DAY 443: After practically a non-stop barrage of trekking, rafting, visiting relatives, meeting celebrities, and hanging out with my cousin Spider-Man, the course of action called for a day of rest. I spent this "day off" back in the comforts of civilization at my relatives' in Greenhills, Manila.

I didn't do absolutely nothing all day though -- oh no, the duties of a daily on-line travel show never seem to end -- I was behind on The Blog (as usual) and spent a good portion of the day sorting through pictures and writing entries, all while trying to connect to the internet with a cheap pre-paid ISP card ($2 for 20 hours!) that my uncle had. While that sounds like a steal, it was a dial-up with only one access number that, not surprisingly, gave me a busy signal 99% of the time. At one point, it took me an hour to connect.

Tito Mike and Tita Connie were at work, leaving me in the house with the busy signal, my Lola Nene, all the dogs that incessantly barked at me whenever I entered the living room, and the house servants. While domestic help may seem like a luxury, house servants (and canines for that matter) seem to be essentials in every middle-class Filipino household, as they were present in every relatives' house I'd had been to thus far. How's that for civilization?

"THE PHILIPPINES IS CIVILIZED," I remember a Filipino-American student once say to our video art/film professor back in a college in New Jersey. "They have malls and stuff."

"Well I think malls make a country less civilized," the young Bohemian artsy professor said. He always let us in on his philosophies on life; one time he called one of our guest speakers "a bitch."

Whether or not you agree with my former professor's opinion on shopping malls, there is no avoiding the fact that metro Manila is full of them, more per square mile than in New Jersey I dare say. That night, I took a break from my "day off" and went to the malls with my uncle -- the fairly new one called The Podium (picture above) and the big famous SM MegaMall next door -- to buy some supplies, do some research for The Blog, and have dinner. There's nothing especially exciting to say about the Filipino mall experience; it is essentially the same as the Western one, except that you are frisked and your bag is searched every time you enter the main door.

The end of the day was also not too thrilling -- my apologies -- as I just pulled my hair out in the Greenhills house trying to connect to the internet again, for more than an hour at nighttime, prime time. Man, if there's anything that makes a country uncivilized, it's a dial-up internet connection.