Meeting an acquaintance

Managed to struggle awake at a reasonable time, which was good because had to head back to the airport to pick up Jeferson Menuza, a guy I had been chatting with for years. He flew up from Cagayan, since I had no time to go there and visit him and his family.

As is so often the case, chatting and meeting are often to different things. Once we could talk more easily, we quickly found we had little much to talk about that the other actually found interesting or could relate to. So anyway we were able to twitter on about this and that, and the time passed.

In the evening I wandered around a different part of the city, heading down the bay front away from the US Embassy. The bay is enormous - it could hold an entire Armada comfortably within its encompassing embrace. It also smells from the effluent of the city, which I suspect lies in the bay and festers as there is no significant current to sweep the detritus away.

Saw more of the street life at night in the district, which was subdued given its a Sunday. This time no crashing out - just a meander back to the hotel, with the evening finished off by a really good back massage by a Filipina. One of the things I discovered the time I had overnighted the first time I passed through Manila - there's a 24 hour massage service in every hotel I've stayed at. I love being slowly kneaded, especially after long flights.