March 19th 2015 Davao city- Day 2 Morning activities

I was surprised to see a Ducati dealership here in Davao and even more surprised to see a guy on a ducati just pull in as you can see in front of the young girls. So a few people here have money.

Peoples Park just a few blocks from my hotel.

Inside peoples park where people just sit on benches and relax.

As I walked around I saw a guy selling Pomelos and cutting them up so I bought one for 15 pesos. You can see a few peeled there.

Here is my Pomelo which looks similar to an orange on the inside.

I get up at 5am and head to McDonalds and see that they are closed although they have a big sign advertising that they are open 24/7. I guess that means they are open 24 hours but NOT IN A ROW but more like open 24 hours INTERMITTENTLY and at our discretion depending on how we are feeling at any given moment. 

So I decide to go to Jollibees which is next door and order 2 brewed coffees and notice the tables are dirty and ask them to wash some of them. So a woman comes out and washes down one table for me but didn't seem interested in washing down the others. I watched one guy cleaning trays and he did wipe downs without even looking at the trays to see if they were clean. I drank my coffee that had lovely coffee grounds at the bottom of my cup but the coffee grounds were more like fine black sand at the bottom so I am wondering how they made it and still manage to get coffee grounds in the bottom of my cup as I didn't see a coffee machine in sight. They have big signs on the counter advertising BREWED COFFEE but I have a feeling they are using instant coffee and just mixing it and some of it settles on the bottom. 

Even a couple hours later I still feel I didn't get my morning caffeine fix which I can only get from brewed coffee. This is probably why I never see another westerner in Jollibees and they are always a few at McDonalds because they know they are getting what they want. Many expats have daily meetups at their local McDonalds with other expats in various Philippine towns and I am sure the brewed coffee is the main reason. 

Heading back to my hotel room and some woman walking towards me is smiling with her hands together as if she is in prayer and says "Hello Sir" and then asks the strange question at 7am of "Sir, do you like chicks?" and at that point I realize she is a prostitute and I politely say "no thank you". There are a lot of foreigners that only come here for that sort of thing and they are known as SEXPATS instead of EXPATS. Most of them go to Angeles city which is north of Manila which is like the Pattaya of Thailand full of bargirls who are prostitutes there. 

At 7:30am I decide to head back to McDonalds to see if they are open yet and a McDonalds employee opens the door and tells me they are having troubles with the exhaust fan which is why they are not open and I tell him "I NEED MCDONALDS COFFEE BADLY!!! Where can I find the closest McDonalds from here?" and he laughs and points and say "4 blocks down this road" which I find and have my 2 cups of coffee and instantly feel better and KNOW that was real brewed coffee. 

After my coffees I head out to the chicken & rice restaurants that are all along the street selling a piece of deep fried chicken and a lump of rice for 22 pesos (66 cents). I stop at the first one I see and order 2 chickens and 2 lumps of rice and as I am ordering this really aggressive kid runs over to me probably 13-14 years old and gets into his ACT similar to "Blue Tea Towels" daughter back in Cebu City where he puts his fingers to his mouth and rubbing his stomach and bending over like he is in pain and is constantly harassing me even more when I take my attention away from him. I tell you it was an ACADEMY AWARD WINNING PERFORMANCE and I am sure he has done this to many white tourists visiting Davao and they probably gave him whatever he wanted. Some of them know us westerners have a lot of empathy for the less fortunate and they see it as a weakness to exploit through manipulation. Unfortunately he didn't realize that a Jedi Mind Trick does NOT work on a Jedi master like myself. I felt like saying "Hey, why don't you go get your whole family and I will take you all out shopping for the day and buy you all whatever you want. How does that sound?". The women scowled at him and wanted him gone but he ignored her and I gave him a firm "No!" but he persisted aggressively. I asked the woman "Is he always like this?" and she said "Yes". Finally I got my order and went into the restaurant where he wasn't allowed to enter. I give out money to elderly women begging or blind/handicap people as they can't really contribute to society due to their handicaps but I will not encourage begging and that behaviour from kids that know how to PLAY YOU! Filipino families help each other as I already mentioned before and that is why family is so important here as they are the support system for others as well. 

As I sat down I realized the rice was cold and was probably last nights rice. Even the deep fried chicken was hard on the outside and I didn't like it either although it was hot. I didn't want to insult the woman by not eating it so I took a few bites of the chicken and rice and then went to another place a couple shops down the block. Not all these places are the same and once I find a place I like I normally stick with it since you know you are going to get what you want. It has got to be super competitive when you have the exact same chicken & rice restaurants with the same prices within a couple pesos of each other competing for the customers outside. I now know how to spot the good places. Find a restaurant that ALREADY HAS CUSTOMERS in it and you know the food will be decent!

I walked around a bit and went to PEOPLES PARK just a few blocks away. I saw a vendor selling "Pomelos" and peeling them open so I bought one from him for 15 pesos and it was similar to an orange but not as flavourful or sweet and too much work to peel off the outer layer and then take off an additional white layer and even then I didn't think they were that great.