Wednesday....

I managed to open a bank account today...no mean feat given the hoops that HSBC wanted me to jump through to have the privilege of giving them my money to look after....rude, unhelpful and arrogant are just three words I would use to describe the customer service agents who I variously spoke to...so I gave up...and went elsewhere...obviously my patience levels are diminishing with age...when it took me three and a half hours to open my bank account with HSBC in Amman I just shrugged my shoulders and said "Inshallah"....no longer...

And the evening was spent with Spike, dinner at TGI Friday's and a little bookshopping after...talking with Spike was as interesting as last time...a person who lives a life as far removed as mine as is possible....the connections are there...Hong Kong, blogging and reading....but even within those similarities we are totally different! He brought me a little HKG care package...a copy of bc magazine and HK magazine....just a little touch of home and very much appreciated! After dinner we dropped into a book store and Spike introduced me to his latest read....so I picked up a copy, it's something totally different from what I normally read...so will see what I think! It was good to get out of work at a reasonable time and to leave 'my building'...third time this week....definitely progress....I just hope I didn't whinge too much over dinner about being in Manila....in summary...."You'd have to be mad to be a single, Caucasian female and move to Manila"!!....

I took the following picture of a row of recycled notebooks, in the bookstore after dinner....I felt it portrayed some of the idiosyncracies that one comes across in the Philippines....