I haven't posted here for a while, and I just came back from Manila last night. I'll try and type down events in chronological order, which is kinda hard when you're eating Sumo food at the same time.

Remember a while ago when i was on my Perth layover and all these people from my high school appeared? Like Brett at the hotel, and Natalie and Kate on the flight back to Dubai? Well, on my way to briefing for my Manila flight i started chatting to this guy and it turns out he lives in Ocean Reef too! And even more freaky, he's working the flight that David S from PCEC's going to be on! And both David and Ivan are gonna stop over for a brief visit, which should be fun. No idea what on earth i can show them though.

So yeah, went into briefing and found out that Manila is one of the most cruisy flights you can do. Ranks pretty highly with Osaka and Seoul as a good flight to do, which may explain why a lot of Philipinos have a lot of difficulty getting the flight. But from boarding onwards, there was this passenger who sought out to make our lives hell. Gold Skywards too, so we worked our arses off to keep him happy. He asked me to get him a cup full of Evian. We don't have Evian on board, I told him this, he flipped! I gave him mineral water from some british company, he threw it at me saying i served him tap water! WTF? Then asks other crew for everything in business, incl stationary, blankets, nuts, the headsets. No one wanted to look him in the eye, every time you did he'd think of something more he could scab.

The layover into Manila though was really good. The hotel was the best equiped I've been in (alas without an electric toilet, although i can live without it) and it was opposite 4 (yes 4!) shopping malls. Security was very tight though. None of our bags got checks at arrivals at the airport, but when entering the hotel, we had to pass through a metal detector, our bags scanned for weapons and sniffer digs sussed out our luggage for explosives or drugs. Same happened at the mall, but without the sniffer dogs. They were scary dogs too, German Shepards.

So yeah, went shopping with this girl from business class. Yvette I think was her name. She stuck to the shoes, and I tried some on, but I come up a size 12 on the Philipino foot, so yeah, nothing fitted at all. She got bored of me pretty quick, which was fine as I hate shoe shopping, and she left to go to the hotel. Everything was realy cheap though. It's a good thing there wasn't a shop selling software, otherwise i would have cleaned up.

So got back to the hotel, ordered room service. Had the saltiest Beek Tenderloin. So bad. It was an aussie cut as well. Watched cable, one of the few hotels our airline stay in that has it. Now, as much as I like the people from Philipines, especially those that fly with us, the TV they're subjected to is just awful. I'm pretty sure I dropped about 20 IQ points after watching MTV. (Punk'd? Who thought of that?) and they had this home shopping network on RJTV, where everything is made in Japan, dubbed in an American Accent, and marketed for a Philipino audience, such products including "bust cream", a growth hormone to help you gain a couple extra inches to play basketball or whatever, and this gel you put on your skin that makes you sweat and helps you lose 17 kilos in 2 months, 4 kilos in a week etc. Crazy shit.

Woke up to banana pancakes. Mmmmmm. Walked round Makati and found a Max Brenner cafe! The do suckaos, Chocolate fondue, anything chocolate. They have these 2 huge vats full of melted chocolate. I was in chocolate heaven! I bought about 4000 pesos worth of retail stock, and had a pork escallopes with mash for lunch, and it was very, very good, and only 1/3 the price of meals at the hotel.

So yeah, my 24 hours in Manila went by pretty quickly. The flight back was marred with drama. First a delay in take off due to the air conditioning, then one of the crew, Amber, passes out, we had to give her oxygen and all the works. She deadheaded in business for the rest of the flight, I'm left manning her door. Service stops for about 2 hours, and in the meantime these 2 philipino nurses try and suss otu what's wrong, both end up being useless. One of them even says she might be pregnant, and Amber's like, I can't be pregnant, to be pregnant you have to have sex, blah blah blah. Amber didn't eat anything since leaving Dubai, that's why she hit the floor. I sent her a letter, to see if she was alright, but I've heard nothing, so I assume so.

So yeah, a very eventful Manila layover. Next is Perth, but in the meantime, I'm getting my roster, getting paid, and greeting Dave at the airport with his mum in tow. Should be fun fun fun!