Short trip over the weekend. Cute little city. Recommended.

The Solitude palace near Stuttgart. Not too shabby, eh?

A couple of pictures from a recent walk/hike in the hills surrounding Stuttgart.

Ok now I’m starting to get a bit sad about my approaching departure. Spent the morning with Jeepney rides to the post office and am now sitting in a mall cafe, killing time. In my previous posts on Manila I’ve mainly shown the poor and shabby parts of the cities. That’s because those are the parts that are new, strange and interesting to me. Yet there are other parts to the metro as well.

Sitting at the airport in Puerto Princesa, waiting for my flight to Manila. Scheduled to leave the country tomorrow in the afternoon. My life back home seems really far at the moment, not only geographically. From the moment I left FRA, it felt like I was traveling again and time was of lesser concern. Right now I’m ready for some rest. My back is stiff like a brick from too many hours of sitting in too small vehicles on bumpy roads.

Something a lot of people recommend as a Manila activity is a visit to Chinatown. It is supposed to be an interesting sight and a feast for the palate. The latter was my main motivation for going. Getting there took a while but in the end was quite easy, thanks to good directions by the hostel staff. Trains were a bit on the crowded site. Being at least a head taller than anybody else, I was the only one with fresh air in there.

I’m too tall for public transportation in Asia. For most of the five hour ride from El Nido, my knees were stored at weird angles against the seatback in front of me. The driver did his best to make the ride a short one and piloted the vehicle across gravel and tarmac in a way that would have put Colin McRae to shame and seemed to defy the laws of physics.

There is countless things to do in El Nido. Island hopping, diving, climbing - but why all the stress. I rented a motorbike (aka a 125cc scooter) and went with Efren, a local couchsurfer, to a beach about 45 minutes out of town. The place isn’t very far but the “roads” (Feldweg in German) suggest a slow pace. The surf was good and playing in the waves brought up childhood memories of summer vacations on a Danish island.

Having this view when looking from the balcony makes me almost forget my hangover.

During my stay in AD I had joined Omar, who was shooting a video showing random people dancing to the song “Happy” by Iforgotthenameagain. The video is now online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=audy0aHjdyg I think it’s really well done. Yours truly has a short appearance around 3:40. Dancing in the streets of Abu Dhabi!