Philippines

Work took me to Philippines from 13th to 18th November 2005. It was a very surreal trip, partly because it was quite last-minute as the person originally meant to go couldn't for reasons I shall not go into here. Anyways, two days before leaving was spent getting vaccinations, booking flights, hotels, etc. I usually like to get these sorted several months before a trip, so having to do it so last-minute made me slightly jumpy.

Manila and Batangas City, where I spent my five/six days there reminded me a lot of Malaysia - which I found rather strange. Manila was so like KL with its buildings, traffic, chaos.... Batangas City was like my parents' hometown albeit bigger (Batangas City). Places, people, traffic, food all seemed so familiar yet I couldn't understand the language! I kept expecting them to speak languages that I know!

I didn't get to see much of Philippines as we were trying to complete 8 days of testing into 5 days (and were successful - yay!). The plus side of it was being able to spend the weekend in Hong Kong before flying back to UK. All in all, it was a great trip and I wouldn't mind making another trip there for leisure purposes. Hospitality there was second to none. Follow this link for some pics: http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2117071428

Took the night flight back to London, arriving at about 5am. Had a massage and coffee in the lounge before heading into work. I was surprised that I wasn't as knackered as I thought I would be, considering I was actually awake from 3am. Managed to get through the whole working day feeling fairly awake. I'm sure the two cups of coffee in the morning helped, though!