This is the home away from home right now. The Bellevue Manila hotel. My room is on the back right side of the hotel on the eighteenth floor. The twentieth floor is a bar / discotheque / dance club and I can occasionally hear the music in the background. Never enough for me to pay any attention to it. I was able to get to bed at a decent hour last night, so I set my alarm for 5:30 this morning to get outside and take a couple of pictures of the hotel and surrounding area. Some of those pictures are now uploaded to the “pictures!” page (see the link at the right side of the page).

The hotel is very nicely equipped. There is fresh fruit in the room every day, some of which I eat. Fresh bottled water is also put in the room daily. The bed is comfortable and some time this weekend when I’m in the room with a little more light, I’ll take some pictures of the room and other interior parts of the hotel.

Monday is now a holiday. Apparently the government has the ability to declare a national or a regional holiday whenever it wishes. Yesterday afternoon they announced the decision that Monday will be a national holiday. I’ll still come into work, but much of the staff here will be out for the day. Today after work the general manager here and I will go to the temple to do a session. I’m looking forward to seeing the temple and doing a session there. Unfortunately, it’ll be dark so I won’t get any pictures from the area tonight. Perhaps I’ll be able to get back up to that area during the daytime and get a few pictures while I’m here. The first week of this trip is almost over. It seems like I’ve been here forever, but on the hand, the week has gone by pretty quickly.