My stay in Manila
has been at a fabulous hotel. So fabulous, indeed, that when I came in, the
delegation of Indonesian president Joko Widodo was here. He was in there
somewhere, but I never saw him. He left on Monday, though.
So the hotel’s nice. I’d been told it had a continental
breakfast, but that was an understatement. Eggs any way you like, dim sum and
sushi are not found on continental breakfasts. Neither is pineapple juice or,
generally, individual glass jars of jelly for pieces of super-thick toast or
slices of beef and pepperoni. I’m not sure what those are for, but the beef’s
tasty.
There’s also a dinner buffet, which is fantastic but a
little weird. There aren’t side dishes per say. Yes, there is sushi or a tiny
little plate of some other Asian dish (like a cracker of chicken tandoori, when
I’ve only seen it in the shape of a giant sandwich) but in general, no side
dishes. And, unlike any city in Asia that I’ve
visited, no rice or noodles.
Instead, there’s meat. Not a lot of varieties, but just
meat. There’s been a pork, a seafood and a beef or chicken dish every night. One
night it was spicy pork strips, big pieces of chicken in “liver sauce” and crab
cakes. Another evening had the best, most tender beef with garlic and pepper
that I’ve ever had. The seafood, in particular, has been tasty, and there’s
even fish as a breakfast meat. I didn’t even know I liked crab cakes but had
two.
There is also a bread and cheese assortment, but that’s
weird. There are “bread sticks,” but not in the Olive Garden sense – they are
literally thin twists of crunchy bread that are maybe 6-8 inches long. I am not
sure how you put the cheese on them. There are also hard rolls and soft rolls,
neither of which screams “cheese me” to me. And, for some really weird reason,
there are soft pretzels. I have never seen a pretzel on a buffet. On Saturday
evening, the rolls were shaped like hearts for Valentine’s Day, and half of
them had been dyed red with food coloring.
And the desserts – little portions, but about 5-8 to choose
from. And they mix it up; it’s not the same selection from evening to evening.
Last night, I got lucky with my second night in a row of the little cheesecake
square, topped with a blueberry. That’s my favorite.
But what I wolf down is the watermelon. I think I ate a
giant wedge last night, all told. They don’t give you the rind, but I downed
probably a quarter of an adult-size watermelon. Made the mistake of sitting
right next to the dessert tray and just kept eating it. I only stopped because
I ate it all. I did leave three pieces of pineapple.
The buffet is for Diamond Something (Star? Key?) guests, of
which I am one. Somehow. (Shhh!) This means it’s OK to go to the buffet in
slippers, which are provided by the hotel, along with both white terry and
leopard-print slinky bathrobes, though I
brought my own grungy ones from some other hotel with the idea of tossing them
when I am done.
Being a Diamond Something means you’re greeted with “Hello
M’am” (or “Sir,” sometimes followed by a correction) all the flipping time.
It’s polite, but overkill. The walk to the elevator from the front door (which
is past the metal detector and drug-sniffing dogs and held open by one person
as you’re waved and “Hello M’am’d” in by another) is maybe 50 feet but there
are probably 10 people in the lobby greeting you. Maybe the Filipino culture is
just that hospitality-oriented, but it’s kind of creepy.
It’s even more creepy when they greet you by name. Yesterday
upon departure to the study place, one of the people welcomed me with “Miss
Linley.” And when I had to call the hotel because the car didn’t arrive
(hospitable, not perfect) to pick me and the other guy on time, the person on
the other end, without any prompting except, “I’m checking to see when my car
will arrive” said, “Oh, you’re Miss What’s-her-name.” And, looking back, I
really think she was trying to pronounce “Wartenberg,” simply because every
other time something similar has happened, that’s what it’s been.
And you know what? I hate it.
I would make such a terrible celebrity. I do not like it
when people know my name and I don’t know them from Adam’s housecat. I don’t
mind doing things like pushing my own elevator button, throwing my own toast
into the toaster (I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to do this. It wasn’t plugged
in, and instead of asking for help, I just moved the fruit display, plugged the
toaster in, and plopped the bread in. One of the nice staff members saw what I
was doing and almost had a coronary, assuring me that he’d “take care of it,
M’am.”)
I don’t like that each drink I am served comes in a glass
with a straw that’s bent to a certain angle, and the paper is left on the end
for sanitary (?) purposes. It creeps me out that someone insists on wiping my
sweat off the elliptical after I am done. It’s sort of freaky that someone
knocks on my door and asks to “turn my bed down.” What does that mean, anyway?
Actually, I was not in the room last night when they did
this, so they came and did it for me. I was totally thrown off when I returned.
First, they’d delivered my laundry (OK, this is a perk I like, but it bothers
me that it’s all wrapped in plastic with coat hangers, and I had to fill out
four pieces of paper and put it all in a plastic bag to begin with), and when I
saw that, I knew someone had been in my room.
OK, I live in China, I am used to that. But then
I kept finding little surprises. There was some kind of towel at the side of my
bed, with my grungy slippers on it. The bed really was “turned down,” which
apparently means one side folded diagonally. My toothbrush was sitting by the
sink under a tissue. One of the waters from the minibar had been moved next to
my bed with one of the glasses. I’d eaten the orange of the orange-and-apple
combination that appears on my coffee table daily, and they cleaned that plate,
replaced the napkin (but not the orange) and arranged everything nicely. Oh,
and left me another piece of chocolate in a little butterfly box. (They give
this to you even if you turn down the turn-down service.)
And I thought that was it until the morning, when I realized
my curtains had been shut. I woke up but thought it was the middle of the
night. I thought maybe it was because I was stressed about this test I had to
take, but I wasn’t tired at all. Since there are too many pillows to just
easily check the time (crawling over them all to get to my watch gets the blood
moving, and I knew if I did that I’d never get back to sleep, this I know from
experience – and fewer pillows), I just tried to go back to sleep. I had no
idea what time it was, but I’ve been waking up around 2 and 4 a.m., so I
figured it was one of them, and then all of a sudden my alarm went off. It was
6. No wonder I was awake! But the room is REALLY dark when you shut the huge
bay window. (It does overlook a bay.)
So some of the celebrity-like perks are cool, but I’d really
rather just remain anonymous.
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