Today was quite a disappointment. We went to a shopping area next to a huge Catholic church that had about 200 little shops but only 4 different products were sold. I could have bought mobile phone accessories, knock-off designer bags, cheap and ugly looking jewelry, or no-name electronic devices (DVD players, MP3 players, stereo receivers, etc.). I was planning on buying souvenirs for people, so I feel very bad that I won�t be bringing anything back for anybody. There really wasn’t anything that I would have wanted to give someone.

We set up our “meeting place” at Jolly Bee in case any one of the party got separated from the group during the shopping. It was a three story shopping area, and Jolly Bee was on the top floor. The shops on each floor were much like a flea market set up with small booths. The isles were pretty tight, and there were a lot of people shopping. I think we were the only white people in the whole building, so we got quite a few stares.

I took a couple laps around to see if I could find a unique store, then headed back to Jolly Bee to find a missionary eating at a table. I went and sat down with him and said “hi” and then after that we didn’t speak for about 5 minutes. During that time I was taking in all that was going on around me. (I wish I had taken a picture, but it didn’t seem appropriate at the time.) Picture walking through the front door of a McDonald’s to see 50 people standing directly in front of you all waiting to place their order at the counter. There are no lines, just a mob of people elbowing their way to the front. When you look to your right, you see a mostly open-walled room with seating for about 200. There are about 2 empty chairs in the entire room, and about 20 more people with trays of food circling like vultures for a someone to relinquish their seat. There is American music playing over the sound system, but it’s not something you would really notice because there is so much other noise from people talking, timers in the kitchen going off, and announcements of orders that are ready. When you finally find a seat, it seems like every 30 seconds to a minute, you get bumped by someone walking by you in the narrow aisles.

The missionary broke our 5 minutes of silence with a question that I will remember for the rest of my life because of the realization that I came to by answering it. He asked with a smirk, “Don’t you miss the jungle?”

We made an unexpected stop at KFC on the way back to the guesthouse, and that made me late for the 3 pm phone call from Lindsey (a missionary that I met in Colorado and now serving outside of Manila). She didn’t try to call back until 4:30 or 4:45 pm and by then it was too late for her to drive here to hang out. She said the traffic gets really bad on Fridays, so instead of the usual 45 minutes to get here, it would take more like 3 or 4 hours. We chatted on the phone for a little while and then said goodbye. The rest of the evening I sat around in the lounge playing golf on my PSP then checked my email and went to bed to write in my journal.

Tomorrow is gonna be a long day. If we get up at 6 am Saturday, and land at LAX 10 am Sunday, then that will be 28 hours of being awake, not including the drive back to Temecula.