Fitness First (or rather "worst")

If you see the Fitness First logo on a gym, better keep distance. This place is really something to get annoyed. I made the experience myself at the Fitness First Platin at the RCBC Plaza in Manila (Makati City):

• Their personal trainers seem to be working on their own bill. That means they are very agressive in offering their services. And if you indicate to one of them that you are not interested, the next one will still give it a try as well and bother you. They even call you up on your private mobile phone if they feel like it.
• If you just want to know the price a membership costs, you need to register first (including your phone number, which is definitely a dangerous thing over here, if you don't want to get spammed with advertisement by text message). Without it, they wouldn't tell you any price. Not even on their web-site. They really seem to fear price transparency. And that can only mean something bad. Yesterday we tried to find out the membership price for a friend of mine, but they preferred to let us leave again without telling us the price, than to let us know without registering first.

This blog I found seems to confirm my bad impression (that guy even worked there himself):
http://www.brunosfitness.com/the-truth-about-fitness-first-and-there-personal-trainers/

This week-end I am planning to go scuba diving in Anilao (Batangas) again. I am already excited about it.

Puerto Galera and Cebu

Puerto Galera

With Alain and his wife Janine (plus their kids Aline and Felix) I spent a nice week-end in Puerto Galera, which is the northern tip of the island Mindoro. The resort (http://www.cocobeach.com/) offers very simple accomodations (like bungalows) but at a very fair price, and the nice things are:

• There is no access road to the hotel. It can only be reached by boat or by foot. It is totally quiet at night. Only the waves can be heard. And of course the rain.
• The resort is directly at the beach.
• The resort is operated in a sustainable way by having so called "host families" who are local families living inside the resort area. In your bungalow you have a wire (see picture below) which you can pull to signal a need to your host family. They will promptly show up and assist you for any need.

Here is Puerto Galera:

And here is the resort (the mark shows my bungalow):

Alain and I did two nice dives. We could even spot a sea turtle. But I found out that my analog depth gauge which I bought as a back-up to my dive computer does not function correctly. I will have to visit the dive shop once again.
The trip back to Manila took a full day as there was rough weather and the regular small ferry boats could not operate anymore. We had to drive far to grab a larger ferry and ride all the way back again on the ferry.

Cebu

With Chary, a friend, I spent two nice and sunny days in Mactan, Cebu. We stayed at in a resort which has its own waterpark. The waterpark was not too large, but it was fun. The room we had was very big and brand new. Very nice design.
I was surprised that the taxi ride to Cebu City takes nearly 45min. It looks so close on the map.

About honesty

Most Filipinos are truly honest from the depth of their heart. Funny things that happened to me recently:

• When asking a shop assistant in a take-away shop if their Pizzas would be tasty, the shop assistant answered "No, sir". I'd better have a sandwich instead.
• At a stall in a food-court, I asked what the difference between the combo meal and the single platter would be. They answered "The price, sir".   :-)   I always knew it....!

Rain season

August is definitely rain season here. I have to acknowledge that. One of my condo walls is leaking some water. The technicians are looking at it right now. But there seem to be leaks in many places of the building. And not only my building. Even in shopping malls and any building you go, you will see buckets on the floor with all kind of funny constructions to collect the dripping water.
My housekeeping helper even said that in her 2-storey house, the ground level has water up to the waist. So I better stop complaining about my little leak....
I hope the dengue mosquitos are not going to breed too much around in Manila.

Swizerland holidays

Between August 11 and August 17 I will visit Switzerland for a vacation. I will be available on my "old" Swiss mobile phone number.

Visa

Finally I have got the 9G visa and the ACR (alien certificate registration) which allows me to stay in the Philippines for two years. That was a complicated thing to acquire. And expensive, too. I think it must have been somewhere around 2 thousand USD including the fees for the travel agency which was coordinating the efforts.

First scuba dives in the Philippines

Yesterday Alain and I made our first 3 scuba dives in the Philippines. It was a fantastic day we spent on the peninsula Mabini, in Batangas (see satellite pictures), about 2.5 h by car south of Manila.

The 'x' mark the spots where we plunged in. The arrow marks the dive base: Crystal Blue Resort, which I can recommend as starting point for dives. They offer good service and have good staff who know about diving. And our lunch there was very tasty.

Brian, our dive instructor, and his dive master did a good job. We have learnt a lot, seen many things under water and had plenty of fun!
However, we both catched a heavy sun burn as the diving boat was small and offered little shadow only, and we didn't bring our sun cream.
The dives went fine. I was breaking in my totally new scuba equipment and I was curious how it would perform under water. Except of the Suunto dive computer (Suunto Vyper Air), everything worked fine. The dive computer however stopped displaying the depth reading and displayed a dept of 0.0m all the time. I had to rely on my two buddies' depth reading.

On Friday night we had a after work beer at the Central Pub, near Washington, Makati. On the way there, Arvin showed me how to use the Jeepneys and I made my first Jeepney ride.

The pub was so cool that so many office mates have joined, and we had a fun night and a lot of drinks and snacks. The music (chill out, dance, electro) was the best I heard since long time. As I had plenty of drinks, I over-slept next morning which happened to be the day we went on the dives (see above). Luckily I had packed the day before, so I just jumped from my bed into Alain's rental car, forgetting my sun cream and bathing shorts.

This was the Starbucks coffee I recently got. They seem to have misunderstood my name. May be I should stop wearing those uni-sex T-shirts....  ;-)

Upon the advice of my mother, I have bought a pair of anti-fatigue glasses and had adapted them to my eye vision correction. They do a great deal and relief some stress from my eyes. I am wearing them very often, sometimes even aside of work. I can really recommend those for all my working collegues, even for those with flawless eye vision.

This picture I took in the Salcedo park, 100m from my condo. Every Saturday there is the Salcedo market and last time they performed a dancing show with traditional clothes.

Meet Hugo, a lizard who has been housing in my kitchen already before I moved in, in February. Every now and then he comes out of his hiding place and likes to get a sip of water from the sink. I've made a deal with him: He will stay away from my food and keep my condo clear of mosquitos, and I let him use my facilities like the sink and his hiding place.

Holidays on Boracay

During the passed week, I spent my first ever vacation in the Philippines. I had decided to go to the primary holiday destination: The island Boracay.
I flew with Air PhilExpress in a small Q300 airplane with a delay of about 1hr to Caticlan, a small airport very near from Boracay.

The runway of the airport Caticlan is very short. The plane was litterally coming to a halt on the last meter of the runway. But aside of that, the flight was nice and short (approx. 1 hr). And the new terminal 3 of the NAIA airport is much more convenient than the old terminals 1 & 2. And easier to reach by car.
Funny: While waiting at the terminal in Manila, the public announcements were so loud that they could no way be understood. It was hurting the ears. On the website of the NAIA airport, I found a phone number on which NAIA airport asked to receive suggestions and feedback by text message. So I sent them a message about the volume of the announcements at that gate, and promptly they replied that they have forwarded the note to the officer in charge. Wow.

On Boracay, I stayed 4 nights at the Hotel Red Coconut Beach. It is right in the middle of everything, especially of the mile-long white beach.

Away of any car/motorbike traffic. But this does not mean that it is more quiet! Until midnight or 1 a.m. the music from the beach and from the bar make sure that you don't feel like sleeping. But who comes to Boracay for sleepeing anyways, right...!?

First I had a room straight next to the pool. After the first night (and the loud music at night) I could switch to a more quiet (and larger) room on level 3.
The hotel is a good value for it's price. And the staff is doing a great job. And the location is very good. However, the rooms and the building are getting old and are not that well maintained I find. But clean they were. I can recommend the hotel to fellow travellers. However, you should not expect a four star hotel, despite it being advertised on www.booking.com as a four star.

Along the beach promenade, there are hundreds of bars, restaurants, hotels and stalls.

The water is clean, and has a perfect temperature. Sometimes, there are some green algae which seem to disturb the perfect look of the beach. I read about that. Those algae seem to appear every year right during the peak tourist season. However, I did not find them disturbing. Probably they have already mostly vanished by then.

The first day it was perfect weather. The following three days a strong breeze came up and heavy clouds brought a rain shower from time to time. I had to learn once more that you can get sun-burnt despite the sun not beeing seen.

The second night I met this couple in a bar, Denis from France, Chloe from South Korea. They just had their engagement on the same day. As they saw me sitting there on my own, they asked me to join them. They were already with 4 lively Filipinas which they met earlier. We had such a fantastic night all together!

On the second day I went for a tour with the glass bottom boat. This is a picture I took on the tricycle on the way to the pier.

This was on the glass bottom boat.

At the end of the tour, we even came across a rock which is inhabited by a tribe of monkeys. They seem to be used to be fed by those tours, as they were not too much afraid of the crew member swimming towards them to feed them.

Now I am back at home already.

I hope my membership application at the Makati Sports Club will be admitted, so I can play Tennis there soon.

About 2 weeks ago, I met Daniel in the gym of my condo. I learnt that he is German and used to live in Zurich before coming to the Philippines. He was sent here by Swissport, a Swiss company, too. And he moved in during January, too. That's the first neighbour I am getting to know in my building.