A dry, sunny morning. My iPhone has conked out completely--it must be the voltage here, because I just know that it will surely charge properly and work again when I get home. Now thinking of switching back to Samsung, which seems more Asia-friendly. I unfortunately left the Seiko kinetic watch that my brother-in-law Maning gave me back home, but, strangely, I have learned to tell the time by the light of the sun and cast shadows.
A lot of men are traveling up and down the streets on motorized skateboards. I recall that, when people first used them in the Philippines, there was a furor--the same furor years ago when students started using calculators in classrooms and the same furor years later when the first cell phones appeared on the market. Filipino businessmen always get upset when they become too comfortable and then are threatened by new things for sale. That is why I am all for drastic changes in government. It keeps everyone in check, in rotation.
Anyway--Philippine sidewalks are meant neither for walking nor for skateboarding. But, then again, neither are the streets. Owners of motorized skateboards in the Philippines use their skateboards INDOORS, such as in supermarkets. Sadly, they look like disabled persons traveling on stand-up wheelchairs.
On the deck outside the hotel dining area the food supply man is smoking again. His wife works here, and he has a network of relatives servicing other hotels. The breakfast room is open from 6:00 AM through 10:30 AM weekdays, and 6:00 AM through 11:00 AM weekends. It is 8:25 AM now.
At 8:42 I am resting in my room watching a Jackie Chan movie. I am not a tourist, and, other than Chinatown and Little India on past visits, and the Merlion Park (is what I call it) where Morcel brought me two visits ago I have seen nothing else of Singapore and have no intention of changing that. Everyone has been urging me to go see Marina Bay Sands Hotel (but why should I want to see a hotel I neither own nor am staying in?), Sentosa Island, and Universal Studios (SG75 and I have to stay there the whole day to make the most of it). I have also been urged to just ride the train and go round the city, but, again, why would I do that when I can easily do that back home (whenever the trains are working, that is)?
Rain. The blackbirds take shelter. I take more photos of them. As soon as the rain lets up I walk to my favorite 7-11. I take photos of my wet shoe prints on the pavement. I buy a bottle of Pepsi (equivalent to PHP90), two more packs of U Kretek (I have been spending the equivalent of THOUSANDS of pesos on cigarettes by now), and a Toblerone (don't ask). I see the most awesome chandeliers for sale in an Italian lamp shop and wish I could take one home with me.
Sitting outside the cafe again I mull over why I have a lot of free time between work hours, and it is really because:
--I have no housework or chores to do. The hotel staff always picks up after me.
--I am disinterested in exploring the city and its suburbs.
--I do not have a night life.
--I need not look after family or any companion.
I am now thinking of the hotel I was in last year, which had smoking rooms and an interesting staff from the Philippines and from PROC. It was an old-fashioned hotel with bigger rooms, and it had a different kind of charm. It was Grand Hotel minus Greta Garbo.
Despite all this free time I feel that the hours go by ever so quickly. I arrived Saturday morning and it's now Friday, a week has passed, and there already moments in which I wish to be in my house in Cubao again.
Every time I am sitting here I see The Book Cafe across the street (there are similar cafes in the Philippines). If I were living here I'd probably check it out and have an espresso there. As it is I don't want to lose myself in their holdings because I didn't travel all the way here just to browse through books. (Yes, "browse through books" is the origin of "browse".) It has occurred to me to donate to them some of my own books, though.
The housekeeping supervisor gives me a handful of hotel pens to give to my friends back home.
For the second time now the chamber maid is cleaning the room with me inside it, deliberately oblivious to my semi-nudity. Ip Man 3 is showing again on TV.
In the lift, I teach a Filipina maid how to insert her card properly in the slot. Actually I don't know whether she is a Filipina or a maid. I just suddenly blurt out, "Baligtad ang card" and she responds properly.
I drop my reading glasses in the corridor and one of the chamber maids hands them over to me when I emerge from my room again.
E. calls to say he will pick me up in a few minutes.
I go down to my smoking area. A well-dressed man--an executive, Johnny Litton type, coyly asks to borrow my lighter, and I hand my lighter over to him. He smokes there with me and doesn't say a word. He could be Filipino or not. However he keeps throwing furtive glances at me, as though he himself is deliberating whether I am Filipino or not. Before he leaves he places an entire, unopened pack of Marlboro cigarettes on my bag and says, "This is for you." I thank him, and he walks quickly away. Beggars can't be choosers, especially when a Marlboro pack here is in the vicinity of PHP450.
E. and Clarissa arrive. Clarissa takes me to Cedar Girls' Secondary School, where I hold a playwriting workshop for a group of selected, gifted students. Ahmad, who was in one of my main workshops two years ago, is their teacher. I ask him to join the circle toward the end of the session. Ahmad gives Clarissa and me Cedar Girls' teddy bears. I choose the one in the yellow shirt, leaving the one in the blue shirt for Clarissa.
Clarissa and I take a taxi back to the theatre. On the way we encounter hideous traffic--yes, Manila-style traffic! It is just so incredible and now I am wondering whether devils' traffic isn't normal after all.
Dinner at a Chinese coffee shop, followed by the 5th evening of the main workshop. Jacky undergoes an emotional truth exercise.
11:00 PM outside the hotel cafe. I sit with a meteorologist from St. Charles, who works for a school here but is taking a flight to St. Charles tomorrow. We discuss the impending La Nina phenomenon.
Back in my room. Will you believe me if I say that Ip Man is on TV again?
I eat my Toblerone and finish it off with Pepsi, feeling that I've just eaten a bottle of Truffles and washed it down with expensive wine.
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