KL, golf and one-day international

I just got back from 2 weeks in Asia and one of my destinations this time was Manila. I ended up going to Manila as a favour to a colleague on vacation, so I was firefighting for the most part but it was also a very engaging trip. I did get some time on the last day to check out the town a bit. My initial reaction to Manila was deja vu, I thought I was back in kaduna. Same concrete structures with large barred windows, peeling paint, wide paved roads, taxis held together by prayers and spit and lots of people. Lots uniformed men walking around with guns larger than their torso's, tons of american paranephilia and like in most Asian countries there seems to be a a strong mall culture. Manila is very cheap too, perhaps because of the abundance of labour and lack of opportunity for their youth. I was told that most people aspire to travel abroad to make money and would like to come back for retirement. People are very friendly, speak fairly good english but with a thick accent and they seem to love pork. Spent a little time at Intramuros, an old fort which is closely tied to their British, Spanish and American influenced history. Though the best of the trip was the sashimi for breakfast, the salmon melts in your mouth :) KL was not too busy this time, even got to play some golf over the weekend. I did not know that there was an international triangular cricket series scheduled for the week that I was there, found when I got an sms from Akshaya. A colleague from the office was able to organize tickets for the India vs. West Indies game, my first one day international ever. Even though we lost thanks to some mathematicians, watching Sachin stroke the ball for a 140 runs was priceless. I must say, that one day made up for all the difficult travelling that I have had with this job. I wish I could have stayed on a for a few days to watch the rest of the series but in retrospect it was good thing that I came back home.