This grey weather seems to be following us around Asia whilst there is a Typhoon the way to us and due around the time we leave Manila on Wednesday night just perfect. We spent the morning and some of the afternoon down alongside the pool where reading and listening to music are the order of the day. After many weeks of running here and there a few days of doing nothing looks good and apart from a trip to to the Seafood Market where you pick your own prawns, crabs, fish etc and then leave it to them to cook and serve is on the cards for Monday lunchtime. Also we thought a trip to the local shopping Mall on Tuesday to see if Jennifer can get a couple of casual long dresses and to be frank that's the only things planned and no tours and/or cultural visits, just relaxation and wait for the flight on Wednesday evening.
During the day we noticed several failure’s in the management of this Hotel which have escalated a bit. Having stayed in a number of Japanese Hotels where almost everything is perfect, this is a bit of a let down and I have already written a letter to the General Manager of the Hotel, lets see what happens next although one of his flunkies has tried to bribe us off with a free ride to the airport. More on this to follow. Its not that I don't know a good Hotel from a bad one when I have experienced perhaps almost 10000 room nights in Hotels around the world
In the evening we visited the lounge and a had a couple of glasses of wine and some rather snacks which is enough for for dinner and then returned to the Hotel room to watch some stuff on Netflix. Yesterday I had noticed a HDMI connecter with information in the Room Information book saying that we can plug in and watch stuff from our PC and all we have to do switch over to HDMI 2. However the remote control his no button to switch over and so a call to reception and a engineer came up and said you have to push this button on the TV and not the remote. I said why does that not appear anywhere on the information booklet and his reply is that we have many different types of TV here and some work from the remote and some don't. Brilliant.
Manila has grown substantially since my last visit with many new Hotels and large office blocks and also several large Casinos. The population of this town is about 13 million, give or take few thousand people.
Manila (/məˈnɪlə/; Filipino: Maynilà, pronounced [majˈnilaʔ] or [majniˈla]), officially the City of Manila (Filipino: Lungsod ng Maynilà[luŋˈsod nɐŋ majˈnilaʔ]), is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the most densely populated cities proper in the world.[3] It was the first chartered city by virtue of the Philippine Commission Act 183 on July 31, 1901 and gained autonomy with the passage of Republic Act No. 409 or the "Revised Charter of the City of Manila" on June 18, 1949.[10]
The Spanish city of Manila was founded on June 24, 1571, by Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi. The date is regarded as the city's official founding date. Manila was also the seat of power for most of the country's colonial rulers. It is home to many historic sites, some of which were built during the 16th century. Manila has many of the Philippines' firsts, including the first university(1590),[11] light station (1642), lighthouse tower (1846), water system (1878), hotel (1889), electricity (1895), oceanarium (1913),[12]stock exchange (1927), flyover (1930s), zoo (1959), pedestrian underpass (1960),[13] science high school (1963),[14] city-run university (1965), city-run hospital (1969), and rapid transit system (1984; also considered as the first rapid transit system in Southeast Asia).[15]
The term "Manila" is commonly used to refer to the whole metropolitan area, the greater metropolitan area or the city proper. The officially defined metropolitan area called Metro Manila, the capital region of the Philippines, includes the much larger Quezon Cityand the Makati Central Business District. It is the most populous region of the country, one of the most populous urban areas in the world,[16] and is one of the wealthiest regions in Southeast Asia.[17][18] The city proper is home to 1,780,148 people in 2015,[6] and is the historic core of a built-up area that extends well beyond its administrative limits. With 71,263 people per square kilometer, Manila is also the most densely populated city proper in the world.[6][7]
The city is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay. The Pasig River flows through the middle of the city, dividing it into the north and south sections. Manila is made up of 16 administrative districts: Binondo, Ermita, Intramuros, Malate, Paco, Pandacan, Port Area, Quiapo, Sampaloc, San Andres, San Miguel, San Nicolas, Santa Ana, Santa Cruz, Santa Mesa and Tondo, while it is divided into six districts for its representation in Congress and the election of the city council members. In 2016, the Globalization and World Cities Research Network listed Manila as an "alpha –" global city.[19]
All this took about 40 minutes to sort and so rather than watch a long fil we watched a couple of episodes on ‘Line of Duty’ series 3. Its a good series .
