Bitter Sweet AWOL Part 1

Just to lessen the pending entries and tasks that I’m supposed to do, I will have to get this off my excitement.

Yes, excitement. Isn’t it obvious? The title says it all. What I just experienced during my stay in Manila can really be described as something ‘bittersweet’.

Let’s start!

Immediately upon reaching Makati which was I think around 11pm already, my brother and I went straight to my dad’s place, left our luggage there and rode a taxi to the old Makati Hospital where he is confined.

Note: I DON’T LIKE HOSPITALS. NEVER. I JUST CAN’T STAND IT, especially public hospitals. First off, only one visitor/companion is allowed per patient. There was not a chair beside my father’s bed, so if you’re assigned to stay and watch him, you’re to make do with it by either standing the whole night, or sitting on the tiled floor.

Before my uncle left, he asked me if I know how to take care of a patient and I quickly responded, “I never had any interest for a nursing course, so no… I know nothing about it except if it was a baby I’m supposed to take care of.” Well, in this case, it’s a baby mutated to 50 or 60 years old. Don’t get me wrong. I love my father. It’s just that, if you were in my shoes and you’ve only had little time living with your father (more like only during your toddler years), you’ll also feel awkward thinking about having to change his diapers or his clothes, feed him and all that. I still did it anyway, but I of course had to ask my brother to do the changing diapers stuff.

For three nights (because I’m an owl by nature) till lunch time, we engaged ourselves on an instant care giving practicum. The hospital aura almost drove me nuts but, thank God, the doctor during his rounds two days before we’re about to leave for Bicol again, told me my father will be released that day. With that news, I instantly decided to ask a friend to tour me around manila before I go totally insane.

My first day tour were around the parks within Makati, then a walk through Glorietta, Greenbelt, SM, Landmark, and a stop at a Starbucks spot near Makati Shangri-La (hope I got that right…) where I went online and left my number on twits and comments so the bloggers could text me where to meet them the next day for the Blogger’s Kapihan activity. From there, my ever so great tour guide (thanks Lester!) brought me to Megamall’s Art Center where I savored the painting exhibits there. Yeah, I’m a self proclaimed art lover but don’t let me talk about it that much, I might end up making a fool of myself.

Back home, I spent another night of care giving and woke up late the next day. Since I haven’t had any text messages regarding the activity just yet, except that one from Sarah where she said she couldn’t assist me or I think it was a point where we were unable to fix our time and appointments, my tour guide brought me to the trade center and checked out what’s there instead. Not much interested with food trades (I think), we headed off to the popular Mall of Asia.

There starts my few firsts… embarrassing firsts, to exact.

In search for a wifi connection, we ended up drooling over a bucket of beer instead. Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, when I’m in need of unwinding, I really mean it. However, we didn’t realize we only had very limited time. After a while bloggers were already messaging me directions to the after event place. So, our drinks were bound to go to waste… or so you I thought. Anyways, my first embarrassing moment happened when I was serving ice in my glass and I accidentally tripped the bottle of San Miguel Light. It smashed and broke to pieces on the floor. Lucky it didn’t jump off the slits from the terrace or I’m pretty sure it would hit someone from downstairs. *LOL*… I kept my cool. The charge for the broken bottle was expensive, believe me.

Finally, we decided to move it-move it and thought the MRT would be the fastest way to get to North Edsa. (I’m so poor at directions so spare me if I’m making a mess with this one…) The line for the ticket booth or card, or whatever, was so long but we still stayed since we thought we had no other option since we were already in a hurry. Part 2 of the embarrassing moment was when after we got hold of the cards we were held up by the watch guard because he smelled beer from my companion. All in all we got a refund and were not allowed to take the train. At this point we were laughing our heads off.

What to do? What to do? We took the cab. Yes, from *where was that?* to TriNoma. It was quite expensive, yet again, but worth it.

There I met the faces behind the blogs that I usually visit, follow on twit, and chat through conferences. And hell, it was just too good to be true. Too great, that I’ll be writing about it on the next post. LOL!

sorry to keep you hanging for now... will update soon!