The Washington Experiment Part II

One important lesson I’ve learned: when travelling to America, make sure you have a major credit card available.  This country runs on credit, I think.  I had a lot of fun today.  I went shopping for a phone.  There’s a mall only walking distance from the hotel.  So far the weather has been a brisk cold, more like baguio than Alaska.  (although I imagine Alaska would be a lot colder than the worst winter in this town)

My day started when the Hotel front desk told me that the card my company used to book my hotel was denied.  It was bad enough but it got worse when he told me he needed a payment by 11 AM (11 PM Manila time) from me.  I don’t know where the fuck he expected me to pull $9199 dollars but I kept my cool.  After all, I was only going to get thrown out of the street in 2 hours if my company didn’t pull through with the payment.  So there I was, about to be thrown out in the street because my hotel wasn’t paid for.  Lucky for me, my boss and my team were in a call so I was able to raise the problem and they were able to resolve the issue.  By the time it got resolved, it was already 10.30.

The phone shopping was in itself uneventful although I did learn that it’s cheaper to buy phones with plans in this country that prepaid phones.  And the prepaid phones they do sell are PH-ugly.  I tried looking around the mall for some appropriate winter clothing for the office but I found 300 dollar coats.  (I think they fleeced that off the Abominable Snowman, a coat should not be more expensive than your phone for God’s sake!!!)  After I got my phone, I went to Book Heaven.  (Heaven thy name is Barnes and Noble)  It was not as impressive as the 5 floor Fully Booked store in Bonifacio High Street but it had all the books I’ve been looking for.  Including reprints of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker series.

At any rate, at some point in the very late afternoon, I decided to get some groceries to stock my fridge and try my hand at cooking.  But since I had no idea how to cook at this point, I also bought some TV dinners for the microwave.  My trip to the grocery was already an adventure in itself.  I missed my stop by about 6 bus stops.  The equivalent of Mandurriao to the Carlos at diversion road, or in the case of Makati the equivalent of a walk from Glorietta to People Support in Buendia.  Lucky for me I found another grocery that was near where I got off the bus.  Shaking off my embarrasment, I bought some groceries and I realized that the bus stop going back was too far away.  What’s worse, I missed the last bus that was supposed to drop by my hotel.  The bus hotline operator  I could catch two buses but I was worried I would miss the stops again.  I decided to call a cab.  After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, I eventually got into a taxi and got home.  Lucky for me, the driver was a very nice man and he didn’t try to scam me.

At any rate, I had some TV dinner for supper and now I will break out the iron to press my clothes.  Hopefully, I don’t burn anything.

Tune in for the more adventures of Tourist Man: The Washington Experiment.