Saturday...

Well got up last night and went to the gym to do my walking. I did about 2 miles... which is about 3.2 K. I ended up at the Steam room to melt which is my reward for being in the gym. I got ready and was down in the lobby to go to work. The crazy thing is I am getting up after sleeping 8 hours all day.. so it feels like morning to me... even though it is 5:30 PM local time. So I kept saying Good Morning... and no one batted an eye.. Same thing after work.... Everyone says Good Morning to me... and I reply Good Evening. There are a lot of folks doing the same thing and I thing they are used to crazy Americans and also they are just very polite.

Let me explain a little about what I am doing. I am working with a company here of great folks that will be supporting the customers in the US for AT&T. Because of the time difference which is 12 hours for the East Coast, I and the folks that I am with will be working form 8 PM to 8 AM local time in 2 shifts. Starting Monday night I will be commence the 4 week training class with approximately 20 folks. This is the first class of 3 that will be trained. I will be training the first class along with 2 of their trainers. The 2nd and 3rd class will be trained by their newly trained trainers. The rest of the time I am here I will be supporting on site the folks that are now doing the work.

So that means.. My schedule is really a little off kilter. Monday through Friday I work 9 PM to 6 AM. Weekends off and then back to work on Monday night. The office is about 2 miles away from the hotel I am staying at but with the night traffic at that hour it takes almost 45 minutes to an hour. There are a lot of people in ALL kinds of transportation on the streets.

Last night I met with some internal folks and went over some issues we had before the class starts on Monday. There are still some challenging items that will have to be addressed on Monday. I am looking forward to meeting the class and getting started. I am still working on my routine and it is getting better. I now know I need to give myself 2 hours before I have to leave to get up, get to the gym to walk, steam room, get ready and then get to Subway to grab a sandwich for my lunch at midnight.

The office is on the 3rd floor of a mall.. Market Market ... so when I get to work a little before 9 PM, it is packed in the mall. Then it becomes a ghost place around 10 PM since the mall is closed and so is the entire retail shops all around. EXCEPT there is 1 place that is open 24 hours... and that is McDonald's. Hence why I want to go to Subway and grab a sandwich to take to the office for later on. I can live with subway every day.. but McD's I can't!!

My goal is to get home about 7 PM, (the car comes at 6:30) to pick us up. We have a great driver named Narcisco. He is always on time, so nice and always has chilled bottled water for us for the ride home. We tip him nicely for his great work. I got back to the hotel and then went to the gym for nightly run... Tonight I started the transition to the metric system. The treadmills are all set in metric. Now remember, most of the world is on the metric system except the USA... so I think we really need to step up and meet the rest of the world on this one.

I ran 4.8 Kilometers (3 miles) and then walked about another kilometer after that. Again I went to the steam room.. and met 2 peers of mine for food. Again my body doesn't know if it is breakfast or dinner, AM or PM, so now I just say going to eat food. No labels.. :)

In the hotel there is a complimentary buffet in the morning that comes with the room. I have never seen more food of various kinds in one buffet at one time in my life. The food is all fresh, prepared perfectly and tastes so good. If you like to eat with some adventure, this is the place for you. Today I started off with 3 glasses of fresh mango juice, mango's (the best tasting which is grown here), watermelon, the juiciest and sweetest pineapple, and today I tried a new fruit. It looked like a prickly strawberry. The waitress that takes good care of us daily whose name is Belle, explained how to eat this. You basically squeeze the prickly surrounding off the fruit which leaves a white small round ball that looks like a pearl onion. You then eat the outside part leaving the inside seed (looks more like a nut). It is sweet and very tasty. I can barely pronounce this let alone spell it. After the fruit plate, I went for the sushi and some noodles and asparagus. After that course I went for the semi traditional American breakfast food consisting of bacon and egg fritata, potato pancakes, slice of fresh baked ham with glaze sauce, steamed asparagus a 1 piece of porn bacon. After that I ended my meal with jasmine rice, with a noodle and peapod, dish with a smidge of this yellow sauce that was a little bitter. It complimented the citrus taste of the rest. I also tried this other rice disc of more of a brown rice, cashews, and raisins. it was all so good... and then ended it up with Strawberry yogurt.

I have to say thought that all the food I ate was in small portions... but it was still a lot and I was FULL when done. I need to scale back somewhat or increase my running 3 fold. :)

I then sat in the lobby and read the 2 local (more liberal) papers and watched the morning crowd go by. My intent was to take a nap or so for like 3 hours... and then do some shopping nearby. I ended up not taking a nap.. and around 2 PM, did go for a walk in the local malls. There are like 6 malls all connected by walkways, with multi floors. It is sensory overload for sure.

It is 4 PM local time and I am a little tired....I will go to the gym and do my 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) the steam room and then find my friends to go eat.

My next goal is to check out the metric system and start to get that in my head. I have the local money down.. 44 Filipino peso's to 1 USA dollar.

As I sit in the steam room I look back at my day.. I am very fortunate to have this opportunity to be in Manila Philippines. I am seeing new sights, meeting new people which are some of the nicest anywhere in the world, learning new things, while eating the best and mostly healthy food, and working out 2 times daily (which I think "helps" me adjust better to the crazy schedule and sleeping) not to mention to stay in one beautiful hotel. The 1 not so great thing is ... I don't think my body will ever get used to the different schedules that I am on which may give me a reason for being a little off center. But that is OK..

So now.. off to the gym to walk, steam, shower and then go find my 2 peers and lets find someplace to eat.. probably bed early for sure.