22nd: The Dream Team of Tokyo Wasters was reunited in Kobe, for a night out before our flight to Manila. We met some crazy characters in several bars; two comic guys in a small white dance bar, and a Japanese girl Megan in a bar appropriate entitled Second Chance, at around 4am. She taught us our game of the trip, a Japanese chugakko game involving multiples of five (more fun than it sounds, I swear). We slept about 5am, and were up two hours later, full of pain and suffering, to get our flight to Manila.
23rd: Manila was chaotic; people walking the streets trying to sell all manner of things, and a kid opposite where we were staying playing with a rocket launcher! Being there on Christmas Eve eve, we were lucky enough to find several outdoor music venues, as well as a bigger concert taking place in a square near the sea front. We had several drinks in this area, before my body gave up on me and we slept at the early time of 1am. Of particular note, as anyone who's been to Manila will know, are the bright and
colourful jeepneys pictured; a peculiarity of the Philippines.24th: The next day we travelled to El Nido, climbing into a plane that smelt far too much of gasoline, and was about the size of my bathroom (not very big). A couple of hours later we were in El Nido, a small seaside town that would be our home for the next few days. We were to meet all sorts of characters, filipino and foreign. There were the French people; Jeremy and his girlfriend, Maxim, Camille, "the band" of Wayne, Ryan, Christian and
Christopher, and our particular friends from Roxas; Grace, Francis the teacher, the gay teacher, the lady-boy, crazy Iain and Regie. Plus there was loony Bob from Cyprus, who spent all of one evening complaining about the EU, much to our amusement.Christmas Day was spend lying on a beach eating pizza and drinking- just about the best way to spend Christmas I can think of. We had the entire beach to ourselves, as we'd chartered a boat to take us there, and it was
great. That evening we drank like fishies, eating with our French friends first before going to a music bar and then a Filipino bar, the only place left with lights and music in the quiet town, the racous cries of merry filipinos ringing out into the night. It was there we first met our friends. We went back to their hotel, drank talked and played guitar till late. The stars that night were absoutely amazing; so bright, like a blanket of lights thrown across the sky.The next few days were spent exploring various islands; the
snorkelling was just about the best I've ever seen, with varied coral, beautiful fishies, and two lagoons that were unlike anything else. We hung out with the band guys quite a lot- they are a Filipino band that play a peculiar and repetitive catalogue of songs at the towns main tourist bar. They dedicated Englishman in El Nido by Sting to us :) However after a couple of days the dulcit tones of The Police, U2 and Bob Marley (all they EVER play) started to get old. Only Bob's stories of transporting entire zoo's of animals round the horn of Africa, or shipments of 
bananas from New Orleans to San Fran through Panama, back and forth, kept the bar interesting.Another memorable character was Julia the Hun, a teutonic nightmare of Swiss-German origin, who runs the Art Cafe in El Nido, and decided to hate us from day one. As the Art Cafe is the hub of El Nido, and the best place for breakfast, it was hard to avoid her.
Overall El Nido is a strange, strange place. We met so many odd characters in our few days there, some fantastic, others nasty, and yet more simply odd. Only the French people were relatively normal, but it was fun to hang out with a bunch of Filipinos, even if by the end of our stay we were probably both singing Sting in our sleep.
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