DAY 5 - BACK TO MANILA

We flew back to Manila without incident – just some delay deplaning because of the strong rain. People are so considerate here! The flight attendants and Air Phil employees ensured that passengers didn’t get wet, escorting them through a covered staircase, then providing umbrellas until we hopped on the bus (The end of the stairway was about 3 inches from the door to the bus. There was literally one guy standing there with an umbrella bridging the gap between the staircase and the door). Tito George picked us up, and toured us through the Fort: Serendra, Market Market (This isn't an error, it's actually called Market Market.), and the surrounding areas. We rested at the hotel for a few hours, and waited for our friend Oliver to arrive. We then headed to Mega Mall to eat lunch. We opted for the food court, thinking it would be the easy and fast choice. Oh man! The food court was huge!!! (Judging by the exclamation points, it seems my mom thought it was three times as huge as any other food court.) It took us a long time just to browse through the choices! We were so confused as to what to eat! Robert settled for some bbq at Reyes which he really liked (It came with a sauce that was exactly like Yoshida's), Rachel for spaghetti at Tropical hut - of which she ate 2 servings and Renne had some goto. Then on to shopping at SM. Yikes! I surrendered from shopping after just going through the children’s section at SM. How can people shop these HUGE malls? I was so tired! And I didn’t even go through the actual mall. I did notice that the sales ladies at Shoemart were still wearing the same uniform they did 21 years ago – what I didn’t realize was that they all wore heavy make up! I guess you had to look quite pretty to work there (According to Tita Claire and Oliver, the employers, especially at malls, are very age biased. You have to be young to work there, and after you get older they demote you to a part time job at most). The kids were tired too and we found some chairs to sit in at Dad’s (a buffet) where we decided we would eat dinner with Renne and Oliver’s families. Back at the hotel, we finished packing and retired for the night. We have another early day tomorrow as we head to Bohol.

Editor's paragraph:
SM Megamall is indescribably big. You kind of have to be there to appreciate just how big it is. It's kind of like its own little self sufficient world in there. I mean, they have their own seperate gym facility, movie theaters (yes plural), ice skating rink, and mall. Yes, I said mall. Cyberzone is a collection of tech stores within SM Megamall, arranged such that the stores form a mall within a mall. Cyberzone has its own escalators, food, and stalls in the middle of the corridor.
Outside in the big mall are little stalls on each of the five floors that sell everything from guitars, to trading cards, to dungeons and dragons dice. There's also one stall that allows you to create a bobblehead out of an image of yourself.