The Road to 40 Day 224/365: Braving Manila Traffic and Mares Meet

It’s our second full day in the Philippines and the traffic, I feel like, is only going to get worse.

We have been survived by Grab or Uber for most of our travels, but during this holiday season, it’s almost impossible to get around the metro without a car. I told Che it would be best to take the car from the house while she works.

But first, breakfast. Whenever we’re in hotels and a breakfast buffet is included in our booking, I always try to maximize it. I know I should be on a diet of some sort, but how can I say no to free food when I’m already awake?

Vino and I went for breakfast, and we got a box of pastries to bring back to Che in the room. She’s not a breakfast person, but I feel like she does have to eat, so she usually has a couple of pastries.

When we got to the room, Che was on her way out as the cleaners were gong to fix up the room. We went down to the lounge to hang out. On our way there, we saw that they were selling puto bumbong and bibingka.

As we got her coffee, we saw that they were also selling batirol – a local chocolate drink.

Che enjoyed the puto bumbong, and the bibingka was really fluffy. I would have wanted to eat more, but I was really full from the heavy breakfast.

After we went back to the room, I got ready to go down and head over to Cainta. My Grab booking came up to Php1,200, which I feel was expensive, but considering everything, should be pretty acceptable.

I planned on sleeping on the way, but my driver was chatty from the get-go, so as an extrovert, I felt obligated to respond. We talked all the way home, mostly about frustrations on the PH government.

The drive took about two and a half hours, so I caught up with my sister a little bit. She got a new virtual job, which was ideal for her current setup at home, and I was happy to hear that she’s doing fairly well with the job – except for some admin things.

She’ll get the hang of it, at least the most difficult parts of the job are relatively easy for her.

I left before 3pm, hoping to get back to the hotel by 5pm so that I’d still have time to relax before our dinner. The drive, including a stop to gas up, took about two and a half hours.

The plan was to have dinner in Makati, but there was apparently a parade going on, so we pivoted to Shangri-La Plaza in Mandaluyong. Surprisingly, it “only” took us an hour to reach. Considering we came from Manila and it was a Friday night, I took it as a win.

We met up with Shara and decided to eat at a Spanish restaurant while waiting for EJ.

The food was generally good at Sala Martinez, we were just wondering why everything had to be green – most of their dishes we ordered were drizzled with salsa verde or garnished with a lot of greens. The pork ears, though appetizing to see in the menu, was a bit too oily and salty.

After the restaurant closed, we decided to go for a second round. I suggested Brotzeit, a German beer place, but apparently, their branch was already closed.

Refinery was open until 12:45am though, so we decided to go with that. There, we saw their college batchmate, Charlotte, who was with her officemates doing a second round of their own.

We continued to catch up about things going on with our lives, and we managed to sit through the last call of the restaurant. As we were talking, Kim arrived to pick up EJ. He also wanted to catch up, but he had a office christmas party on the same night.

Still, he drove all the way to see us all, which we really appreciated.

We said our goodbyes and dropped Shara off to her place before heading back. Leaving late was ideal, we thought, as we could avoid the traffic jams in the metro.

It took us about 40 minutes to get back to the hotel, but Vino was knocked out already. I carried him back to the room where we crashed soon after for our last night at this hotel.