If you recall, I landed in the Philippines August 21. Evidently, so did three typhoons. Simultaneously.
So my first weekend here, I decided to give my new boots and raincoat (the best gift ever from my mom. Well, aside from, you know, life) a good workout and explore the neighborhood
Come with me as I take a walk around the block
The Jeepneys are like the public transportation system. It says on the side of where they run, like Baguio Plaza – Lokan v.v. The v.v. means ‘vice versa’ or ‘round trip’If you’ve been paying attention, there’s no traffic lights. This is in front of a school to let kids cross the street.This is in front of someone’s houseFor such a respectful people, I wondered why they needed constant reminders to not spit on their moms. Turns out ‘momma’ is a leaf similar to tobacco but leaves red stains everywhereGotta remember to come back to this restaurant The foliage here is beautiful! This is like their National Weather Service. I wanted to pop in here and ask them to turn off the spigot The PAGASA is heavily guarded. I guess a lot of people want them to turn off the spigotThey’ve taken COVID very seriously and just recently dropped mask mandates Across the street from the weather center, and o on the way to Triage, is the Baguio Convention Center Tree ParkThe Triage is in the parking lot of the Convention Center but I don’t think it’s active anymore. Back of the Convention CenterFront of the Convention Center
From the Convention Center, I turned to corner and found myself in a neighborhood
A neighborhood at the top of a very steep hill/mountain.
For someone who organizes their apps by color, I appreciate the aesthetic
Old knees: You’re kidding right?
New knees: Let’s do this!
Instacart is very dedicated here
The road came out right next to my office!
So I headed home
I’m still kind of afraid to cross the street in the rouge traffic, so the doorman came out and crossed me 😂
So I’ve spent five weeks in Baguio and I needed some sunshine. There’s two ways off the mountain – back down that scary road or take a plane. There’s only one flight out of Baguio and that’s to the province of Cebu so that’s where I headed.
The Baguio Airport is the cutest airport I’ve ever seen
That being said, it’s the tiniest airport I’ve ever seen. I got there early because I wasn’t sure what to expect. Well I got through security, and checked my bag in about a minute. Didn’t have to empty my water bottle, take out my laptop or even take off my shoes (they made a face when I asked like ‘ew’ which, same). Then they told me ‘You’re at Gate 1’ – as if there was any other gate!
More people did eventually show up, including a couple of nuns, so I’ll be perfectly safe
They were checking their Facebook on their smart phones while we waited for the plane – nuns – they’re just like us!
Eventually, my ride arrived
View from the runway Everyone’s just standing around the plane taking pictures – the TSAs head would explode
The flight was an hour and they served us packets of peas and mango. It was actually pretty tasty
Not peas and carrots like I originally feared
The Cebu airport is actually in the city of Lapu-Lapu on Mactan Island . Since I still have no idea what’s going on, I confined my lodging searches to that area and decided on the Costabella Hotel mostly because it was close and cheap.
For once, my ill-informed choices didn’t not bite me in the butt. The property is beautiful! I’ll shut up here and let the pictures do the talking:
I dressed to match my drink. As one should
This drink is called ‘Heaven and Hell’. They serve it to you on fire
One of the activities here is called ‘Island Hopping’. As always, I have no idea what I’m in for, but I’m in! (To be fair, it’s on me for just not understanding. They alway try to explain but I can tell when I’m just not getting it when their ‘ma’am’s’ become ‘ma’am 🙄s’)
To begin with, I get a boat and a crew. We load up in a rowboat and head out to the ‘cruising boat’
The cruising boat:
We transfer from the rowboat and head out
Our first stop is Caohagan Island. We anchor a bit off the beach and have to wade through the low tide to get there.
The island’s sole industry is tourism holy cow these guys! Shouts of ‘ma’am, ma’am, I give you discount’ ring out as soon as I step foot on the beach.
Our first task is choosing our lunch
I chose shrimp, prawns, and crab (and regret passing up the scallops). While they prepared our seafood, my captain, Raji, gave me a tour of the island. The main theme is colors and chickens and dogs. Dogs wandering around everywhere but they aren’t aggressive at all and don’t even come up to sniff you.
This is a preschool. The kids were adorable
A basketball court
And the local Catholic Church
This path leads to the elementary school
The school hosts children from several islands – they have to come by boat every day! The high school is on a different island
Raji: Do you need to use the turlet?
Me: What?
Raji: The comfort room
Me: What?
Raji: *sigh* gestures –
‘What’s with all the chickens?’ I ask. ‘Cocks!’ Raji says, ‘Cock fighting!’
Oh.
Papayas and Little Jerry – Seinfeld in one picture
I have to say, this was my absolute favorite part of the day
After the tour, we collected our seafood, grabbed some beers and headed to the next destination
Yeah it’s basically just bamboo
I think this is the Below Deck yacht of the Cebu Straight
And this one is the Captain Sandy yacht with all the toys out
More fancy pants boats
Our next destination – snorkeling!
I didn’t take any underwater pictures but it was amazing! Zebra fish, and bright blue fish and real life rainbow fish. Kind of like this:
After swimming it was lunch time. Remember the shrimp, the crab, and the prawn? (The lesser-known of the Narnia chronicles)
Our last stop was swimming with sardines. Again I didn’t take any pictures but at one point I was in a sardine tornado.
Then it was time to head back to the hotel
Back in the kayak, so he can drag my ass to the beach
While this is an adventure, I’m actually here to work. I need to on board our new associates. So after getting settled, I was ready to dig in!
I got into Baguio Tuesday afternoon, and they weren’t expecting me in the office until Wednesday. But after taking a nap, I was ready to find out what this was all about and decided to just pop into the office and see what’s up.
I guess I should mention that I, and the team I’ll be training, will be working North American hours. Baguio is 12 hours ahead so I will be working 9:00 PM – 6:00 AM. Which is why I was ready to head to work after getting in at 3:30 in the afternoon. I should also mention MRI isn’t actually licensed in the Philippines yet, so we’re contracting with a company called ThoughtFocus to get us up and running.
There’s two ThoughtFocus offices in Baguio and on my first day, I showed up at the wrong one. Of course. Here’s the story:
Like I said they weren’t expecting me, but I just thought I’d pop in for an hour or two then go crash at the hotel. I went down to the lobby and who do I see but my driver from earlier, just hanging out. At first I thought he was just available for the hotel guest, but it turns out he was waiting for me. He asked me if I was busy and I told him I was going to work, but he wanted to introduce me to his daughter who was also just hanging out in the lobby with her son. He tells me she runs a Virtual Assistance company and wants to work for me!
I’m like, ‘I have no control over that, we’re working with ThoughtFocus’ so he offers to drive me over there anyway. Creepy, no? (told you he did not have a happy ending).
Of course, it’s the wrong office. And they were not expecting me at either office until tomorrow so at this point they just assume I’m a moron and not only call a cab but put someone else in the cab with me to make sure I get to where I need to be.
Nice first impression, no?
ANYWAY —-
The office I’ll be working from is actually just down the street from my hotel. It’s about a three minute walk once I knew where I was going
This is the building I’ll be working (and eventually be reporting) from
The floor looks surprising similar
Solon? Is that you?
And just like everything else here, it’s the same, but different
Someone messed up and gave me the corner suite. I ain’t gonna complain
Don’t you dare ever confuse me with an Executive
But the view’s not so bad either
They welcomed me with lunch. And while I’m extremely appreciative and not one to judge, especially since I’m the outsider, I’m not sure I’m down for chicken gizzards at 2:00 am
We’ll work up to it! Everyone here is so welcoming and kind, I’m already excited to be working with them!
I left on Sunday morning at 6:00 am. I landed in Manila at 10:30 Monday night. I don’t know when Sunday turned into Monday.
TBH, the entire experience was overwhelming. The NYC to Seoul was 15 hours (I think?). All I know is when you fly Korea Air, even the safety videos are in K-POP
From Seoul, I flew into Manila and got in at 10:30 Monday night. I have no concept of when Sunday became Monday. I essentially lost two days, it was very disconcerting.
Everything online said you had to fill out a health form and get a QR code three days before arriving. (They’ve been really strict in the Philippines about COVID.) I had been trying to fill it out, but had been unable to log into the website and just figured ‘well, I’ll deal with it when I get there’, but it made me anxious the entire flight. Turns out, no one cared! Waved me right through customs – I had been worried about nothing! Next, I changed my money and $300 turned into P18,000 Philippine pesos. Felt like I was living like a housewife, lol
MRI had arranged for me to spend the night in Manila before the final leg to Baguio. The next morning, my driver was picking me up at 10:00, but I thought I’d check out the local sites a little before I headed up the mountain, and start to get a flavor of the culture I’d be spending the next three months in.
I found:
McDonald’s
7 Eleven
and Starbucks
At the Starbucks, I did discover this ‘coffee jelly’. Its like little coffee jello shots at the bottom of your frap. Not a fan
The Starbucks menu looked familiar but then I decided to get weird Just because you can put a drink in jello doesn’t mean you can put jello in a drink
There were a lot of random kittens roaming around but the Passport Health place where I got my shots warned me against interacting with animals – if I got bit or scratched I’d have to go home right away. I guess they don’t have rabies treatment here? So anyway – hi kitties, don’t come near me!
Who knew doom would look so cute?
The Manila Hilton is the best Hilton I’ve ever stayed at. It had a dog park with an amazing message
We could all stand to just pause once in a while
And a pool with a swim up bar that opened at 10:00 am. I need to get back here
Every Hilton should take note. In fact, every hotel should just have a swim up bar that opens at 10:00 am
But alas my driver also showed up at 10:00 am so I didn’t have time to check it out.
Leaving Manila looked at lot like when you leave Manhattan and head to JFK. In fact, I wondered if those lost two days had just been a fever dream spent in Terminal 5
But then we got out of the city and headed north. We could have been driving through Ohio and Indiana for all the farms we passed. The same except different
Rice paddiesMangoes and bananasSugar cane. They have to burn the fields before they harvest them to drive out the snakesRandom cows along the way. I had my driver yelling Moo! at them. He had no idea whyHalfway around the world and there’s still the equivalent of orange barrels screwing up traffic My first glimpse of what is eventually going to be my home for the next three months
We drive along the highway for about 2 1/2 hours, then exited at a rest stop. I paid 20 pesos to pee
20 pesos also got me a roll of toilet paper that I had to return when I exited the stall
Let me just pause here to comment on the bidet situation. For 20 pesos I got toilet paper AND a bidet. The airports had bidets. The plane had bidets. America, you need to step up your bidet game
Definitely not the worst rest stop I’ve been to
After we left the highway we headed up the mountain. Three hours and sometimes it got a little scary. I’m never going to complain about the drive through PA again.
Along the way, there were shops and stands beside the road, carved into and sometimes just hanging off the side of the mountain
We’re definitely in the clouds at this point Then it starts raining. Little did I know this would be my life Now we’re above buildings
We passed a bunch of furniture stands along the way. I asked my driver about it and he said it’s from them cutting down the mahogany trees to expand the roads. The locals use the wood to make beautiful furniture. It’s super cheap to purchase here but expensive to ship home
Oh by the way, here’s my driver that got me to Baguio safe and sound
Don’t fall in love with him – it doesn’t end well
By 3:30, we arrived. The LeFern Hotel – home sweet home for the next two weeks (before I transfer to my final landing place)
I got here August 21, 2023 and I’ll be here until November 1, 2023. My company, MRI Software, is expanding its footprint into the Asian/Pacific (APAC) region, and for some unknown reason, they though it would be a good idea to include me in on the project.
I’ve been sharing my experience with friends and family via text, but the wifi connections get dicey sometimes, and I’ve found myself copying and pasting the same message in several chats, so I thought this could be a good place to just share my experience for anyone who’s interested (even if it just my one-eyed cat Louie).
Mickie Goes 