The Road to 40 Day 160/365: Trip to Manila

Vino and I had a slow start to the day, with not much planned. I learned that Che was going to have dinner, so I set something up for us to do.

We had a bit of a late breakfast and proceeded to just hang out in the room. I asked my mom if she went to the office, so that I could maybe get Vino to visit and have some good Chinese food around the area.

However, he was already hungry, so we had lunch first before heading to Manila.

My mom has worked in the same company for the past 50 years. They started off as a tenant in a building in Binondo, but a little while back, their company bought the whole building.

To say that the building has a rich history would be an understatement. Growing up, we would visit her office from time to time, so I’m a bit familiar with what it looks like, and while there have been a lot of changes, most of it looks pretty much the same.

I won’t have a chance to visit my mom this trip, so we took this chance to see her. It was Vino’s first time to go to her office, so I asked my mom to tour him around. Along the way, I was met with a lot of familiar faces that my mom has worked with over the years.

Some of them insisted that I looked like my dad, which I actually never really heard of. My mom insisted that I didn’t like it, but honestly, it’s just not something that was ever said about me. My brother and my sister took after my dad a lot, even their pictures when we were kids looked like my dad when he was younger.

Anyway, Vino got around the place, I showed him where I worked for a couple months as a summer job back in high school. Some of the guys who were there were still there. One of my mom’s colleagues insisted we go visit his room so he could give Vino a little something. He let him choose a fan, gave him a tumbler, and gave us a bunch of chocolates.

After our tour, we booked a ride to go to Chiro’s house. We were going to have dinner with them at a Korean restaurant. Elle booked a table for us at 7pm at a Korean BBQ place near Mitsukoshi. It was a bit of an adventure looking for the place, but unfortunately, we reached it at 7:30pm, and they had to give up our table already.

We decided to change our plans, but we insisted that we should still get K-BBQ because it was already set in our minds. After checking one out at Mistukoshi, we decided it would be better to try the one at Uptown Mall.

Luckily, we were still able to get a table to satisfy our samgyup cravings.

Like every all-you-can-eat buffet, we enjoyed the first part of eating before the realization of “I think we ate too much” suddenly kicks in.

We had a coffee and tea afterparty at the hotel, as it was our last night in the Philippines. Tia even remarked that it was probably the first time she saw us all get together without alcohol.

Contrary to popular belief, I can also be a coffee and tea guy. I don’t run on alcohol. I love to drink when I am with good people because it’s always fun to laugh when everyone’s inhibitions are dropped. However, I also enjoy meaningful sober talks.

Che fell asleep already, while Vino just decided to snuggle up with her and eventually fell asleep. The guys decided to leave when it was almost 1am.

It was a good way to cap off our short PH trip, as we prepare to head back home to SG tomorrow.