Mornings At Banawe

1:28pm Wednesday 12 March 2008 Manila (gmt+8)

Almost every morning I wake up at around 6am... I have a shower and I'm usually out and about by 6:30. Banawe's usually a busy street, jam packed with SUV's and taxi cabs... but before 7am it looks pretty dormant. So much so that you can literally walk in the middle of the street. But I have no intention of doing that. Hehehe!

It takes a while, but it's a good idea to know you're route by heart because it can be like walking through an obstacle course. Unlike the streets and sidewalks of China, US and Australia... here in Manila there's very few proper sidewalks so you are very likely to walk on and around the road itself. One of the things you have to watch out for are those huge open manholes. They're big enough for me to fit in (And that's big!!!) and if you fall into one of those you either get sucked into the sewerage pipes... or you get stuck like a rubber plug. And either way, you'd smell like poo! Hehehe! Then there are those semi-permanent roadworks. They're fine as they are, but usually whenever they open up part of the road water starts leaking out and it can get awfully muddy and slippery. Hehehe!

My first stop is usually Jollibee. Yep, no surprises there. Hehehe! After breakfast I drop by the Laundromat to have my dirty clothes washed. I obviously don't have to go there everyday, but whenever I do I make sure I  drop my clothes on or around 8am because if I get my laundry there that early I can have them ready by 3 in the afternoon. Coolness!

Then I just keep walking towards the other end of Banawe. I always walk past Causeway, which is one of my most fave Chinese restaurants in the world. Yeah, no kidding! It's at par with Sky Phoenix and even better than those restaurants that I've been to in China. Then I walk a bit further to Starbucks. And that's where I have my morning coffee. That's where I work on my laptop, like editing pictures and updating my website. That's where I am right now actually. Hehehe! And that completes my morning routine while being here in Banawe. :)