FLYING TO MANILA - Her First Impressions

Just checked in. Have a look at this. This is our dining room and or our lounge even. This is such a nice room and look it connects. I don't even know if you've seen this yet. It connects two. Oh cool. Yeah and then. Nice view. Double shower is it? Ah toilet. So we've got two toilets. Not bad. That's pretty good. And free cookies. Don't turn on the heater. Welcome back to the Philippines. I'm in Manila on the top of the Novotel Araneta rooftop and for those of you that have followed me for a while you might recognize this place. I came here about a year and a half ago and made a video about this whole hotel and once I knew I was coming back to the Philippines I spoke to them again and they invited me back which is really nice. So we're here for the next couple of days while we are around Manila. It's a fairly stormy day today. I don't know if you can see but it's just started raining. It's looking pretty dark everywhere so we're making the most of that by doing some work. We're in the business center here and me and Olivia are just cracking on doing a bit of grafting. Back to Manila. Oh yeah. How are you doing? Good. Good having that coffee. Yeah after that long flight. You need it, I need it. We flew from Helsinki two days ago and then had the 18-hour stopover in Dubai which was filming and doing lots of stuff and then we had a 10-hour flight last night to get here today. The flight only landed a couple of hours ago and in that time probably got a couple of hours of sleep to budget airlines to get here which makes things cheaper but also not so comfortable like you know no entertainments or meals or blankets but we're here which is the main thing so like I said we're using this day to do a bit of work and then we're going to head out and explore some of Manila. Manila, Manila, Manila, Manila. I would love to give you more of an update other than the fact that we've been sat here for the last three or four hours doing a bit of work but that's what we chose to do today. I think sometimes you have to stop and do work and get on with things and that's something I've tried to say a lot before in my previous videos that if you're going to do this full-time then you need to take days out and do a bit of work and this business lounge has given us a good opportunity to do that. That being said it's now five o'clock and at this hotel they do a five to seven free flow cocktail and beer thing so that's what we're getting involved in and I think we have a nice dinner here tonight as well. Gonna do some casual drinky work stuff now and then have dinner. I don't know, nothing else to update on. So evening, there is lots. Spaghetti, I bet you're in noodles as well as they've got braised beef, beef carneretta. And then there's the salad section, the sushi section. Well this is a solid starter but even more solid main and dessert of course. Let's go. First day in the Philippines, back in Manila. We're just having a relaxed day heading out into the city. I'm gonna go around a couple malls because we've got a few things to buy. One of the great things about Manila is Uber and Grab. It's just so easy everywhere. It hits you like a warm sponge to the face. Bit nuts, we were trying to go two kilometers and it's taken about 45 minutes. Yeah it's rainy and there's lots of traffic but that's half of what you can expect in January in Manila I guess because of the weather. Yeah we're almost there but that's why I think using Uber is really good because you get comfort, air conditioning and you can chill out. If you're out on the bike or a jeepney or whatever you're pretty much exposed to the elements. Anyway, almost there. Thank you. Thank you. It's a little bit wet, just a little bit. All part of the fun. So what were we doing in the end on our first day in Manila? Buying Olivia a laptop. Her one broke a few weeks ago and it's off warranty but it means being able to do no work. It's loud. So instead... Yeah a cheap one. We just came back to Novotel and it's time for our lunch here. We're in the gourmet bar and if any of you watched my original video from here you might know what's coming up next but without spoiling it I'm in for a bit of a challenge. Are you ready? How are you feeling? I am so ready. I cannot wait to eat all that. I probably won't eat all that but just dive in. Remember I showed you the photo of this before? You were like oh my god oh my god that's such a huge ice cream and now I get a chance to try it. I think it's us. Oh wow. Yeah yeah okay well Are you ready? Thank you. Oh my god. It is huge. Yeah. It is huge. It's like wait it's like I can't even lift it. Why did you open this up? I don't know it's 21 scoops. It's like doing like... It blocks out my head. So hi this is me and I'm together with this ice cream today. I don't think I'm getting any of this. I think it's a size. I get this spoon to eat and Olivia gets this bowl to scoop it up. Let's just see if I can pick this up. Okay yeah okay it's pretty heavy. Okay here it is. All right let's see how we do. Gotta get the gram. By the way Olivia's Instagram will be down there somewhere. Go have a look. It's probably going to be lots of photos of this and then her in a bikini. All right we just spent the last few minutes getting our shots but now after we catch the camera again we need to continue with this before it melts. Let's do it. I think it's the ice cream frenzy. Okay are you ready? Oh I'm not having it in that small bowl. No that's good. It's not just the ice cream here. There's the macaroons, the wafers. It's gone. I think we're out. Decent attempt though I think. After 15 minutes there's only a few scoops left. I think that's pretty good. Mostly you. Not true. Oh my head hurts. Okay we need to go lay down. We're in the airport now and we're about to leave Manila already. It was just two days there and now we're heading off to a new island that I've never been to before called Tablas. Hold that thought. So for me I love the Philippines and that's why I wanted to come back here when I had this chance. We actually only have about 10 days spare before the next place we need to be but I wanted to come back and spend that in the Philippines. But for Olivia it was her first time here so let me hit you. First impressions of Manila? First impressions of the city? It's crazy. It's chaos, crazy traffic, very busy and very crowded. Has beautiful skyscrapers and a nice view from the top so I like that. I liked all the, how do you call them, jeepneys? Yeah. Oh my god that's amazing. It's really amazing. I have to get on one. We didn't get any this time because we were rushing around the city and we used Uber because basically we had to go and do some errands but I think it's a cool experience. We'll get on some jeepneys in the future. Yeah I think it's cool. What about people? People are super friendly and super lovely and very attentive and always happy and smiling and it gives you like a very nice feeling when you talk to them or when you, I don't know. Also Olivia loves karaoke so she was very excited to hear about the videoke here. I cannot wait. For those of you that don't know, karaoke and videoke is a big thing in the Philippines. It's like a fun hobby so we'll probably be doing that in the next video somewhere. We need to head off and jump on our flight to Tablas now so check back for that. Thank you for watching and this is my life.