Out on the town

Today I moved around the area a little more. Last night I had gone to a small mall and shopped in a grocery store which did not have a great deal of selection. The weather is in the high 20's but it is humid. I today saw that the mall is actually a series of malls called the greenbelt and there is every store you would find in one of our big malls : Banana republic etc. I shopped at a bigger store where I was able to pick up mangoes, papayas, and other fruits . It is pretty, pretty safe around here: there are security guys all around. They are friendly, at least to me, but they even have wand metal detectors which they use as people move from one section of the mall to the next. they never approached me, I guess the older white guy is not deemed a threat. Speaking of older white guys, there are some floating around here often with filippino wives but also younger couples or bunches ofwhite guys probably on vacation. I took some pictures which show my hotel, a look at Makati which is the area of the city I live in, and a park which is a block away. I walked over to where I will be working which is less than a 5 minute stroll from the hotel. So far I find the people very friendly, in one of the guide books some survey had established them as the happiest people on the planet. Why all the security guys? Obviously some people are not happy here.