Where's Scott?

After realizing that we were in Manila for a few more days for Mabel’s visa, we immediately headed out for some “real” beer and pork – both at best scarce and expensive, or at worst unavailable, in Malaysia. We ask the doorman for a direction to walk and within a block have found a Karioke bar tended by women dressed as schoolgirls with beer so cheap that it’s only slightly more than the can deposit in Michigan! After swilling $2 Tiger beers in Sempora, San Miguel (who monopolizes the beer industry in the Philippines) was a godsend! We fended off the approaches of the “17 year old girls” urging us to buy them drinks or flowers (and since 30 year old Philippino girls look 17 in granny clothes, it felt like fending off 12 year olds!), and focused on quenching our pent up thirst for barley and hops while waiting for Mabel’s friend to to drive into town and join us. It didn’t take long before the Karioke song list was passed around, and since we were drinking on an empty stomach, we were quickly drunk and stupid enough to start reading it…

Let me put it this way, everyone who’s not Philippino will quickly hate (read “envy”) the fact that Philippinos can all sing – they sing along to songs on the radio, in the mall, restaurants, anywhere… and this means that they’re generally good signers, much better than the average American, and light-years ahead of either Seb or myself; so when Seb started scaring small animals with his first 3 choice picks, I was seriously impressed when the only couple who bolted the scene in apparent pain were a German couple — all the Philippinos stayed, and even gave Seb a polite applause! Of course, they proceeded to put us all immediately to shame, and we realised just how outclassed we really were… (nowithstanding the humiliation, I managed to somehow end up with the mike when “It’s really hard to be a woman” came on :>)

Once Lizel had joined us, we hit the clubs. No tourists here, Lizel and Mabel knew the good local joints. I’ll have to admit it, the Philippinos definitely have a sense of humor! It was Model Night, but Seb and I were a bit peeved when the models all turned out to be 20 year old Philippino boys; but the joke was on us. After strutting around the stage for a few minutes in pouty model fashion, all the models tore off their clothes to reveal nappy diapers, and then continued the show as if nothing had changed! Awesome! It was going to be like this all night, Manila clearly knew how to spice up a Wednesday night.