After school and church last Saturday, I had to attend this company party at the Makati Sports Club. I told Schatz to just wait for me because I’ll just show up and stay for 1 hour then leave after eating, and then we can go home together. I left the party and met up with him at Glorietta. But instead of going home right away, we went to Timezone — we haven’t been to that place for a looooong time. They have newer games and took away some of our favorites. We left the mall at 11pm — no worries, the MRT now operates until midnight and we have no problems commuting home.
WRONG.
When we got to Ayala Station, there were so many people. A lot of them were already sitting on the floor, many were dozing off. Obviously, they have been waiting for a long time already. WTF? We thought it was weird that there were still many commuters around that time.
Turns out that the trains that come in from Taft are always packed, and that trains only come in 20 minute-intervals (or so). When they announced that they are extending operating hours to until midnight, they probably actually meant: they will only extend hours, but the trainsets that will run will still be the same. Stuuuupid.
We were at the station at 11:00pm and the first packed train we saw was about 20 minutes after. Obviously, we could not get on that one, so we decided to wait for the next one. Then we saw Itchon-sensei and Kubo-sensei on the other side of the station, on the Southbound platform. Took us several minutes of waving until they finally saw us 😛 They signaled back and told us to just take the roundtrip train with them (going to Taft and back) so we’re guaranteed seats.
When we got to the platform, it was obvious that no train will be coming in the next 30 minutes — that is after so much chika with the senseis already. Schatz and I decided that we will take the bus instead. Kubo-sensei didn’t want to — he said he didn’t think Manila buses are safe. Hehe, somehow I tend to agree. OK, so we left them at the station and were able to hop on a bus as soon as we stepped out of the station. I texted Itchon-sensei right away — her reply came about 30 minutes later: still no train and they decided to get a cab home instead. The bad thing is, they waited in the station for more than an hour and their train passes have expired already. Not their fault. Very very stupid MRT.
One of the problems of Metro Manila is the inefficient public transport. There is no single means of transpo that we can call efficient – even LRT 2 sucks. Yes, it is new and comfy, but that is the only positive thing you can say about it. It is verrrry slow and the train drivers usually mess up the recorded announcements. Hello! I can go on and on with my rants about this — I have to deal with sucky transpo everyday — but I’d rather not today. Until I get get a car, I think I’ll still be taking these trains — no choice, of course. Good thing my company provides car service after office hours and I don’t have to take the damn MRT!
