This was not my first trip to Manila, it was my second. So I was way less anxious about a lot of things, including the long travel time, working at night, the time change, and what to pack. In fact, I may have been less anxious than I needed to be, because I got tripped up by time twice on this trip.

First, the event I was scheduled to attend started on Wednesday at midnight. So I figured if I arrived late Tuesday night, I would have a full 24 hours before I had to be at the office. Uh, wrong. Wednesday at midnight is the beginning of Wednesday, not the end. Oops. Missed several hours of that one. And the thing was, I heard about this happening to other people at previous events, so I made sure that I understood the right time. Except it was the wrong time. Ugh.

The next day went just fine, but since I had an extra night in the city (due to my first time goof) I decided to go back to the office and have a couple more meetings, starting at 11pm. So I planned to go to bed at 2pm and get up at 9pm. I looked at my phone, and saw the 9:00 alarm already set up, selected it, and passed out. When I woke up, it was 10:45pm. What the heck?? I asked myself as I franticallly threw the covers back and jumped out of bed. I set my alarm! I looked, and sure enough, it was set. Except it was set to the time I usually need it, 9:00 AM. Not PM. Oy. Luckily, the guy I was supposed to meet with was also running late, so it ended up just fine.

But still! Two time mess ups when I was in Manila just over 55 hours made me feel like an idiot for sure. So the moral is, when the time difference is that great, and when you are working at a time of day (or night!) you are completely not used to, be very specific! Make sure you understand what midnight means, and set your alarm correctly. An overabundance of caution is not a bad thing in this circumstance.