Tag Archives: Isabelle Garden Hotel

First Real Day

Today we were up pretty early like 7 am. The time change was messing with us. It also didn’t help that there was a rooster constantly crowing. It’s even crowing as I write this. The hotel room is really small but after thinking about it, this is why I booked this place. It was very close to the airport and was cheap. I didn’t expect a luxury hotel, but I guess I just hoped it would be a bit bigger. But I am feeling better about it now. It serves its purpose and we leave here tomorrow very early. I also realized after arriving here that Trip Advisor didn’t show most of the hotels near the airport…booking stuff was hard from the US.

We did get to see our view outside the hotel this morning…

Not the nicest view…I think the nicer and safer areas are on the other side of the airport. Although this place seems okay. We were able to explore a little bit this morning. The security at this hotel is nice because they have guards and there is a gate around it. It even has its own convenient store so we don’t have to go out. I feel good about that because outside the gate…isn’t so nice. We took a small walk. So…if you want a little bit above bare minimum stay at the Isabelle Garden Hotel near the airport. The room is nice enough. The bathroom is extremely small. They do give you free breakfast though. And they arrange free airport pick up. The price is almost $30 a night.

Don’s uncle (Tito Rom) and cousin (Regan) visited us this morning and we talked about our plans. Then Don’s dad came with his brother and we went out for lunch. They took us to the Mall of Asia. We went there last time we were here. We were able to exchange some more money and it was nice to get out and walk around. We ate at Max’s Restaurant. It was kind of a mixture of a fast food restaurant and a sit down place. They specialize in fried chicken. They have a number of American dishes combined with Philippine cuisine. Once we were done with lunch we went back to the hotel and we worked on booking another hotel in Los Banos, for when we get back from Palawan.

This evening we just hung out and relaxed. We were tired from traveling and we have a 6:30 am flight tomorrow to go to Palawan. There seemed to be a party going on outside. There were people singing and a DJ. It was really loud. We ordered some pizza from a menu the front desk gave us. The place was called Greenwich Pizza. It wasn’t very good at all. The sauce tasted like ketchup. Ready to see what Palawan will offer us!

Arrival in Philippines

We arrived at Incheon Airport (near Seoul) around 4:30 pm. The Korean airport was really nice, so modern and clean looking. We got some food. I had a Subway sandwich and Dr Pepper! Because every time I see Dr Pepper in a foreign country I have to try it. It tasted slightly different, better than the Dr Pepper I had in Greece though.

Our next flight to Manila was at 7:30 pm. This plane was not as big and more cramped. There were hardly any free seats so we had to sit next to someone. This flight was about 4 hours. It felt like 8. We still had tv screens to watch whatever we would like so that was cool. I mostly tried to sleep on this flight but it was impossible. I couldn’t get comfortable. But still…Korean Air way better than Delta…plus this flight was also on time.

We arrived in Manila around 10:30 pm and we got our luggage quickly. Yay, no lost luggage! The process of getting through customs was fast too. It took us forever to find our hotel shuttle connection though. We eventually had to call our hotel because there were so many people and we couldn’t find our guy. We didn’t get to the hotel until around 12:30 am. I was so tired and grumpy. I also wasn’t very impressed with the hotel at the time ahaha.