Two and a half days of being offline surely gave me connectile dysfunction symptoms. I went to Baguio for a major Java event and stayed at the Pines View Hotel, where the event was held.
I was in room 505, whilst my friend, JP, was in room 405. The room was clean but cramped. I thought that I got the crappy room since the door has louvers, just like your bathroom door, which failed to dampen the noise coming from the corridors. I thought of changing rooms but the hotel was fully booked due to the event and also due to the fact that it is the month of Panagbenga (Flower festival). I resigned and just thought that I’ll stay there for only two nights anyawy. Later, I found out that JP’s room has the same type of door! Argh! If you are staying there, avoid these rooms! (here’s a view from the 5th floor lobby)
Whilst I did not get that much sleep, I figured that I’ll have a good, hearty breakfast and start the day right. The free breakfast choices were corned beef and sausage. I asked if the sausage was the Baguio longganisa that I love but unfortunately, it was vienna sausages (straight from the can, I thought). Just to be safe, I opted for corned beef.
Did not take long for my meal to be served (we were in the same restaurant/cafe the night before and service sucks! Took forever to have our meals served!) but it was like the entire meal came from a can! The fried egg was stone cold like everything else except for the tasteless coffee! Shesh! I just had a couple of bites just to ease my ulcers and hoped that lunch will be better.
Whilst waiting for lunch to be served, I helped the rest of the team prepare the JEDI booth for registration for the party. Inspite of our hunger, we had fun setting up and entertaining IT educators who were registering. It was fun meeting new peers and more fun seeing old friends. I was really happy with the way things were turning out since more people were getting interested in JEDI. Unfortunately, it did not take long before another hotel incident happened.
The floor tiles simply cracked, perhaps under the pressure of more than 50 people cramped in that room checking out the “exhibits” and registering for JEDI Night. 
Being in Baguio, a place with a history of buildings crumbling due to seismic activity, I panicked and asked the entire team to leave the 6th floor and proceed to the hotel’s parking lot outside. It did not take long before the other tiles adjacent to the cracked tile started cracking. I may have seen too much movies and watched too many television shows that I got really scared that the building might collapse.
After I left the building, I informed the hotel personnel about what happened and asked them to send city engineers to check it out and declare whether it is safe or not. Other educators were asking them to ask the authorities to declare it safe inspite of the hotel staff informing us that the owner is a structural engineer. Shesh! Of course the owner will say it is safe! C’mon!
We (the JEDI team) decided not to wait since we were so hungry and left for Camp John Hay. The team decided to move out of the hotel just to be safe. We were afraid that we won’t be able to find available rooms in other decent hotels in the city. Fortunately, we were able to find 5 rooms at Camp John Hay Manor.
Camp John Hay Manor is miles ahead of Pines View Hotel. Whilst it is definitely more expensive, at least we felt safer spending the night there. Driving 15 minutes to get to Pines View Hotel for the event is definitely worth it! My brother and I were able to get some sleep that night since it was quiet (no more noise from the corridors!) and comfortable (bigger beds!).
In fairness, the Pines View Hotel turned out to be safe… for now. However, I will no longer stay there even if you pay me! That experience alone rendered it not worth the risk! Don’t get me started with the Asian Spirit flight we took to/from Baguio.
February 13, 2007 at 6:11 pm
i’m glad the tiles popped!