Cebu

Re-reading my blog to see what I haven't mentioned yet about the last couple of months. One of the things I got up to was a trip to Cebu in the Philippines, courtesy of work. It was one of these incentive trips to keep the sales guys happy, and since I am doing their administrational backup I was allowed to come along.

Normally these weekends are very boozy affairs. Lots of alcohol, lots of bad-boy trouble, noisy, obnoxious. None of that this time, or at least very little. Already the guys here are more mature in a way than most of the sales guys in the London offices. So it ended up being a really nice, relaxed weekend at the Mactan Shangri-La resort.

It started off well on thursday night. Upon arrival at the airport it turned out that only half of us had a ticket. The payment for the seconf half of the team had not gone trough and the person in London doing the booking had professionally ignored all warnings. So Joris, the guy with the company credit card, had to take out 15000 HKD to get us all to the Philippines.

We arrived in Cebu airport at 315 in the morning. Not an ideal time to arrive anywhere, and certainly not there. Our hotel was only booked from Friday night, so we had to find a way to pass the time untilt he room was available for check-in. Told the driver of the shuttle bus to the hotel to take our bags there, and drop us off at the casino.

The casino was... 'interesting'. When you think casino, you think in Vegas terms. Not this one. In the lobby some people were watching soaps on tv. The casino itself was like a third-world version of a casino, everything looked a bit old and run down. Including the guests. But hey, we had a blast! My colleague Kelly got a jackpot at the slot machine, loads of coins came out so she thought her expenses for the weekend were sorted. Until she found out the next day that with all these winnings she could just about get a Club Sandwich at the hotel...

Jiro, Ceri, Kelly and myself left the place early to see whether we could check in at the hotel before time. Kelly and I had to wait for an hour for our room, so we walked down to the beach. Beautiful. It was just before the actual sunrise, so picture pink- orange skies with a few clouds, over a deserted beach with blue, clear water. All we could hear were birds, the soft sound of the waves and occasionally a fish jumping out of the water.

The hotel itself is a fairly large affair, with a lobby that looks like the set of a 1960's Bond movie. Open on all sides without windows, so birds fly through and the air is always fresh. The room was similar, true tot he Shangri-La's reputation of style and comfort.

That evening, after a day of relaxing on the beach and some snorkling, we went for dinner at the restaurant of Abacà, the resort a bit further down the road. Must have been some of the best food I've had, in a lush setting with a beautifully planted garden all around.

After that: clubbing. Now that was an experience. We ended up in a club that played brilliant R&B and hiphop, with one of the most mixed audiences you can imagine. Straight, gay, young girls with old white guys... the works. Some guys ended up in a tittybar down the road, the group fell apart, but we all had a great time ;)

Saturday: swim a bit, snorkle, relax on the beach. Then dinner at the famous seafood restaurant at the Shangri-La, and then clubbing again. As soon as we entered the club the guys were struck by a girl with pneumatic breasts that were almost popping out of her dress, dancing on a little stage. I got the picture right away, but it took them quite some time to catch up on the fact that this was in fact not a girl. As a matter off act, about haf the girls in there were in fact guys - or somewhere in the process of changing from male to female.

Great night though, danced until I was soaking wet. Next day: relax on the beach. At some point it started to rain, we were all sitting by the beach bar under the umbrella trying to keep dry until Jiro and I decided to just give up and run into the sea. So we did, but one of the guys from the hotel did seem a bit panickey and was urging us to get out of the water. We went back to the table, were making jokes about the sea being struck by lightning etc, when all of a sudden there was the brightest flash of lightning, it was as if someone was standing right next to us with a camera flash. We all shut up in suprise, and before we could say anything there was the thunder: one single bang, louder than any thunderbolt you've ever heard before. It must have been right above our heads. Pretty impressive!

Not much to tell after that. Back to HK, arrived shortly before midnight. Nice weekend, enjoyed it big time. It was the first chance I had to really talk to most of the people I work with, they're a great bunch.