that at least in the states IHOP had a pretty extensive menu, and I was getting hungry. So we found a place in the corner and ordered and proceeded to just talk about droll crap for the 45 minutes it took us to have lunch.

While Z was extremely sweet, and held my attention with her looks despite all the other FINE-ass Pinays walking around that mall all dressed up in business attire or strolling around with their teenie-looking boyfriends, she was almost painfully shy (she said it was the first time she had EVER been out socially with a ‘kano’ before), and it was like pulling teeth to get her to even answer open-ended questions. While we had spent several hours getting to know each other online, we seemed to have very little to talk about, and honestly I was pretty bored.

After lunch, I asked what we should do next, and she suggested a MOVIE, and I almost screamed out loud again. I like movies as much as the next guy, but when all she had done was complain that I would only be in town for a few hours to meet her, sitting in the dark and being quiet was NOT my idea of a way to get to know somebody, and AGAIN, I wanted to bail. But as I couldn’t think of an excuse, and I had 4 full hours to kill before my 6 PM flight was leaving for Angeles, I said what the hell, maybe it’ll be a good movie and I won’t be bored anymore.

In brilliant PI efficient fashion, you couldn’t buy movie tickets on the same level as the screening rooms, so I waited with my bags while she went to go get tickets. As she came back, I snapped a pic and we prepared to go inside the film that was about to start, and I was told by some BITCH taking tickets that I couldn’t bring my camera inside the movie! I took it out and showed her it was a STILL camera, but she said ‘no cameras, sir’, and said I could leave it with the ticket sellers downstairs. BRILLIANT idea. No thanks, give me my 70 fucking pesos back per ticket, please.

FINALLY we ended up at Tony Roma’s (where somehow she didn’t want to eat before because it was too expensive… at least she was no gold-digger) and drank iced tea for two hours and played CD’s for each other and talked about music. Mercifully 3:30 rolled around and I decided that it was time to go to the Domestic Terminal because I still had to purchase my ticket before the flight supposedly started checking in at 5 PM.

Traffic was much lighter on the way back to the airport, and we made good time. There was an awesome little restaurant/bar next to the domestic terminal with HOT waitresses that I’m SURE would be amenable to at least drinking with customers. Z agreed to accompany me to the restaurant next door to have a drink and wait for my flight, and I quickly ordered a beer and got two due to it being happy hour. She got a coke and looked generally depressed for the 10 minutes we sat there in virtual silence before excusing herself and saying that she had to get home as she hadn’t told her family she wasn’t working that day. VERY disappointed that our day together had been so DULL, but HAPPY that she was leaving me to stare at the hot waitresses and get ramped up for the trip to AC, I gave her a hug goodbye, and it was about as warm as hugging your aunt or something. Bye Bye, Z.

Of course 5 minutes later the texts started: She was in AGONY because she was in LOVE WITH ME and was too shy to even talk to me! WHAT THE FUCK??? She apologized for being so quiet like 75 times, and I finally called her and told her to just calm down and write me an email if she had so much to say.

I will honestly say that if things had gone well with this girl I would have stayed at least a few days in Manila to spend time with her and passed up some debauchery in Manila, as she is truly a sweet, sweet girl and we have had a BLAST chatting and emailing before, and she ended up being a LOT more attractive than I had expected. But our ‘date’ that afternoon had been HORRIBLE – easily the worst I had ever been on, and for her to start gushing emotions like that when I could not possibly have felt differently just blew me away.

Anyway… After I shut down the text monster (temporarily… the hail of bullets would turn into MUSHROOM CLOUDS a few days later), it was time to head for Angeles, and I walked the 50 yards back to the domestic terminal to check in, which went very smoothly – no extra charge for overweight luggage, a welcome change from my last trip with SEAir the previous July.. The price of the ticket was 815 pesos (up from 500 last summer), but there was also a 100 peso airport tax. I was assured by the SEAir rep on AC2, though, that there would be a free shuttle to my hotel waiting at Clark, so the whole deal was a good one, as for 915 pesos, I got taken from door to door, and the whole ordeal beat the hell out of sitting in traffic in a taxi that cost nearly twice as much.

Of course, the flight to Clark was on PI time, and we didn’t even start boarding for our 6 PM flight until 6:15, and took off at 6:30. Friggin’ ex-HAUSTED from not having slept for the last day and a half, I slept the whole way to Clark, and was amazed at how deserted an ‘International’ airport was at 7 PM in the evening. Besides the passengers there were maybe 4 people in a completely empty airport.

Somehow it took 10 minutes to get the 15 bags from the plane to the terminal, and it was funny watching them compare claim slips as they handed us our bags. The shuttle van was indeed waiting, and me, some German dude and two obvious bargirls jumped in and whizzed down Perimeter Road to drop off the German guy at America Hotel (that the dri-ber drove by, somehow, without even seeing). Then we hit traffic on Fields, though, and it took 15 minutes to get to Kokomoz, where I had the all-time easiest hotel check in possible: I saw Daddy Pete the night manager, he said ‘Hi, Porker, you’re staying here tonight?’, I told him my room number and a second later I had the key.

I arrived in my room at ~ 8 PM to find the A/C BLASTING and I got INSTANTLY happy knowing that my loooooooong journey (5 flights...) back to paradise was over and it was time for VACATION to begin. I did the 3 Sh’s, unpacked a little, checked email quickly and got ready to go see what the rides at Disneyland looked like this time around.