Day 1: Arrived in Manila

Reminder: Make sure you’ve read the Prologue before you proceed! 😀

The following took place on Thursday, 16th October 2008:-

We landed at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (Clark Field) at 5.20pm. FYI, the time zone there is the same as Malaysia, so no confusion there. Hehe.

It was a 2-hour flight from KK. It was interesting to note that on the flight, 3 languages were used for announcements etc (English, Bahasa and Mandarin) and we had to fill in immigration and customs forms onboard (these were later needed at the immigration and customs counters on arrival at Clark). NOTE: You cannot bring in/out legal tender aka $$$ amounting to more than 10,000PHP or USD$10,000. Also, before landing, the inside of the plane (where all the people were) was “sprayed” – required by Philippines’ side, maybe as a way to prevent the “importation” of airborne diseases, who knows…But other than that, it was an uneventful flight. 😉

The full cast: Mie, Ted, Say, Me, Chel, Fab.

The timezone there may be the same as Malaysia but it gets dark earlier. We were waiting for our airport van to send us to Malate, which is 2 to 3 hours’ drive from Clark. That cost us 3500PHP (RM270) for the trip.

Anyways, whilst waiting, it was kinda hard to NOT notice that the locals there think WE are locals. One even confidently said that Ted has been there (Philippines) SIX times when we were all first-timers. LOL! Their fave quote: “You look like Pinoy.”  We got a lot of that throughout our few days in the Philippines! 😉

Finally, when we reached Malate, it was too late to do much so we just checked into Malate Pensionne, bathed and went to the nearest restaurant we could find (Joward’s Seafood Restaurant) for supper and then called it a night. (With the exception of Fab and Michele who went to try out the “Nightlife Entertainment” there.)

For your eyes only, here was the balance of my Pesos at the end of Day 1:

That is 10,251 pesos.

Do the math and you’ll know I brought more than the allowed legal tender of 10,000PHP. I didn’t know there was such “limit”. Fortunately, Fab had less so I just passed some to him so we were both “legal”. 😉

~To be continued~

Next: Day 2 (Exploring Manila)