Day 02 in Manila

Survived my first day. (Oh, by the way, I must point out that yesterday isn't technically my first day in Manila, because I came here when I was like three. And then again last April. But, for conveniency sake, I'll just say it was my first day.)

So anyway. Second day. It's five in the afternoon and Mommy and I are in the guest room at my aunt's house. No WAY am I staying in my dorm until my three days with Momsie are up.

I had a really hard time falling asleep last night. In my own house, I lie in bed for about two hours before finally drifting off to sleep. Although it didn't take that long for me to go to sleep last night, it was unpleasant altogether because I was feeling terribly sad.

I don't know what time it was that I actually fell asleep, but I woke up at 7 this morning feeling refreshed, cheerful, and puffy-eyed.

Mom and I went to Ateneo firstly to settle things with the Office of Admissions and also to pay tuition. I "oohed" and "aahed" once more at almost everything in the campus, and I remember thinking, "God, I am such a freshman." But the good thing is, Ateneans don't really care about that. Seems to me like they welcome freshmen with open arms and blue eagle wings aspread.

All was well, but one even that stood out was in the LS Bookstore, when Mom let me use my new ATM card to pay for the stuff we bought. I had handed the saleslady my card, and she gave me the machine for punching in my PIN. I looked at the screen and thought, "This isn't right," because what was shown was the amount to be paid. (e.x. PHP800) I'd never used my ATM before, but that just didn't seem like a PIN-entering sort of screen. So I hesitated in punching it in.

I said, "Miss, parang mali ito." Then she just told me to key in my PIN, so I thought, "Ohhhkay. She is the expert on this." So I pressed my PIN numbers, just like she said. But things really started to get fishy because each number I pressed just added to the right of the price. (e.x. let's just pretend that my PIN is 1234. Remember that the price was PHP800? When I was done entering my PIN, what was shown on the screen was PHP 8001234.)

I told the cashier, "Miss, parang mali talaga!" So she took the machine, pressed a few buttons, and then handed it back to me displaying what I was certain was the PIN-entering screen. I punched in my PIN and it looked like this: ****, which looked about right to me. I gave it back to her and we were done with the transaction.

I told Mom later, as we exited the store, about what happened, and she panicked, because does that mean the saleslady now knows my PIN? I told her that no, because while I was entering it the numbers were actually !@#$%^&*()*(&^%$#$%^&*(*&^%$#@#$%^&^%$#@#$% (Sorry I can't say. I might accidentally drop a clue about my actual number and I'm really paranoid about that.)

. . .

We took a taxi to Greenhills next and did some shopping (hooray for you, recepients of the marvelous things we bought!). You will not believe the prices you get there. It was a huuuuuge place, and there was always something interesting to look at, but after awhile you start to notice that most of the shops basically sell the same things. The exact. Same. Things.

Getting tired, we decided to have lunch at Italianni's. Mom's choice. And you know what they say - mother knows best! Let me tell you, you have not lived till you've eaten there. After Italianni's cooking, food just isn't food anymore. (It's art!)

I had grilled pork and Mommy had ribs. I even ate the salad! And I don't normally like vegetables! They had this awesome sauce that looked a lot like soy sauce. Mommy said it was balsamic vinegar. It was the best. People in Cagayan de Oro - if you don't have that, HAVE THAT.

We resumed our session at Greenhills, but we were pretty pooped ("Hah! She said 'poop!'") and just sat down on some stairs for a really long time, deciding what to do next. In the end, we decided to go shopping for school supplies at SM Megamall. (Not that there weren't any school supplies being sold in Greenhills, because there were. It's just that it was only 2 in the afternoon and we had all the time to kill before heading back to my aunt's place.)

We took the Greenhills shuttle going there (P18 pesos per person). Megamall is a pretty cool place, and if I remember correctly, my cousin Carlo said it was the biggest one in the Philippines, and one of the five biggest in Asia.

We didn't wanna waste our time just wandering around, because our energy and happiness were both running low (Does this remind you of a certain simple virtual life simulation game? It's The Sims! Geez. Get a life.) So we went straight to National Book Store to buy a stapler, a pair of scissors, some Scotch tape, a notebook, and a highlighter.

At the Young Adult section of the store, I was reminded of how much I love The Princess Diaries. Thinking about Mia Thermopolis's life and all the problems she had to face certainly made me momentarily forget about mine. So we had a new mission: to go find the fourth installment of The Princess Diaries, since National Bookstore didn't carry it.

. . .

Long story short, we bought it at Powerbooks, got Chef Tony's popcorn, and then went back to Twa-E's in a taxi.

(Sorry but I have to end here. Dinner time, you see.)