Blogging Meetup — Driving For Fun
Yesterday my lovely asawa (wife) Mita (the UnofficialCook) and I went to lunch with a fellow blogger, Yuga, a guy I have been reading for years but had never had a chance to meet before. We drove from our home in Bulacan to Makati … the central business district of Manila and met up at a restaurant in Greenbelt 3 … one of the Ayala Corporations showplace shopping malls.
We traveled on the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX), one of the Philippines few good roads (toll fee about 82 cents US). From there we made our way along EDSA (Epifanio de los Santos Avenue) one of Manila’s most famous(infamous) main arteries.
There’s plenty of covered parking at 
Greenbelt for a nominal 30 pesos (about $0.65 cents US), but because of the street we approached don we chose on-street parking for the same price. Unlike US cities where you need change for parking meters, can never find it when you need it and often face hostile signs in nearby stores proclaiming “we don’t give change for parking meters”, in Manila a neatly uniformed parking officer will stroll up to you, take your money and hand you an official receipt with your maximum allowe
d time written on the paper so you don’t forget. Also 30 pesos.
Lunch at Italiani’s restaurant was great, 1500 pesos ($32USD) all in for the three of us. What a great conversation we enjoyed. All too soon we had to part and then wend our way home again to Bulacan. On the way home it rained so my shiny car is speckled now … if it’s sunny tomorrow I’ll treat it to a car wash at my full-service inside and out wash place around the corner from me, about $1.73, all hand washing except, of course, the vacuum and the shampoo sprayer.
Life in the “Third World” isn’t always so tough, you see.
Related posts:
- Some More Thoughts On Driving
- Driving Around With A Purpose
- Blogging And Real Life — In The Philippines Or Elsewhere
- Driving
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