The Road to 40 Day 223/365: Hotel Hop and Mall Tour Thursday

We had a couple of trips planned for this day, and it’s Vino and me for most of it.

We stayed at Conrad using some perks that Che has accumulated over the year. She has needed to stay in hotels for days when on assignment, and while those are company expenses, the points can be claimed by the person on assignment.

This point accumulation has also extended to our own expenses. We learned this from a friend from way back, who had several credit cards to her name. When we asked her about it, she said it’s for different expenses. Apparently, each card accumulated more points depending on the usage.

For example, if a regular spend on dining out would accumulate 0.5 points, a certain card would gain around 2 points. Meanwhile, the same card would earn 0.5 points for grocery spends, but a different card would give 2.

From that, Che also got a couple of cards that would earn points that we could use for travel and such.

Since we arrived late on Wednesday night, we decided to book a one-night stay in Conrad so that it’s not too far from the airport.

Che had to go to work today, so she left after her first meeting. Mister wake-up-early Vino enjoyed staying on the bed, so he got up around 10am already. We got our things ready because we were set to check out from here today to move to a different hotel.

We had our bags kept in the concierge as we walked to Mall of Asia for lunch and maybe a couple of errands.

The first thing that we saw was the gaming zone of MOA, which had table tennis. He asked if we could play. At first, I didn’t really want to because he might get too tired. But for 200 pesos for 30 minutes, I thought it was good value for entertainment.

There were a couple of kids who were playing, but the guards asked them to stop. They brought their own equipment and everything. They were playing well, actually, and I thought I’d offer to let them play after we left.

I could theoretically get them the other table, but it would take a bit of time, and Vino and I only had 30 minutes. Their mom, I assume, eventually spoke to ask me if Vino played regularly. I said it’s only for leisure. She then said that the kids played on the national level, which I actually believe.

She said she thought it was free to play there, which I’m not really sure if it’s true. I feel like they stay there and wait for people to play with. If she had waited a bit or even if she actually asked straightforwardly, I would have rented the table for her kids because they actually looked good. Whether they play nationally or not, I would be happy to see them play. But they stood and left without a word.

30 minutes was enough for Vino, and we went to find food. We found Nathan’s, a hotdog place, as per his request.

We then went to look for gifts. Our friend group decided we’d have small gifts for everyone, with each one assigned a color. I made an online roulette for our colors and ended up with green while Che got purple. The theme was “something useful” and nothing else, because it was kinda a last-minute decision last weekend.

I initially wanted to go to the hypermarket, but I saw ACE Hardware right across Nathan’s, so we went there. Vino had fun trying to find things under 100 that had green or purple. Not sure if our friends would take it, though.

After we got about seven things each for our color (we needed eight), we went back to the hotel to get our bags. We booked a ride to go to Admiral Hotel, which was another perk that we redeemed or else it would expire by the end of the year.

It looked a bit dated, but the design was pretty impressive and had very Filipino designs. The lobby had a nice painting in the roof that depicted some Filipino traits and traditions, and also had some floating Alibata – the ancient Filipino alphabet.

It took a while to get a room for us, but it was apparently the suite. It was quite big, and Vino was so happy that we had a bath tub. Upon checking in, we were told that there was some happy hour thing at 5-7pm at the lounge that we had access to.

I’m always down for free stuff, so I got Vino to come down with me to enjoy the canapes and drinks.

Before we left, Vino noticed that we had an amazing view of the sunset.

The Manila Bay sunset was legendary. Back in the day, people flocked to the bayside to watch the romantic sunset. I guess it was so good that people with money decided to monetize it until the area was too commercialized to enjoy.

Still, at certain angles like this, it’s amazing.

In the lounge, I had a couple of shots of Don Papa while Vino got apple juice. There were some sushi rolls, bread, cake, and some sandwiches. I’m happy that he’s at an age where he can actually enjoy the lounge for what it is, unlike when he was younger, when I still had to run after him as he explored the place.

He’s eating sushi rolls now, which is definitely something new. He had some cake and asked for bread as well.

We went back to the room to rest a bit before heading out to Kaloi and Elle. Sadly, Kaloi’s dad would not be able to celebrate Christmas with everyone as he succumbed after a long battle with the big C. He fought bravely against it and undegone treatment, but it was too big of a battle to overcome.

Kaloi and Elle carried a lot of the burden during his treatment, so they understandably are hit very hard by his passing.

Traffic was terrible, as expected, but we had to make time to see them and offer our condolences. We stayed for a bit, but Che needed to rest a bit, so we headed back to our hotel.

We re-arranged our bags a bit so I can bring home some to our house tomorrow when I get the car, and so that we don’t have too many luggages around.

That’s a wrap for our first full day back in the Philippines! Expecting (but not hoping) for massive traffic jams in the coming days.