It’s All Fun and Games until Jetlag Smacks You in the Face

Going to Manila was fun – I got to experience my childhood home once again, after being away for 19 years. The city has certainly changed, both in good and bad ways, and places I remembered from childhood seemed less impressive after all those years. About the only thing that didn’t change is the abundance of great food, especially green mangoes and halo-halo (Filipino dessert made out of crushed ice and 1,000 other ingredients mixed together). I had a good time overall and was glad to be heading home after two weeks.

The flight back was pretty uneventful, spiced up by some turbulence on the flight from Seoul to LAX. Unlike boats and other watercraft, airplane turbulence doesn’t give me motion sickness. Get a couple of waves under a boat, though, and I turn green. (I have to take Dramamine for most boat rides.) The flight home was also spiced up by a passenger wearing the most ridiculous outfit: a black and white velour sweatsuit with “babe” written on the backside, punctuated by a diamond-encrusted belly ring protruding from her big gut. It was impossible not to notice this woman as she made her way through the transfer terminal in Seoul. Hey, if you want to get noticed this is the thing to wear, and it screams “I am five years behind trends and I am oblivious!”

I got back on Sunday, and thankfully had the next two days off from work. It’s amazing the amount of things that need to get done on “days off”, and I am always exhausted on days like these. For starters, there was loads of laundry that needed to be washed – not just from the trip but dirty clothes that accumulated before taking off for Manila. Then there were the appointments to see the dentist, to get my hair cut (see Picture of the Day above), followed by a million errands. Somehow I also managed to squeeze in a 5-mile run on each day, leaving me exhausted yet unable to get a full nights’ rest due to jet lag. My body’s crazy – I cannot carry on a coherent conversation after 8 pm but I am wide awake ready to face the day at 3 am. I will probably have sleep issues for the rest of the week, which is inevitable when you come back from a place that is 15 hours ahead.

I have five belated posts still to come from my trip to the Philippines, which I will start posting tomorrow. Honestly, there were so many places to go and people to see during my time in Manila, and I am surprised that I have not yet crawled under my desk for a nap after all this.