December 25/26
As soon as I get comfortable with the way of life in Manila, I have to leave. My friend Tony picked me up from the airport in Hong Kong and showed me around before leaving for Nepal. He was in my Master’s program in England, and we haven’t had a chance to catch up since I left England. Thankfully we have been able to stay in touch with Facebook. Given my short stay, Tony, his friend Andrew, and I walked around a couple places in the city including a wet seafood market and a street where you could buy pets including fish, turtles, cats, and rabbits. (Katherine, I immediately thought of you when I saw the bunnies.) We also walked around the Ladies’ Market which has pretty much anything you can think of to buy. We also stopped at a temple and had dim sum for lunch. Transportation is very efficient because it is very expensive to have a car. Tony and Andrew have both spent lots of time in England, and it was fun listening to the English accent. It’s been a while since I heard words like “cheeky” and “loo.” Tony and I also reminisced about our time at the University of Warwick. We chatted about a range of topics. Similar to the Philippines, basketball is the big sport here. However, playing sports as a kid is not encouraged here. It makes sense when you learn that professional athletes here don’t have as high of an income as in the US. Instead, parents are motivated to help their kids stand out, so kids learn how to play a musical instrument. I also learned that fortune telling is a big industry there. They have professionals that study the methods in Taiwan. I saw a woman shaking a box of sticks. Once one of the sticks jumps out of the stack, she takes it to a fortune teller to get her fortune. Tony, thank you for being such a great host!
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