A day in my non-working work trip

So here I am, at the summer capital, the city atop a plateau, freezing my nuts off in my hotel room. I'm supposed to be working, but whenever I'm here, I just lose it and go into vacation mode. I know, I should really be earning my keep especially since the company is paying for all my expenses while I'm here, but I just can't bring myself to function.

One thing that I've been doing plenty of since I got here, though, is watching the television. They've got the Discovery Channel, the one channel that has got me glued for hours on my ass while I'm watching it. (Of course, if there were a Playboy Channel here, then that would be an entirely different story) I've just watched an hour long special on World War 2 in Europe, and then another full hour on the Pacific Theater. After that, the guys from Mythbusters come along and before I know it, I missed a whole networking affair that I'm supposed to tag along to.

I wonder what my boss will say when and if he finds out?

*****

It's a Friday night, I'm alone in a city teeming with bars and cheap beer, I've got a hotel room all to myself, and yet, I'm here writing this blog. Why? From my hotel room window, I can count 8 bars, in varying levels of sleaziness/classiness and my pick of alternative, pop, house, r&b, country (think John Denver) or classical music. (Classical is how I define the works of Elton John, Barry Manilow, Air Supply, et al)

Well, my first excuse is that I'm trying to detox myself from cigarettes and alcohol. I've only had like 5 sticks of cigarettes for the day and only 2 bottles of beer since Wednesday. Plus, those two bottles were half-heartedly drank because they were offered to me by my boss, a 73 year old man who could probably out-drink me. The second excuse is that the last time I went out drinking all by myself in this city, I ended up painting the town red with another dude who I had sort of picked up in a bar. Not gonna happen again, I hope. My last excuse, which is my least favorite, really, is that I need to lose a few dozen pounds.

*****

This afternoon, after having watched too much television and realizing that I missed out on the cocktail party at the country club, I decided to don my running shoes and go for a walk. I didn't really know where I wanted to go, but thought that I just needed to get out of my hotel room for an hour or two.

It started out nicely, there's a little downward slope from the hotel to the park, which was a breeze. Then I tracked the jeepneys to the flea market and decided to take a look-see there. The whole building was occupied by these stalls of second hand or knock-off bags, shoes, jackets, shirts and various other stuff. I went around the market, then on to the second floor, then to the third, and was surprised that there was even a fourth floor! Of course, by the time I went up the third floor I had already decided that there was no way the city engineer would declare this building to be structurally sound and safe so I dared not go up another step.

So I went out and thought of going up the main avenue of the city.

Did I mention that the city was built on top of a mountain, and that all roads were either going up or down... steeply?

So I went up the main avenue, and found myself cramping up midway. This was just how badly out of shape I was. I tried to walk it off briskly, but it was really tightening up uncomfortably now that I had to stop and stretch out. This was when I realized that I had walked some distance and was now sweating. I had to make a decision, whether to go back or continue on to some random destination. I figured I might as well check out the mall, which was maybe a quarter of a kilometer ahead.

I limped up the slope and finally made it to the mall's entrance, where I felt the irony of craving for an ice cream when in the midst of the cool mountain air and while consciously trying to get my weight down. So I didn't get a cone, nor did I buy a smoothie which was the next best thing. I did grudgingly buy some bottled water and lit a cigarette.

*****

The walk back to the hotel was quite surprising, now that I was finally able to sort of gauge how far I walked. It was probably a good 12 kilometers to and fro, not bad for an afternoon walk, without the ice cream. Of course, as soon as I got into my hotel room, I quickly slid into the familiar grooves on the bed and lovingly handled the remote control.

Some days, you just wish would never end.