For the first #throwbackthursday I will share a little about when I went to the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda. I remember seeing the devastation  and being fresh out of the military with money in my pocket I knew I was able to go down there and help. I tried to link up with some rescue agencies, but I could not get any to reply.

I arrived in Manila early in the morning. I made it to the hotel and wanted to get some rest before heading to the embassy. During my walk to the embassy, an older gentleman had me hop on his carriage and was going to take me to the embassy…. until he turned around and his buddy jumped on…. Dom was not going to be a kidnapped or mugged victim. I jumped off and booked it to the embassy.

That night I got a call from my mom and she had to be rushed to the hospital due to a heart attack. She was watching my cousins while I was away. Needless to say, I had to book a ticket back to the States. I was not able to make it to Tacloban like I originally planned.

With a 3 day turn around for my flight, I asked if anyone was in Manila that could show me around. Adam Zillin had his buddy, JP Carino, get in contact with me to show me around. At the same time, Al Lu of HP Racing, contacted me and said he was taking that Monday off to show me around the area.

After stopping at several tuning shops, including Sushi Factory, Al and I met up with JP and went to even more shops. JP had to head back and take care of some stuff. Al and I went and met up with David Feliciano. It was crazy. He let me drift his S15!

At the end of the night Al put together a meet for me to meet a lot of the people around. I managed to meet Azee and Edwin. Azee used to draw photos of cars for 7tune and it was great to meet her face to face. Of course we got kicked out of the gas station and made it to a parking garage.

The hospitality that I received was amazing. I wish I could go back sooner to stay at least a week or two. One day.