One Night Only

Some nights can really be boring in Naga City. There are numerous bars, grills, restaurants and watering holes in almost all parts of the city but the monotonous themes of each are not so enticing for friends who wanted to experience a different kind of night, something out of the original, something adventurous, something risky, something fun.

Been gone to almost all the bars within the city and the thought of having to be inside those venues again and listening to the same sounds, ordering the same beer and meeting the same bunch of people of frequent the place can be annoying. It can be so boring that instead of going out and celebrate the beautiful night, I can be glued at the monitor of my workstation do some office works and or visit the same old social networking site again.

Tonight can be one of those boring nights. But me, myself and my friend Derf are not about to accept that conventional. We will make tonight a good night and the only way to make it so is to travel to Manila, one night only, and experience the fascinating night Manila can offer. Yes we are and we got nothing but ourselves, one bottle of Red Horse beer, four Magic Flakes cracker and his car. At quarter past one in the afternoon, we began the approximately 377kilometer journey to Manila.

Travelling no slower than 80 kilometers per hour in open highways, we were cruising the zigzag road of Quezon Province by 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Three and a half hours after that, we were at the Toll Gate of the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX). But before we proceed to our final destination, we agreed to pick up two friends along the way. One is Nilo in Sta. Rosa, Laguna and the other is Pedro (Deps) in Bacoor, Cavite.

Nilo was waiting for us at Jollibee near the Balibago Complex in Sta. Rosa. There was minor confusion though before we found him at the right spot. He texted us that he was waiting at Jollibee near the “Complex” but his text reads “Caltex”. So when we get across Jollibee beside Caltex we stopped and look for him. Unfortunately, there are 3 other Jollibee stores in the area and the other is near the Complex where he was waiting. Turned out, the guy was already half-drunk.

Deps was waiting at his house in Bacoor. We got there around 11PM already. The traffic and the confusions of Nilo’s whereabouts caused us several hours of fun. After getting Deps, we went straight to the gimik capital of Manila – Malate. The district offers superb choices of fun from basic strippers to comedy bars and from acoustics to live bands. We headed straight to the new Cowboy Grill near Adriatico Circle.

There were three bands performing tonight plus a special band covering all Scorpions Music. We didn’t know that but that came in as a sweet surprise for Nilo and Derf. The Scorpions Band from Germany is one of the coolest heavy metal bands of their generation. The lead singer of the local group mimicked Klaus Meine, Scorpions Lead Singer, with maximum authenticity. The other 3 bands performed cool music from light rock, alternative, RNB, pop and retro genre. We downed two beer towers and one crispy pata before we called it a night, or should I say morning. At 4AM, we headed back to Nilo’s place and waited for the new sunrise.

I still have a mini-hangover while writing this piece. Check this back again for errors later. Happy Birthday Nilo.