Together again for the first time: Meeting the Accenture team in Manila

When planning my three-month trip, I decided that I had to stop by the Philippines. Not for the beaches, snorkeling, or the desire to be disappointed by large, under water mammals (happy, nerds?). My main reason for wanting to stop in the Philippines was to visit the Accenture team in Manila that I had been working with for the past two years. I'd spent many late nights on the phone with these awesome developers and testers, and thought that it was about time to meet them in person.

Wilbert, who is from Manila and lives there now, but worked in Seattle with me for a couple of years, was gracious enough to pick me up from the airport and act as a tour guide around Manila. He was awesome. He drove me all over pointing out interesting spots and took me to some really good meals that varied from higher end food in the newly developed business district (BGC is awesome!), to food carts overlooking Manila Bay while live bands serenaded us to the likes of Luther Vandross and Brian Adams. I also made a request to visit Jollibee, which is pretty much the Philippines' version of McDonald's, only more spaghetti.

Black Gulaman - black jelly dessert drink.

Mango/chocolate cake. Great combo.

Fried chicken and spaghetti at Jollibee.

Eating on the boardwalk in Manila Bay.

Before getting to meet the rest of the team, I had a bit of free time so I visited an area in old Manila called Intramuros, which is a walled-off area that used to be occupied by the Spanish. It was a really interesting area where I got to see some old churches (with amazing paintings that looked 3D. I felt like I was surrounded by a giant Magic Eye book...following my every move), museums and monuments - all while losing about 10 pounds through sheer sweat.

The Manila Cathedral.

The St. Agustine Monastery. Amazing that  there are no carvings in this ceiling.

That night was the night I had been waiting for. I took a cab to the office and on the way there I realized how I actually looked to the outside world - sweaty, unkempt, and unshaven in shorts and flip flops. This was definitely the first impression I wanted fellow Accenture employees (including higher up managers) to have of me!

When I got into the office, I felt like a needle fell off a record player and all eyes were on me - a sweaty, slightly homeless looking drifter. Karla, one of my late night partners in crime on the PLC project (manual conversion what, what!), proceeded to introduce the entire team to me, about 35 in all. I had worked with about eight of the 35, but it was great to meet everyone nonetheless. Everyone was really welcoming and talkative, and did a great job of pretending like I didn't have cartoon stink lines coming off me. I even got to meet a couple of the Senior Managers, immediately apologizing for my appearance. All they said was "hey, you're on vacation." My kind of guys.

PLC FTW!

Before getting into the rest of our evening together, I want to write a little love letter to the Manila team. Like I said, I had worked with them over conference calls for about two years and had been impressed and grateful for their hard work since day one. Any praise I received from the client was directly attributed to the Manila team's air tight knowledge of the system and patience with my sive tight knowledge. They truly blew me away on a daily basis with the detailed knowledge they knew of each nook and cranny of the system - something that was invaluable to our team's success. They made seemingly difficult tasks very manageable and always with a smiling emoticon on the screen :). There's a reason Gates Foundation team in Manila has won multiple awards over the past couple of years, and is the team that everyone in the Manila office (about 20,000 employees) wants to join. Team, I can't thank you enough, but thank you again.

Sooooo.....karaoke. That's what the Manila team does. I had heard stories of teammates visiting Manila and being treated to karoake (or vidoeke, as they call it in Manila), so I was excited for my initiation. One thing I quickly noticed about the Philippines is that everyone loves to sing. It didn't matter where I was, people were singing (a lot of Celine Dion for some reason). It was awesome. And the Accenture team was no different.

Princess reserved a "presidential suite" which included a huge room, pool table, card table and buffet which included Filipino favorites such as chicharones (think pork rinds, but with intestines) Definitely a different experience from the laser discs I have at home (Thanks for planning, Princess!). It was so much fun singing. Not only did people sing really well (Joseph blew me away), but they chose really great songs including Britney Spears' "Born 2 Make U Happy" (a truly underrated song, if there ever was one) and an amazing rendition of the Cranberries' "Zombie" by Mika - "zo-ombie, zo-ombie, zo-ombie, ie, ie." We sang the night away with some San Miguel Lights - not really much more I could ask for.

The presidential suite.

The delicious spread.

With the guys.

Now with the ladies.

A bunch of award winners...and me.

On our last night in Manila, Wilbert graciously let Carolyn and me stay at his place...before waking up at 5am to take us to the airport...one hour away. Man, he's a good friend. Wilbert, I will buy you no less than one dozen San Mig Lights next time you're in Seattle. One other thing I mentioned to Wilbert was that I loved how warm and caring Filipino mothers were. I have a handful of Filipino friends in Seattle and have always been treated with so much care. Wilbert's mom was no different. She knew we were leaving bright and early in the morning to catch a flight, so she woke up at 3:45am (!!!!) to make us breakfast. Ms. Lacbay, I will also buy you no less than a dozen San Mig Lights next time you're in Seattle...and make you breakfast.

No better test lead/BA combo. Unless you paired Wilbert up with a better BA.

I truly had an amazing time finally meeting the Manila team in person and getting to know them outside of work. Their warmth and humor was a joy to be around and I hope I can visit Manila again in the near future. I'm bummed we won't be working together anymore, but hey, we'll always have Britney.

Plumbing Lessons while Island Hopping in Palawan

After a couple of days in Manila, Carolyn, Wilbert and I decided to take a few day trip to Palawan to enjoy some beaches and...well, yea pretty much beaches. After the short flight to Puerta Princesa, we found a cheap hostel, settled in and looked for some authentic Filipino food. Our tricycle driver Boogs recommended a place on the main road in town, so we headed there and proceeded to let Wilbert order us a Filipino feast. We had a handful of Wilbert's favorites including Kare Kare, which is various meats in a peanut type sauce eaten with salty fish paste. Pretty tasty meal if you ask me and definitely expanded my Filipino food vocabulary since all I really knew before was balut.

With our buddy Boogs on a trike.

Kare kare.

Seared tuna.

Sizzling BBQ chicken. Can that even exist?

Bright and early the next morning, we took a 6-hour shuttle bus to El Nido, which is known for its beautiful islands and beaches. We arrived in town about 1PM and looked around for things to do, but most activities start early in the morning, so we were a little out of luck. Our last resort was to try to climb a limestone peak before it got dark out and with the prospect of rain. Luckily, we found some guides that were willing to take us and we were on our way to three hours of sheer horror.

We imagined a pretty leisurely hike to the peak to kill some time and enjoy some views, but we quickly learned that it'd be a little tougher. I brought tennis shoes so I was in a little better shape, but Carolyn and Wilbert only had flip flops, so it was definitely an adventure for them. The climb didn't have a real path - it was pretty much just made up by our guides with plenty of 90 degree vertical climbing on jagged limestone. One misstep and you're done. Envigorating! Even though it started pouring halfway through our hike, I got bitten by mosquitos about 30 times (no joke), and was left with some bloodied hands after some missteps, it was so worth it because the views of El Nido town from the peak were breathtaking. It was nice just to sit at the top of the peak, one foot from the edge, and soak in the views while my heart pounded out of my chest.

These smiles were short-lived.

The amazing view from the top.

The threat of death was worth the potential of getting a cool, new facebook profile picture.

After our 3-hour achievement, we decided we deserved a treat, so we headed to a cool restaurant called the Art Cafe and killed the late night hours with our buddy, San Miguel. (Mind you, we did this the following couple of nights even though our only "accomplishments" were limited to lying on the beach.)

Mr. Miguel says "nice job!"

The next day, with our fingers crossed for good weather, we headed out on an all day beach hopping tour to five islands. They were all gorgeous and although the weather wasn't amazing, at least it didn't rain (another reason for San Miguels!). One of my favorite sights was the Secret Lagoon which you could only reach by swimming through pretty choppy waters to the base of a cliff, but once you got into the lagoon, it was really calm, quiet and secluded.

One of the many beautiful, secluded beaches.

Because I have a lot of down time on planes and buses, I've been doing a lot of reading. Keeping in theme with my travels, I read Anthony Bourdain's "A Cook's Tour" which pretty much follows him around the world searching for "the perfect meal." The main point of the book is that the perfect meal is more than the actual food itself. Factors such as the people you're with, the ambiance/location, your attitude at the time all affect how you perceive the meal. My meal on the El Nido island hopping tour was one of those experiences.

The actual food was really delicious, but nothing out of this world - grilled pork/chicken/whole fish, cucumber with vinegar sauce, rice, mango, and banana. Mind you, this feast was made for only the three of us. The reasons I loved the meal so much were a. I was especially hungry that day, b. we were eating the meal on a gorgeous beach, and c. the crew put an immense amount of detailed effort into the meal. I expected them to throw something together for us since it was only three of us and it was a $12 island hopping tour, but they took a lot of pride to grill all the food to perfection, as well as create an amazing presentation for the food - no cucumber was out of place.

This meal deserved views from three angles.

As an aside, one small yet amazing thing I learned from Wilbert was how to flush a toilet with only a bucket of water. Our cottage was pretty low fi, so the toliet didn't flush. I brought this to the attention of the cottage owner and she told me to just pour water into it. OK. I thought this might work to dilute the toilet for a little bit, but eventually it'd get pretty full and nasty. Wilbert showed me that she didn't mean to just pour water into the toilet, but to pour it with enough force to actually flush the toilet. Old hat for Wilbert, but a new trick for this easily impressed city dog.

After our two-day adventure in El Nido, we headed back to Puerta Princesa where we said bye to Wilbert as Accenture beckoned for his talents back in Manila (my talents have yet to be beckoned for back in Seattle). Our first day back on Puerta Princessa we decided to do more island hopping, this time around Honda Bay. El Nido is supposedly a better destination for beaches, but I actually enjoyed the beaches around Honda Bay more. It also probably helped that the weather was actually nice. The beaches we visited (Pandan and Snake Island) were postcard gorgeous with great snorkeling a few yards out from shore. An amazing day to say the least.

No words.

Our second day, we did the underground river tour, which was an impressive sight to see (The Philippines are actually petitioning to get it added to the list of "wonders of the world"). Our tour guide was really entertaining and pointed out a lot of structures including the mask from "The Mask" and the face of Jesus (eerily similar). We also got to see some monitor lizards and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a  monkey steal chips from a lady and freak her out. Good times.

If a giant rock falls on me, this helmet will make sure I look awkward when I'm dead.

Just me and some lizards.

To end our good times in Palawan, Carolyn and I ate at a really cool restaurant called Kalui that served fresh fish with the menu changing daily depending on the catch. And of course, mango smoothies. Always mango smoothies.

One day in Bangkok and my Moby Dick story

Because we canceled our Laos plans, we ended up having a day layover in Bangkok before getting to the Philippines, so we decided to have an expedited tour of the city. I visited Bangkok last summer, so I was semi familiar with getting around. We took the MTR to the central part of Bangkok and quickly found a place to eat before we set off on our day trip through Bangkok.

No visit to Bangkok is complete unless you visit at least a couple of temples, so we grabbed a map, waved down a tuk-tuk and had him take us to a few that were recommended to us. The highlights of the temples were Wat Po and the Golden Mount. Wat Po is the really famous temple with the giant reclining Buddha (an amazing sight because of it's sheer size) and the Golden Mount is pretty much exactly what it sounds like - a giant, golden conical structure on top of a huge hill. Temples are always really amazing to me, but after a while, they all start looking the same, so we decided to relax a bit at Khaosan road, an area with a lot of little shops selling fake stuff and what we were really after - street food!

Riding a tuk tuk.

Golden Mount.

Reclining Buddha.

Carolyn started off with some phad thai, which is awesome to watch being made because the ladies have a hot wok with a bunch of ingredients on the side of the wok, and they just add whichever ingredients you want as you order it. I remember a lot of really good food when I visited last summer, so I was trying to retrace my steps to relive the experiences. I started off with some chicken satay, but was really after two things: steamed chicken and rice (kind of like hainanese chicken and rice from Singapore) and a banana/chocolate roti type thing. I walked back to the places where I got each one, but to my disappointment, they were gone. Becuase I'm stubborn and was starving, I kept looking around and asking different vendors and luckily I stumbled upon a couple of places that sold pretty much the same things. The temples and sights were awesome, but being able to eat those two foods is what I was really after.

Mmmm, scorpions. One day I'll be brave enough to eat one of these.

Chicken satay.

What I was looking for: banana/chocolate roti.

While in Bangkok, I was trying to decide what I wanted to do in the Philippines for my first couple of days before meeting some co-workers in Manila. Once Carolyn mentioned this, I was dead set on doing it: swimming with WHALE SHARKS! From that moment on, I made it my sole mission to accomplish this, so I did some research, booked a flight to Donsol (south of Manila), and crossed my fingers that I'd be able to see one since it's not guaranteed and it was the end of their feeding season.

Here's how the next day unfolded:
4AM: landed in Manila and waited a few hours before flying to Legazpi (just north of Donsol)
9AM: Fly out to Legazpi
1030AM: Arrive in Legazpi and wait for the shuttle bus to fill up before we can head to Donsol
1230PM: Arrive in Donsol, catch a motorized tricycle (with a couple of Germans), and head straight to the tourist center to book a trip for the next morning
1245PM: Arrive at the tourist center to find that a group of people (from Minnesota) are about to head out because there's a typhoon warning for the next morning and trips would be canceled
1PM: Head out on the boat with the Minnesota-ans/ites and Germans, with expectations at an unhealthy high level (timing's been perfect thus far. I'm destined to see whale sharks, right?)
1PM - 4PM: Drive around the ocean looking for whale sharks, occasionally drifting to sleep, waiting (hoping) for a yell that awakes me telling me that whale sharks are close
4PM: Arrive on shore, dry as a bone, not one whale shark seen

Before heading out on this adventure, I tried (reaaaallly tried) to set realistic expectations that I may not see a whale shark. But as I tried to be realistic, I kept imagining what an amazing experience it would be to see them, and how awesome a feat it would've been to pull off the planning and timing  just one day before to have everything fall into place. So when after all of the pieces fell into place and I didn't see anything, I was pretty bummed out.

"Realistic expectations, realistic expectations..."

On the long journey back to shore.

I headed back to my cottage, trying to kill some time before heading back to Manila the following day, but all I could think about was "the one that got away" (there have been many ones that have gotten away in my life, but never one this big). I sulked for a bit (which is exactly a bit too much for someone that gets to do what I'm doing for three months), but then remembered that the journey is sometimes more important than the destination (thank you, igoogle quote of the day!) and I was really happy I at least gave it a shot. And never has this been more appropriate, but I suppose there are plenty of other fish in the sea (and yes, nerds,  i know whale sharks are technically mammals. Nerds.).

All was not lost though. Donsol was a beautiful little coastal village and I was able to just relax and soak in the views. My cottage even had a basketball court, so I could at least vividly imagine playing since they didn't have a ball. Our group of failed whale shark swimmers also decided to try to salvage our trip, so to replace the whale sharks, we went firefly watching... But in all seriousness, it was really cool as we floated down a river right after sunset and saw thousands of fireflies light up the sky. A really cool experience, and my first time ever seeing fireflies.

Beautiful ocean view by my cottage.

On the river to see some fireflies.

Trust me, the fireflies were there. Something just must be wrong with your computer.

The mango pancakes helped ease the pain.

After all that, what was the lesson learned? I'll leave that to the lady at the tourist office that so sensitively and wisely said, "Next time come in March."

This whale shark will have to do...until next March.

This isn't goodbye, Vietnam. It's see you later

Carolyn and I were going to head to Laos after our time in Hue, but we loved Vietnam so much we decided to cut out Laos and head up north to Hanoi and Halong Bay as our last stops in Vietnam. When we first arrived in Hanoi, friends of Lindsey's parents picked us up and took us to their restaurant to eat. Lucky for me, one of the ladies actually spoke mandarin because she teaches it (lucky until I realized that I barely spoke mandarin - it was as if she knew two languages that I couldn't really understand).

Once we got to their restaurant, they served us some Hanoi style Vietnamese food, which was much different than the food in the south. The "highlight" of the meal was turtle...I wasn't sure what the meat was until I saw a little claw soaked in sauce tugging at my heart strings. It wasn't bad. A little chewy, but like everything in the world, it tasted kind of like dark meat chicken. Apparently in Vietnam, there's a heavy debate about which area has better food - north (Hanoi) or south (Saigon). In my opinion, there's no debate - Saigon style Vietnamese food is much better than the food in the south, but maybe not as cute.

One dish I actually did like - deep fried corn with a coconut milk batter. 

It's like when Shredder comes back to life in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2...only reversed.

That night, we stayed in Hanoi before heading to Halong Bay. We didn't get to see too much of Hanoi, but we did get to walk around the night markets. We looked for some good street food to eat, but all we found were bland versions of food we had eaten in other cities.

The next morning, we took a bus bright and early to Halong Bay for a two day cruise. Delphine, being the hardcore backpacker that she is, met us on the bus immediately after a different 15-hour bus ride from Hoi An. We chose the cheapest boat we could find and were really happy we did because everyone on the boat was just like us - young(ish) backpackers (i think i was the oldest guy on the boat) with very little money to spend. The boat was advertised as a little ghetto, but in reality it was very ghetto. We were promised hot water and fans in our rooms, but had neither - I was too cold in the shower and too hot in the room, so I guess it balanced out.

Our appropriately named junk boat.

I had heard different things about Halong Bay - mostly that it was gorgeous, but dirty, so I didn't have super high expectations. But setting out on our tour, the sights were really amazing, and although the water wasn't crystal clear, it also wasn't that dirty. Our first stop on the cruise was to an awesome cave that was made less awesome by colored lights and techno music, no joke.

"Caves are great. Techno clubs are great. Techno caves must be great!"

After the cave, we continued through the bay, sunbathing on the top of the boat and soaking in the beautiful views of the thousands of islands. The downtime gave all of us backpackers a chance to chat and get to know each other, which made me feel old and less awesome.

Carolyn and I were the only Americans on the boat, with others coming from Finland, Germany, France, the UK and Belgium to name a few countries. After our introductions, we got into chatting about all of the countries everyone has already visited and still plan on visiting. After (proudly) saying that I was traveling for three months across Asia and Europe, almost everyone else proceeded to mention that they were on month 12 of an 18 month adventure - most of them traveling right after graduating from university. (At least I ate turtle, so take that!) We talked about everything from future careers to boy bands to the shadiest places we stayed (Toby, a German, mentioned that he replied to an ad on couchsurfer.com, which turned out to be an old man that enjoyed seeing nude, young men. He didn't stay there).

All the cool backpackers that made me feel old.

Me and the Fins.

"I'm off a boat!"

One of my favorite memories on the boat trip was the black market choco pies I bought. The cruise boats want you to buy things off their boat, not from outside vendors, but when it got dark out, we heard some hushed whispers from small boats passing by asking if we wanted some snacks. We snuck down pass the boat operators (who were gambling, obviously), and walked to the side of the boat to finagle some snacks. The choco pies were delicious...because they were forbidden.

In the morning (after some of us slept outside on top of the ship because our rooms were so hot), we got up around 5am to watch the beautiful sunrise - definitely an amazing sight. We finished the cruise with some kayaking before heading back to Hanoi on a three-hour packed bus ride with no AC. I was moist.

Gorgeous sunrise view.

Kayaking with Delphine.

It was a bittersweet experience because I met a lot of cool people and saw some amazing views, but was constantly reminded that it was my last stop in Vietnam, which I quickly grew to love over my ten days there. Needless to say, I won't be eating this good (and this cheap) for a very long time. I hope other countries at least have choco pies.