March 26th 2015 Cagayan De Oro- Day 1 SM Mall in morning

Here is where I am staying. Casa Crystalla.

I am on the 4th floor so have to do a bit of stairs.

Just doing a SELFIE.

Sometimes I pass by a work site and see filipinos working hard in the scorching heat. I could only watch them for 5 minutes before looking for an air conditioned mall to cool down in!

SM Mall in Cagayan De Oro.

 

The only 3 whites guys in SM Mall all huddled around the coffee shop!

This stuff is delicious and cools you down.

For 165 pesos ($1.90 cdn) it is definitely worth it!

After I left McDonalds on the last post when I walked out the kid was dancing in the middle of the  street to the outside music blasting and he was doing THE WAVE with his arms having a good old time until he saw me and the hand came out for money as he ran over to me. I laughed and threw him 10 pesos. Don't quite the starving kid he was letting me believe he was. 

I am staying at the Casa Crystalla hotel where my taxi driver last night thought was the Nature Pension House. I got a standard room at 750 pesos ($21 cdn) and it is very comfortable and good value except the WI-FI  internet doesn't seem to be working. They need to reset it as I am. 

In the morning I decided to walk to SM Mall which is 5 km away and it gives me a chance to see more of the city. Some guy carrying an infant on the other side of the street called over to me asking me for money with his hand out. As I walked to SM Mall I heard this loud music coming from this truck slowly driving along the streets with huge speakers and big banners on it with a couple soldiers or guys in uniform and the banners said "Join the war against the Chinese occupation of Philippine territories". I guess taking over Tibet wasn't enough for the Chinese and now they are taking over territories of the Philippines. I watched the news later and saw that the Philippines is in dispute with China over territory. 

It was really hot outside and I was sweating like mad constantly wiping my forehead as I walked. I saw some guys digging on a construction site (see photo) and watched them work for a few minutes realizing they would be lucky if they were earning $1 an hour and it was probably less as it was unskilled labour. Sometimes I watch them and pretend to switch places with them and that it was my life working hard labour in the Philippines (Kind of like the movie TRADING PLACES). I know for sure that I would be learning english as best I could and be jumping on the first overseas job that came along and if not that then driving taxi since it is pretty easy to drive around in an air conditioned taxi and make some decent money in the Philippines. I guess we have all done hard labour jobs when we were young that we hated and that is usually the motivation to find something easier!

I like to go into every cities SM Mall or other malls as it is nice and air conditioned and I feel like I am back in Canada the whole time I am in one. I feel that I have been magically wisked away to a first world country and forget about all the poverty I have seen here. I saw 3 old white guys huddled around a small coffee shop and then when I left I saw 2 old white guys (70+) coming into the mall with their 40 year old filipina wives. I grabbed a taxi from SM mall and headed back to the hotel.