A new life and a very worrying trend developing....

Well, I have only gone and done it.... I had my farewell drinks at the local pub near the end of March 2013, said goodbye to a lot of friends and completed the packing. On the 29th March, I boarded the Hong Kong bound flight from London Heathrow. I was fortunate that having travelled extensively for a previous job I was in possession of a lot of airmiles, which I used to purchase a one way First Class ticket, something that I could not justify for myself if I were to have purchased it with cash.

The seat was very comfortable, with plenty of leg room
and an added bonus of two windows, which I couldn't
see out of as they were too far forward, isn't life a
b*@#h at the front of the plane??

You can just see the window above, the blind is down
something allowed throughout the flight including
takeoff and landing.

The Cathay Pacific Business Class seat, not so big, but a nice size monitor

After a long flight, a traumatic transfer in Hong Kong from BA to Cathay, where I lost my unused Zeneca umbrella with a wooden handle, a rare beast which was liberated from a publicity store many years earlier (it got left behind at one of the check-in desks) I arrived in Manila late in the afternoon, Kat was waiting to greet me outside arrivals (the public are not allowed into the terminal to greet arriving passengers), it was really good to see her again, after all we hadn't been together for 18 months or so.

Night view out of our hotel window

After dumping my bags in a nearby hotel, we went out for a brief walk to a local bar to have a beer and chat about all the gossip and stuff. This was a great time to reacquaint ourselves with each other with no pressure, the bar had a band playing later in the evening, which made talking a bit difficult, so we went back to the hotel. 

The day time view

 The next day, we went shopping for a few essentials, wedding rings, made to measure suit for me and a couple of bicycles for us to get fit. The proximity of the hotel to SM Mall of Asia (MoA) made all this an absolute doddle. It was around this time that the temperature in April in Manila began to hit me, it was about 30 degrees C hotter here than back in Haslemere, Surrey. This by the way is an observation, not a complaint!!

Once the shopping was done, we met up with one of Kat's friends at the same bar as the night before, I had not had the privilege of meeting Armin before, so this was really good.

On the Monday we departed the hotel to drive down to Laguna and start our new life together in a small rented house in Bel Air a short distance from Santa Rosa Techno Park and close to a main arterial route running south from Manila (South Luxon EXpressway or SLEX). On the way we stopped off at Alabang to collect my new bank card and other bits for a proper Filipino bank account. We arrived at the house around lunch time to find Kat's parents had opened up and prepared us some lunch. After we had exchanged greetings, they left us to settle in.

Sadly shopping was far from over, Kat and I went off to a nearby mall to explore the options of refrigerators and washing machines now that we had the opportunity to measure up the available space. Budget constraints meant that we had to get the essentials first and worry about comfort later, so we got a frige first, leaving the air con and washing machine till later. Fortunately Kat had already purchased some items, a rice cooker, toaster oven, coffee machine and a turbo broiler, no I had never heard of it either.
The gates to the subdivision are guarded 24/7, just outside there is a Maccie D and 7-Eleven, just in case we run out of anything, which can include pancakes for breakfast....Also at the gate are innumerable "Tricycles" which function as short distance taxis, but more about these later, as that is a whole other story.