body weird things

well I'm in Manila and its truly a city that never sleeps. I know this because I could not sleep and was out on the town until 9 a.m. and there was no difference in the amount of people in the day and in the night. This includes toddlers that are just wondering around trying to score some mulah.

before I left I was having diharea and i had it throughout 3 flights and 4 airports but I think it has finally subsided. this makes me happy, my body is feeling wacky from the jet-lag though it is a complete 12 hour difference and last night i felt more awake than I thought was possible. The following is a brief snippit of my route here:

Harrisonburg: Cinco de Mayo until about 2:30 at night, get home, finish packing. Sleep for 30-45 minutes, wake up and leave Harrisonburg.

No sleep in the car due to excitement, arrive at Dulles around 6 a.m., flew out at 8 and I was asleep before the plane took off. Clearly you can see I am not afraid of flying becuase I slept through take-off.

Get to JFK and fart around for about 5 hours until we board and fly to Hong Kong.

The plane to Hong Kong was sweet and we had unlimited movies, food, video games, pretty much whatever you want. I watched the kite-runner and I thought it was good, but the book is 1092487 times better.

I slept for the first 2 hours, woke up and had lunch, then slept after dinner for a good 7 hours until we landed. Total flight time: 15 hours

Hong Kong looked beautiful, and the airport was ridiculous, ridiculously nice, and ridiculously huge. our terminal had over 80 gates. there are more than one terminal.

Manila's airport was built in the 60's and looks like something out of an old movie. It has a pretty cool feel to it though. The 1.5 hour flight is now a joke compared to the Hong Kong flight

Get out into the air and Manila is HOT, and HUMID. It was midnight and I started sweating immediately. Nice drive over to the hotel and get our rooms, the place is chill. Not temp wise mind you. We are sleeping with A/C for the first two nights until we can sleep at nighttime, then we are no A/C for the rest of the trip.

Manila essentially has no rules regarding time, we went out for beers at 3 a.m. and were out until 9 a.m. about 3 hours after sunrise. 5 hours of sleep later, and some good food and here I sit.

Interesting differences:
All bars are open air, and you sit on the sidewalk
The whole city is hot humid and smelly
People try to show you around and sell you fake cigarettes to make money
This Filipino dude Fernando took us to a gay bar hahaha
We left after a drink and went to a different place so it was chill
He kept offering us sex and girls
He did not understand that I have a girlfriend and that I do not cheat on her.
This probably seemed foreign because she is foreign and so am I.

If you have read this far congratulations!

P.S. Today we can do what we want so I went to the mall: 6 stories, GIANT. Had some Shabu Shabu which means there is a table with a boiler in it, and I cook all of my own food. Pretty delicious, and fun to get used to. I had "fat beef" with yums, lobster, other seafood/fish meats, noodles, both clear and white ones, corn, carrots, and about 20 other things. Overall: solid, but expensive. My meal cost me about $5 U.S. because it was an expensive restraunt in the mall.

Last note: the planes and all the restraunts use chop-sticks.