Manila part 2: another Shangri La, another storm.

A few days after typhoon Pedring had left, we left Shangri La Edsa and moved to Makati Shangri La. Closer to Frits' office.

In the taxi from one hotel to the other, you could see that the billboards were still empty; the huge posters rolled up. Reason for this was, that right after Pedring anoher typhoon was coming: Quiel.

We enjoyed the Shangri La @Edsa very much. The staff was impeccable. We would soon experience that the Shangri La@Makati was just as pleasant.


Ofcourse there were the same safety procedures: (bomb-)sniff-dogs, metaldetectors, armed men.
Not only hotels here have that, but also schools, banks and shoppingmalls. Very weird, to go through a metaldetector to enter a shoppingmall!

The sniff dogs were very friendly and their bosses too. 

This one gave her paw and layed on her back to be petted;-)

Metaldetector.

Door girl; cute and small.

Hostess.

Other hostess.

Girls at frontdesk

Girl at elevator.

As in the Shangri La @Edsa, the Makati Shangri La hotel had beautiful flowerarrangements as well.

Each week a fresh one; really pretty!

Our room was fine in Edsa, but even better and bigger in Makati. Wow!

Since we had back to back typhoons, combined with the monsoon rains, the weather was very unstable. Sunny moments here and there, but lots of rain, strong winds and grey skies also.
The following pictures show views from our hotel on different days and different weather:

Indoors however, the climate was very stable;-).
Great staff, service, food, drinks....very comfortable!

And the Horizon Club was fenomenal!

Hmmmm...cappuccino's with the S from super and from Shangri La!

So the first days I hung out in the hotel and enjoyed the comfort of it. And encountered an alien;-). Yes, cosplay seems to be popular in Manila too, so I heard.

And ofcourse a next door mall was easy to visit:

The staff was wearing special headgear;-)

I looooooooooooove these chandeliers in the shoe department!

So what happened with Quiel? Well, except from some rough weather, we did not notice that much of it. This typhoon did not hit Metro Manila as bad as Pedring.
But in many places not that far from Manila the situation was still bad from Pedring and got worse from Quiel. 
The government had opened some dams too, causing extra floodings.
The damage was and is enormous!

Pedring had hit the waterside of Manila heavy, with waves as high as the palm trees over there. The seawall got seriously damaged, trees broke and buildings nearby got flooded.

Fed up of being in the hotel, I took a taxi as soon as it was dry and sunny. Only, even before I arrived at my destination, there were heavy rains and winds again.
On these pictures, taken from my taxi, you see the damaged boulevard with lots of sandbags.

Electricity poles broken of.

The next days I took a taxi somewhere every day. The dashboards made me feel very much @home, since my own dashboard has maria's and other stuff too;-).

As you can see there are lots of crucifixes and other catholic artefacts. Yes, this is a very religious country. You see God, Jesus and Maria everywhere. In and on taxi's, on jeepneys, tricycles, everywhere. 

More about that in my next blogpost.