Training Beside the Big Dudes... Sunday, March 26

Floor 20 of my building is where a foreign male pro basketball lives.  There's several that I run into every once in awhile -- one in my building, another one who I see in the streets riding around on a Segway PT, and a couple that train at my weight training gym -- and I often see their team van parked out front.  They stand out like a sore thumb because Filipinos are like the smallest of Asians and I'm pretty much average height.  Anyone over 5ft 7" is basically considered tall here so if you're walking around the streets at 6ft-whatever, well, you're a giant.  

At the gym today I ran into one of them and watched as he did box jumps and almost hit his head on the gym ceiling.  I tried to help the big guy out by suggesting him to move the exercise boxes to another spot on the floor, a spot where the ceiling opened up and was exposed.  I couldn't help but find it amusing and giggle but also envy him at the same time.  I'm a shorty; I've never had such a problem.  My problems have always been with not being tall enough, like for roller coaster rides and reaching cookies hidden in the top cupboard. 

The foreigners here are hard to categorize.  I live in Eastwood which is a part of Quezon City and it's not really a touristy city because it's not beachside or high posh.  Foreigners here are working here, not typically vacationing or visiting.  Most Filipinos here speak English so it's not like Korea where the majority of foreigners teach English.  Here in Eastwood, you have the expected "wife-hunting" men and they're pretty easy to pick out because they're usually older and their "girlfriend" is usually much younger and much, much better looking.  Then there are the foreigners here who are high end corporate workers, usually older men again.  They're usually here for a short stay, only for business.  I've only seen a few foreign females and they looked to be about my age but business women.  And then, as in the case of here in Eastwood, there are the basketball players.  

I don't see many foreigners here on a daily bases and honestly I like that.  Eastwood may not be the part of the Philippines I would have picked to moved to, I would have picked a much more rural area, but I like that it's not saturated with foreigners.  When I was out in Rockwell and Fort BGC last week, for every five Filipinos I saw there was 1 foreigner.   It may not be saturated with foreigners here but it is very Westernized, almost everyone speaks English or enough to get on by, and it was super easy to adapt to life here.  Eastwood is super newcomer-friendly.  It's clean, very pretty, and the people here are very sweet, workers call everyone Madame and Sir, and despite me being a foreigner, I'm not looked at differently or treated like I'm so different.  I feel comfortable here.

SIDE NOTE:  Yes, I know Sundays are usually my day off but this past week I attended two dinner parties plus the "Bite Me" food festival so the guilt of rushing my workouts and jamming them together into one long session as oppose to two split sessions got to me so I canceled my rest day for this week.