Philippines Travel Log - Day 3

Day 3 I woke up and turned on the news. They said something about a Typhoon but I wasn’t really paying attention. I noted the word Typhoon and on the way to the call center I got a little worried, then I calmed back down. I thought Typhoon was like a weak hurricane…and tsunami was the big one. Nope. Turns out typhoon and hurricane are the same darn thing, though I think the word typhoon is prettier…hurricane is more descriptive. It was raining when I got to the call center, but not bad. I had no idea. I mean I know what hurricanes do….I am not that naïve, but since I have never seen one in person I was unprepared….funny thing that through the whole thing I was kind of excited. Not to see bad things happen to people by any means, but just to be in a hurricane….typhoon whatever. This got looks from people when I would say I was excited for the experience. I don’t blame them. If anyone told me they were looking forward to the big blizzard and driving the snow the next day I would think they were nuts too. We risked going outside to smoke and it was INSANE. Rain like I have never seen. Two seconds in it and you would be soaked. Wind like I have never seen…and I have seen wind thank you very much. Twin is always windy, but not so much gusty like this was. Close to the building it was just kinda breezy, then a gust hit and my hair came clear up over my head. And since it is so humid there I don’t think it ever really recovered that day. There was crazy lightning, which I couldn’t tell was lightning because the building around me are so tall so I didn’t know if it was a light flashing or real lightning. Then came the power outages. Power went out about 6 times throughout the night, but the longest one was only about 3 minutes before it came back. Well the power didn’t comeback, but the back-up generator kicked on. Lunch that day was in the “pantry” or cafeteria as we call it in the States. Everything look quite good. I chose rice and BBQ chicken. I have to say Filipinos are a clean folk. They eat with both spoons and forks at the same time (spoon the right hand and fork in the left, if they are right handed) are very tidy. These are my kind of people. They keep food separated and mix it right before they eat it on their spoon. See I am not weird after all. They have no use for knives when eating and cut everything with their spoon which I thought was amazing. I was trying to cut something with my fork and got some weird looks….and they recommended I try the spoon and hold the meat down with the fork. And WOW…it really works! I never thought a spoon could cut anything. I am amazed how tidy they are when they eat. I asked if they ever use their hands because I had to eat my chicken, and well it was a drumstick so I felt hand usage was essential. They laughed and said yes so I dug in. It was pretty darn tasty…and the meat was dry. I love dry meat. And no I am not being sarcastic…I perfect my chicken on the dry side. They did laugh watching me eat rice with just a fork (or spoon) and again told me to try it with both….pushing the rice on the spoon with the fork. INGENIOUS! Why have we never thought of this? After lunch we hear a rumor that the higher ups were considering making everyone stay at the call center to sleep that day because the storm was getting bad. I wouldn’t have known, the walls in this building must be made of steel wrapped in some alloy I have never heard of, wrapped in a sound barrier that is wrapped in more steal. I did not hear a peep of that storm but when I got outside I didn’t understand how I didn’t hear anything. So while contemplating the fact I might have to sleep on the call center floor in a sleeping bag with no deodorant, or AC I got a bit horrified, and then excited again. I mean SLEEP OVER! With awesome fun people! w00t! But eventually the storm passed and they released us. When I went back to the hotel I discovered I forgot to remove the do not disturb from my door so My food cart was still there from 36 hours before. Awesome. I called they removed it and I have to say it was the first time I seemed to get an irritated employee from the hotel. I am telling you these people are TIDY! They like things CLEAN and 36 hour old fried rice was NOT something he was impressed with! We will see what tomorrow brings!