Thank God for sleeping pods at the basement of the Suvarnabhumi Airport. If not for them, I wouldn’t have been able to drive home today because I would be a wreck. Imagine hanging out at the airport since 6:30 pm until boarding at 4 am the next day.

It was expensive at THB 1,400 for four hours but I was already dropping and the alternative is a THB 700-massage for 60 mins, which would be more expensive if I need a shut-eye for four hours. THB 1,400 = PHP 2,240 and that gets you a double bed, a bathroom for an overnight stay in a Go Hotel or Red Planet in the NAIA vicintity.

Anyway, these sleeping pods are just at the basement of the airport, next to the State Railway of Thailand station. You’re paying for the convenience.

This capsule hotel is cheaper at THB 250 per hour and has a queen bed inside. The problem was I didn’t reserve a slot (because I didn’t know that my flight will be pushed back to three hours later) so walk-ins were not possible last night.

The four hours that I slept were so needed. I say the THB 1400 was well spent.

I was messaging my TV reporter friend who happens to be a transport reporter and he was the one who has been telling me about what was happening back home. Cebu Pacific and PAL had been cancelling flights. I will get back to that later.

So we were talking about sleeping pods and he sent me a photo of the sleeping pod he used at the airport in Zurich, which he said was just bigger than a coffin. It cost him an equivalent of PHP 2,500 a night, which is still cheaper than the Box Hotel I used in Bangkok.

I know that there is a similar sleeping pod in NAIA but I think that’s in Terminal 3…ah yes, The Wings Transit Lounge. I think I would be able to use this now that I need to drive myself to the airport whenever I travel abroad. I can leave my car at ParkNFly or at the Terminal Car Parks and then sleep at these lounges if needed. The capsule is only PHP 1000 for 8 hrs, which is not a bad deal.

I slept for a bit in the plane but once the sunrise hit my face (I always take the window seat because I don’t want to face people), it was impossible to go back to sleep.

There will be a senate inquiry next week about the cancellations that PAL and Cebu Pac had been doing this week. The consortium of conglomerates bidding for the rehab of NAIA will be having a press conference on Monday as well so I think this will be a lobby presscon and I would be able to get dirt on MIAA why the heck are we having this nightmare. I would have to borrow the Toyota Vios again because my car is banned on Mondays in Metro Manila streets.

If I would have to fly to SG next month, I would be booking Singapore Airlines. I checked the fares yesterday, the late returning flight to Manila on a Friday is much cheaper than PAL.

But I just need to double check with my boss if this trip is still on because I just got a rejection email from S&P because the networking event they invited me to didn’t want media people there. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Well, they were the ones who sent the invite…

It’s just so nice to be back home. My cats had been sleeping in my room for the entire week, my kids told me. Sushi has been missing me so much. Twin A said that cat wouldn’t budge and insists on sleeping on my bed.

Seriously, PAL?! You emailed me to say that you have transferred me to a flight that looks like it’s going to make several stops (BKK-CEB-MNL) before I can go home to Manila?! BKK-MNL is just 3.5 hrs and yet the new sched says I’ll be traveling 24 hrs!!! It’s better if I should have just booked a flight going to Europe. And now if I change flight and try to book my original scheduled flight, you will charge me extra PHP 12k. What kind of fuckery is this???

So I went to have a last foot and neck, shoulder, and back massage for 90 mins. I was thinking of doing longer massages but at the back of my mind there was this nagging voice that kept on saying something is amiss and I shouldn’t linger because PAL may fuck up some more.

UPDATE: THEY MOVED MY FLIGHT AGAIN, FROM BAD TO WORSE WHEN I’M ALREADY IN A GRAB CAR TO AIRPORT. My original departure sched is June 16, but look at this!!!

But when I did my online check-in my itinerary online stayed the same.

I don’t trust PAL so I just went with the original sched…and what do you know, the schedule on the board at the departure area says the flight is on schedule! This is confusing!

So despite doing the online check-in, I’m still here 1.5 hrs later, trying to drop off my bag. What’s the purpose of an online check-in if it doesn’t streamline the process and you still queue for hours?

I’m so pissed. I’m hungry, tired, and the massage is just a memory. My back is aching again.

So yes, I just checked in my bag but the flight is still at 4:50 am. I don’t know if there’s a capsule hotel here…

Good night, cruel world!

The company is paying for all these so that we can have decent headshots for all the promotional materials that we will be having from hereon (i.e. conference brochures and backdrops). As I am part of the “ambassador” program (i.e. the face of the company especially in conferences), they are investing on the image of its ambassadors. So no more selfies for the headshots in our conference promo materials hahahaha!

Right after the shoot, I rushed to the Sathon business district for a meeting. I was 10 mins late because my Grab was late and it took the car forever to reach my hotel. Pffffft. Good thing the guy was nice.

I needed to finish an edit so I decided to have lunch in the same building.

Went immediately back to my hotel because I was so sleepy and I needed to wait for another time-sensitive story I must edit. I was already snoring before that story arrived in my inbox.

I was so pissed yesterday and I had to go out with colleagues to erase the bad taste that lingered.

I was supposed to interview a candidate for the Bangkok freelancer position but at the last minute my bosses told me I CANNOT HIRE A FREELANCER, even on a per-article basis, because I had no business case. Like Thailand is not an important market—that’s what they’re saying. I do not believe that and I have data to back me up. The only reason why they say there is no business case is because 1) subscribers already gave up on our Thailand coverage because we had crappy reporters in the past; 2) we haven’t had any reporter here for three years; 3) it doesn’t help that this market is very secretive and opaque and the military government compounded to it.

I didn’t have the temerity to cancel the appointment with the candidate. So I still met her but had to tell her that people in London do not understand that Singapore is not representative of the whole Southeast Asia and Southeast Asia is not Singapore. They think that you can cover everything in Singapore. That’s what my sources had been telling me the past two days—you cannot do business here in Thailand sitting in your office in Singapore. You have to be on the ground because everything in this market is hush-hush.

I like the candidate and told her that as much I want to keep her to myself, I must not waste a talent like her so I will be sharing her CV to my friends in competing news wires as they still have positions to fill in Southeast Asia.

I ranted to a fellow editor this afternoon about the narrow-mindedness of those sitting in London.

That’s how they view Asia. They think Asia is China + others. I wanted to scream at them and tell them that the world does not speak English.

Ok ok, I should let go of things I cannot control…

But at least I could give them a piece of my mind. If I get fired, so be it.

After a long session today, some of my colleagues and I went out for dinner at Madame Saranai for traditional Thai food and some beer.

Good food for less than THB 3k for 5 of us. Pitchers of beer.

And it was a good dinner for camaraderie as well.

We went back to the hotel because my Filipino colleague and I were daring each other if we can hostage the stage tonight at the hotel because he was told the band was Filipino as well 😂. When we got at the bar at Westin, I was disappointed to learn that the duo was Thai. Yesterday was the Filipino band. And the duo couldn’t play a song I requested, even if they’re already old.

So we told our colleagues that we should all go to karaoke in HK during our conferences in November. Bangkok may not be the best place for karaoke and hostaging stages. 😂

Good night, world!

Yep, another 90-min Thai massage. Because I can. Because I had been deprived of good massage for weeks as I had been busy with the move and I no longer have access to Zennya massage after relocating south. Because I deserve to be pampered and be relieved of my perpetual back pain.

I didn’t want to be a responsible adult for the entire week so I’m not exercising. I’m just here for the massage. 🤣

So yes, I’m drifting off…I’ll finish this later. Too sleepy.

One of the things that therapy and being introspective has done to me is to become self-aware. So during the mentorship session on Monday, I realized that I wasn’t really good at giving praises to people verbally. I do it indirectly by posting on LinkedIn about how great my team was, how good they are at scooping, etc. Then if someone else is praising one of my reporters, I would forward it to the reporter as a way of saying, you’re doing well. But somehow I couldn’t bring myself to say it directly to the reporter.

Because I grew up not being praised. Typical Asian household. It’s more of… they would directly criticise you but they would never praise. So I struggle with doing the same for the people I manage. But of course we all know praises from managers are important and I must learn to overcome my inhibition to compliment and praise.

So for me to say “I love you” verbally to someone is already a big deal. I still struggle with it when I want to say it to my kids. So for me to say I love you to someone with so much freedom and generosity and do it often, it’s already a very big deal. That meant the feeling was so overpowering that I had overcome that barrier that was put up in my childhood. Unfortunately, the one who received those I love yous didn’t deserve it.

So I must rectify it and instead I should shower my kids with I love yous and more praises. I should be more generous with my reporters when it comes to praises and compliments. They deserve it.

Last night I had the full body Thai deep-tissue massage so this time I’m having the foot, neck, and shoulder for 90 mins for THB 500. Because I want to pamper myself after working so hard today.

It’s a full day of training sessions for bureau chiefs. The last session was particularly educational since I just finished writing one on the subject matter and I asked the resource person about several instances of what I can legally write about.

This particular scene flabbergasted one of our trainors from London. She was freaking out about the exposed power lines that were just hanging out along major roads. She remarked that they didn’t have that in Singapore and I said SG is an anomaly but for the rest of Southeast Asia, this scene is quite normal.

And the food, even my Chinese colleagues kept on remarking, “ooh spicy! Spicy! Spicy!” I said yeah, majority of the food in Thailand is spicy, but wait till you get to Jakarta, it’s pure chili. My APAC boss said Thai food in Bangkok is better than the peranakan food in Singapore.

After a three-hour dinner, my colleagues went to search for massage. It was quite late so it was a bit of work to find a massage place that can accomodate five women because everything was full.

So here I am, reflecting on life choices while having my sole poked by a stick. 😂