a whirlwind business trip

last friday, i overhead j mentioned that our boss mk wanted her to go with him to clark, pampanga. mk wanted to visit clark again to check on a few old buildings at clark economic zone. so when i heard of the instruction to book a flight for clark, i jokingly asked if i could go. minutes after i blurted it out, j informed me that i should be at the airport at six in the morning the next day. it turned out, mk wanted us to see the place for ourselves and help him determine if the place was suitable for a new business.

as the trip was so sudden and unplanned, we couldn’t get a flight for clark. we, instead, got tickets for manila and mk arranged for a van rental to pick us at naia’s terminal 2 and drive us to clark and around the zone and back again to naia t2 for the flight back to cebu.

the trip was purely business, but i sure had a lot of fun. i guess half the fun came from the fact that it was fast-paced day and a first for me to travel on business class.

5:38 AM – arrived at mactan international airport via multicab. as i was early, i opted to take the cheapest way to go to the airport to kill time [trike to tamiya, multicab to marina mall, multicab to airport: TOTAL: 21 pesos]

6:18 AM – checked-in for the manila flight

7:05 AM – our plane took off

one-hour flight: acted like a kid. got amazed with the wide seats with leg support found in pal’s business class – read: no sharing of space, or rubbing elbows with the next passenger; its foldable “food table” that can be stowed and hidden on the chair’s arm, and eaten breakfast of bistek tagalog, egg, bread, and mixed fruits][haha, i'm used to hearing this in the other airline: "snacks for sale!"..thus, it was quite fun to have had this different experience on flight.

8:24 AM - headed to clark

a little past 10 AM - arrived in clark.

10yish to past 1 PM - explored the entire clark economic zone and checked out majority of the vacated buildings, had halo-halo [the boss's favorite]; headed to angeles city for the boss to have a chat with a new business acquaintance

1:50 PM – late lunch of korean fare

2:35 – headed back to manila

5:10 PM – arrived at naia t2

7:00 PM – flew back to cebu

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the pix of us in a gasoline station is the only one we managed to snap of ourselves (with a view) during the trip. clark freeport zone is really beautiful. it’s a pity we didn’t take any pix of it, saved for the empty buildings (haha)..it’s just difficult to goof around when your boss is with you. the gasoline pix was an exception as we literally asked for five minutes time off. our geographically-challenged minds thought that the mountain behind us was mt. pinatubo (duh, we we’re in angeles city and NOT in zambales where mt. pinatubo is. i later learned that the landmark is actually mt. arayat. apparently, a lot also mistake this mountain for mt. pinatubo.

Tags: clark, clark economic zone, pampanga