For those of you who don't know, this is Ben, my coworker on this job.
This is how we roll. Philippine Air Business Lounge in the Hong Kong airport after a 15 hour flight.
Ben and Anshul, another crew member on this job.
I've included a few shots of my hotel room, so you can see how I live for the next 5 months.
It's a pretty standard hotel, just asianified with some hardwood floors and fake flowers and framed prints of flowers. I like it.
This is where all the magic happens...like tv watching, and uploading pictures on picasa. I am sitting here at this very moment. Interesting, isn't it?
You would be hard pressed to find two sexier men in any refinery in the entire world.
If anyone ever makes a calendar of gayest refinery mugshots, I might make Mr. November with this picture. Either way, this is our workspace.
Javier has arrived. This is his first day on the job after the long day of traveling. He looks sleepy.
San Miguel is the local beer here. They have a few varieties. I decided to try them all, of course. This Cali Shandy was the last one left on the list, so I ordered it. Turns out it is a non-alcoholic sparkling apple cider. Quite delicious, but not really a beer. I won't make this mistake again. Next time I order it, it will be on purpose...
Blowing off some steam on a Friday night. This is the restaurant across the street from our hotel.
The overhead monitors are videoke machines. People are obsessed with karaoke, whether they can sing or not. Most of the music is soft early 90s American stuff. The best part about this in my opinion is the scenes on the tv during the songs. They show random places around the world while flashing the words to the song. Sandwiched between recognizable places like Venice and the Golden Gate Bridge, clips of Stone Mountain, GA with Confederate generals made it in there. You wouldn't know anything about this if you were not from GA.
Ben ate some Pata, which is basically the hip and leg of a pig. We passed on the "Hot Headed Squid" advertised on the left. The beer pictured is Red Horse, our beer of choice so far, which is another San Miguel product.
trying to take some shots of the mountains. We plan on going up these mountains later on. There will be pictures.
Subic Bay, about an hour north of Balanga, where we are staying.
As you can see, this is significantly better than the winter in Chicago.
This restaurant/bar with outdoor seating and pool table is where we spent most of the day beachside.
Why wouldn't we take pictures next to a mondo sized San Miguel Pale Pilsen?
Just stuff you see every day. No big deal.
We have a really difficult job that takes us to rough places to drink strong margaritas. I'm having a tough time adjusting so far, but I'm working on it. ...Buahhhh.
Sweet plaid, Anshul. I wouldn't even make an Easter table cloth out of that.
Fact: Blue margaritas give people blue mouths.
We have gathered that Mahubay means Welcome. Anything with a giant inflatable Donkey Kong-esque figure is welcoming.
The shallow water was like taking a bath, but once we got farther in, it was pretty nice.
Studs.
Heartbreakers.
I was trying to take a picture of the oversized pigs on the trailer in front of us.
