Manila!!

And we are off!  While grabbing a last American burger and beer at Kona Brewing Company at HNL airport, in walked our friend Dave, who was off for a week of snowboarding in Colorado.  We wished each other well and boarded the plane for a 7.5 hour flight to Guam.  They fed us two meals and the large male passengers in front of us promptly dropped their seat backs into our laps, reducing my legs to noodles.  After touch down, we raced to the next gate and boarded our 3.5hour flight to Manila.  At some point when I was using the bathroom, U'i made friends with a well dressed gentleman several seats over.  Before I returned to my seat, we had a ride to a hotel of our choosing in the city.  We touched down at 5am Hawaii time (10pm local time), wiped out and ready to sleep. Customs was a breeze, no questions, no bribes, no fees, no hassles.  Much easier than Indo.  Our new airplane friend Dan guided us to the arrivals holding area, where we were to meet our Filipino contact Remedios, to drop off coffee and Hawaiian Host chocolates that we had been hauling with.  After making the exchange, we jumped in Dan's luxury SUV, piloted by his private driver Mark, and headed into the  City.  It turns out Dan is a senior partner at a well known architecture firm in Manila.  He was in Guam interviewing Mechanical Engineers for a new hospital project they are developing.  Needless to say we got along.  It also turns out that Dan owns a club in Malate, where he was heading to let loose and DJ till dawn.  Then for him it was a quick cat nap, and off to the University to teach a class at 10am.  Manila is a mega-city made up of 13 actual cities, each the size of Seattle and with an accompanying hi-rise skyline.  Its easy to feel very insignificant.   Dan's friend owns a smaller hotel in Makati, where he negotiated a room for us.  We thanked him, and headed off to catch a few hours of sleep before dawn.  This morning, after we managed to clog the toilet, we looked out our window to heavy construction and widespread development.  Tower cranes everywhere, raw rebar protruding like blades of grass in this concrete jungle.  At this moment, we are downstairs in the hotel eating our complimentary breakfast.  Langanisa (filipino sausage) garlic rice, egg and coffee.  Today we will be catching a taxi to Quezon City today to visit Remedios and figure out the next step.  Paalam na ho.
Ryan and U'i

P.S. we haven't had time to properly setup the blog yet, in the rush to get things ready to leave.  We will be adding much more info about our proposed trip soon.