My First Day on the Road

I'm home alone with my nephew Nico- teaching him how to sharpen a pencil and write his name. He's really sweet! After I sharpened his pencils, he said: "Thanks A-Ee!" and then he kept on kissing me. I felt so happy to have him (and to think he's not even my real son)! Anyway, I'm supposed to be taking care of him but while he's busy sticking sponge bob stickers everywhere, I shall just blog.

Today was my first time to drive out in the streets. I guess it's just now that I fully understand what they meant by: If you know how to drive in Manila, you can drive anywhere! Let me just describe to you how it is to drive in Manila streets. My instructor asked me to drive in the middle lane after I turn left and so I went to the position that seemed like the middle lane to me. When I looked down on the road, I realized that there was a white painted line (which meant that I was actually travelling in between lanes) so I was like: "Am I in the wrong lane???" And my instructor goes: "Don't worry, those lines are fake!" Ok...nevermind. After that, my instructor brought me to a place without traffic lights- this means that I had to be super alert. Suddenly, a tricycle counterflows! My initial reaction was to move away from the tricycle but of course I can't cause there's a car parked on the road side and if I move away from the tricycle, I'll bump into the parked car. So my instructor told me: "There are two things you have to be aware of- moving and non-moving objects. If it's not moving, you've got to move away from it. If it's moving, don't bother to look after it because it will look after itself." Well, so much for defensive driving! I think it's a bit impossible to do that here. So we approached an intersection. The trick is to move inch by inch until the other cars can't move anymore and you leave them no choice but to let you pass. It's really scary cause out of nowhere, you'll just see a jeepney or a bus drive towards you. After that I had to turn right (yup, still no traffic light), suddenly there are kids playing basketball on the road! After honking on them like 10 times, they still didn't move! My instructor told me to just go and they'll move away. I've got the car, they definitely have to move away! I was scared at first but yeah I just went ahead and yeah, they moved. Silly boys. At the end of the day, I learned that you just gotta whack! More lessons to come next week!

Ok, Nico is fighting for the computer now. I gotta go before he clicks this whole entry away!

P.S. Wanna join me for a ride? :p