The Orientation (Part 1)

At 5am, I found myself on a tricycle on my way to the bus terminal. Recently, I gratefully accepted a management position at a well-known convenience store. Unlike the trendy call center agent jobs, this new role offered good pay without excessive stress. I was headed to Manila, the location of their main office, for a pre-training orientation that I had only learned about the night before. The expectation was for me to be there by 9am. Being a seasoned commuter in Manila wouldn't have posed a problem, but unfortunately, I wasn't one. So, I had to leave four hours earlier. While I had mastered the commuting pattern to Divisoria, this was an entirely different place I was heading to - Pasig City. Despite the straightforward instructions they had sent me via text, my somewhat decent sense of direction, and the multitude of Manila residents I could ask for directions, it still felt like an adventure for someone like me.

When I arrived at the nearest Philippine Rabbit bus terminal to my house, I discovered that there were no buses bound for Pasay at that time. I had to take a jeepney ride to the Dau terminal, which turned out to be a quick trip. Before I knew it, I was comfortably seated on a Five-Star bus (although the name didn't necessarily reflect the bus's condition). At 5:40, the bus departed from the terminal.

Sightseeing became an entertaining way to pass the time, even though the scenery mainly consisted of alternating real estate development projects and rice fields. Occasional stopover stations and malls came into view as well. The Marquee Mall, the newest mall in Angeles City, was almost complete and conveniently located near the city hall, visible from NLEX. However, its huge unfinished signage currently declared it as "Arquee."

After a while, billboards started to populate the view. The bus passed over some striped sections on the road that emitted a vibrating noise to the passing vehicles. These served as warnings or reminders of the approaching toll gate. In no time, I disembarked at Ortigas. From there, I needed to take a city bus to reach my next landmark, Star Mall, as I wasn't sure if the previous bus I had taken would go directly there. The city bus followed the MRT or LRT line (I'm not entirely sure what they call them these days), with a station conveniently located right next to my destination. Upon reaching the mall, I noticed another MRT station adjacent to it. Perhaps I'll consider riding the MRT next time.

Leaving the city bus, I consulted my directions. Next on the list was riding a jeepney that would take me to Pasig. According to the instructions, I had to cross the street from the mall until I reached "Parklea" and catch a jeepney to Pasig from there. Without much thought, I climbed an overpass since crossing the street directly wasn't a safe option unless I wanted to risk becoming roadkill. However, I realized that Rustan's, not Parklea, was the mall across the street from Star Mall. Could it have been a typo? Looking around, I spotted some jeepneys on the Star Mall side of the street. Next to them was a small boutique with a minuscule sign, barely visible or readable from where I stood, that said Parklea. Sheesh. I had to climb the overpass again, and now I was sweating profusely.

Finally, I reached the jeepneys. Riding jeepneys here turned out to be quite similar to riding them in Angeles. You had to swiftly secure a suitable spot while the jeepney was in motion. In my opinion, the best seat inside a jeepney was in the front, near the

 driver. However, if you were unlucky and missed that seat, the second-best option was at the back, farthest from the driver's seat. Why? Well, if you sat in the middle, you'd end up squished from both sides. If you sat near the driver's seat, you became the designated "fare-passer" for the driver. It was an unwritten rule of jeepney etiquette that obliged you to collect fares from other passengers, especially those seated further away, and hand them to the driver since you were closer. You could try to avoid this duty by pretending to look away, but then you'd be seen as stuck-up. I disliked both being the stuck-up and serving as the driver's fare collector, so I made sure to secure the seat next to the door.