My day began early once again at 6 AM. Luckily I had passed out by 9 PM the previous night that I got plenty of sleep. We stopped by the Starbucks for coffee once again around 8 am and ran into Mike, the director. He was like, oh there's no rush, let's sit here and just chat. So we did just that until he was like, oh I do have a 10 AM telecon so we should probably head into work soon. Hey, the only way to keep your sanity here is to sit back, relax and be on the same mindset with the rest of the country here. Time does not exist. There is no urgency to get anything done around here...and so began my shenanigan-filled day 2 at work.
So apparently the visa here only allows you to stay for 30 days, and after that, you have to renew your passport visa for an additional 30 days etc. I found this out when I had arrived into Manila, but Dustin wasn't even aware of this until I brought it up with him on Saturday. Thank goodness I did because his visa had expired already and the only way to renew it was to go to the immigration office in Olongapo, the nearby town, and do it in person. So around lunch time, we left the work site with Mike and went on an exhausting day taking care of business. The remainder of the work day consisted of first going to the immigration office and waiting in the room with no AC in Olongapo, where we hoped Dustin wouldn't be in too much trouble for having an expired visa. We were there for a while as he was forced to pay a fine for the expired visa. As I sat there waiting in the immigration office, I noticed this "Complaints & Suggestion Box". This was way too entertaining considering this box is not even close to being the size it needs to be if we were to actually fill it with complaints and suggestions about everything that is wrong and ridiculous with this place. The most shocking part was that it was empty!
After spending way too much time at the immigration office, we went to pay off my car rental debt to Universal, the car rental agency. I was able to negotiate him to a point where I could pay both in cash and credit. This was of course after being harassed for the money daily by the same driver, Mark, who picked me up in Manila. He seemed so friendly on day 1 and told me I would have time to pay him the remainder of the balance. Time in his mind meant 1 day since he was blowing up my phone with constant texts reminding me to pay them. Things are so shady here that Universal was harassing me for the money in cash for the rental car because they didn't even have enough money to pay off the lease for the car. I'm sorry but that is NOT my problem. Proof is shown below.
This got Mike, the ops director, pretty furious since ABS does a lot of business with this car rental agency and they were also trying to rip me off with some ridiculous prices and harassing me about getting the payments ahead of time. After getting the price settled between both parties and paying my debts like a Lannister, I felt much better. So the chaotic afternoon around Olongapo city continued..
Welcome to Olongapo, where time and rules are thrown out the window when you pass through the gates of the city.
And if you haven't seen or been on one of these before, you're looking at a jeepney. People hop on and off of these open taxi-like cars and are packed in like sardines as you can see. If you get stuck driving behind one, consider your day over. I had the opportunity to ride in these all over Thailand.
Everywhere you go, people will tell you "sorry ma'am or sir" or "thank you ma'am or sir". It's ridiculous that people here think it's appropriate to use that a million times in a sentence and that by saying sorry, it makes everything better, when in reality, they haven't resolved anything for you. And don't expect anyone to return your phone calls because that's a bunch of bs.
In any case, alas, lunch was upon us. Since it was already past 2 PM, most of the restaurants had already closed their kitchen. We were able to grab food at a place in the mall that served Korean bbq. After the stressful day we had, it was nice to unload and go to town at the restaurant. Hello short ribs, kim chi and mango shakes once again.
Our last stop for the day was paying off a cell phone bill for Mike at the local vendor in the mall. As we were waiting, I noticed this sign which is so indicative of how things operate here in the Philippines.
Initially I read this sign at serving 0 people even though there was 1 at the counter. But in looking at this again, it could mean serving customer #1, 2, 3 etc At Counter 1, 2, 3 etc. In any case, thought it was funnier reading it the way I initially interpreted the sign.
We returned to work at 4:30 PM, just in time to pack up and go home. Despite not being at work all afternoon, I would say we earned more than our share of putting up with the shenanigans of Subic and Olongapo. This is why I could never live here permanently.
After work, I was able to finally get a gym membership at one of two gyms in the area at a place called Brookes. It's a very basic gym and only a small room, yet costs the same as it does at home for a monthly membership ($60). What's up with that? And of course, the moment I get on the machine, a trainer comes up to me and asks for my name, then walks away. Great, nice to meet you too! I used that to my advantage though when my face was about to explode from using the bike machine after 10 minutes and not having sufficient air conditioning. I went up to the trainer and was like, I am dying here! Can you please turn up the AC? As a local would say, I was like, sorry sir, I'm just not used to this weather like you guys are. And more AC is what I got (though I would turn it down an extra 5-6 deg C if I really had it my way).
I skipped dinner since we had a late lunch and was still pretty full, though did manage to pick up more snacks at the local Royal store including a variety of dried mangos. So far, I like the CEBU brand the most. They taste just like the Philippine Mangos sold at Costco.
What a day. I'm out.
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