1000+ hits on my blog!

Ok, not this blog… really, no one reads this blog except a handful of people. However, my work blog, “butterflies and bugs” is alive and kicking! I wrote a new post yesterday (although I’ve been lacking in my blogging for a while) and it was pretty popular. Seeing my blog stats made my day. Plus, the post only took me about 10 mins to write. Check it out:

Non-Gourmet Filipino Food

We arrived back in SF from Manila last night and on the plane ride back, they served breakfast a few hours before landing. The choices were fish or corned beef and rice. I knew without even looking at the dish that the ‘corned beef’ entree would be canned corned beef. While most Americans who care about the quality of their food would find canned corned beef a last resort, this is a standard part of filipino cuisine thanks to the Americans who brought this food to the Philippines during WWII.  I started thinking about some of the other very, ‘non-gourmet’ items that you will find everywhere in the Philippines.

1. Canned Meat (as mentioned above): Filipinos are really fond of canned meats including Vienna Sausages, Spam and corned beef. While in the Philippines, our best meal came from my cousin’s house where we stayed for several nights. His cook was a professional chef at one time. For one meal she perfectly cooked and seasoned fresh seafood caught and purchased that morning. I would look forward to all of her meals. But, even she put Vienna Sausages on the table one morning… Its standard fare, I tell you.

2. Instant Coffee (with non-dairy creamer) – While there are Starbucks, Gloria Jeans and the Coffee Bean cropping up all over Manila, most filipinos still seem to drink instant coffee. In our two five star hotels, they still provided only instand coffee and non-dairy creamer. Also, when ordering  a coffee on New Year’s eve, the waitress asked us “instant or brewed”. You’d get shut down as a restaurant in America if you served instant coffee.

3. Fruit Cocktail – My mom used to always have canned peaches and use canned fruit cocktail to make a fruit salad. I had no idea at the time that this was cultural and that most American’s opted for fresh fruit. On one of our 8 course Chinese lunches with family, the dessert was canned fruit cocktail. My uncle told the waiter, “I want the good fruit cocktail from Del Monte, not those cans you buy at SM (a filipino dept. store)”. Kevin and I were a bit surprised that you could get picky about fruit cocktail.

4. Powered Juice Drinks – Again, powered drinks like Tang were probably brought over by Americans as rations to the filipinos in WWII and they have stuck around. When asking for orange juice in the Philippines, you will often be served Tang or something similar.

Other than this stuff, I loved a lot of the food that we had in the Philippines. I had some of the freshest seafood, various types of pancit, fresh hot pan de sal, tropical fruits and so many desserts (which all seem to use sweet rice or sweet rice flour).

Last thoughts in Manila

We are in an internet cafe in Santa Cruz, Manila near my parents’ condo and my cousins’ house. The cost of access is only 20 Pesos an hour which is less than 50 cents… crazy. Anyways, the past two nights, Kevin and I have been living in luxury at the Diamond Hotel in Malate (#3 on TripAdvisor.com). We were planning on staying with my cousin in the Marina district, but, their home is a bit isolated. On our third night there, we had a plan to get massages with my nephew. He was supposed to pick us up, but, never showed up. So, we were stuck at their home getting bored and with no way to get anywhere because taxis were impossible to find there. So, we decided to splurge on a nice hotel where hot showers and comfy beds were guaranteed and we could walk the neighborhoods and catch taxis if we wanted.

I am sure we made the right choice to move to a hotel. Its been really comfortable (no more mosquito bites!!!) and we’ve walked around Malate a bit in our free time. The funny thing is that when walking around with Kevin, beggars approach us, people try to sell us fake rolex watches, sunglasses, etc. It feels a bit shady. While riding in my cousin’s vehicle, we even saw a western man get mugged by a bunch of kids (no older than 12). Three of the kids had run off while the man had tackled one of the kids trying to get his possessions back. It was a bit scary. However, this morning, Kevin and I separated briefly and I walked back to our hotel on my own. This time, no one bothered me. No one approached me and I was very comfortable walking down the street! They thought I was a native, I guess. On the other hand, Kevin told me that it was worse than walking without me. This time, not only were people offering watches and sunglasses, but, girls too!

Our time, however, has been mostly dominated by various appts. of meeting family. Yesterday, we had a big shabu shabu (seafood hot pot) meal with my mom’s cousin in the Green Hills area. It started off as a very heated morning when my sister woke up hungover from the night before and my mom was livid. Oops! The night before, my cousin, Kuya Edmund had arrived from Thailand, so we had a “drinking session” on the street (M Hizon St.). This was a great experience for Kevin, I think. We all sat on benches on the narrow street drinking wine and beer. Many of my cousins were there, my uncle, Tito Rod and some of the neighbors joined in. The spread of snacks grew as the night went on. In the Philippines, we call these “drinking snacks”, Pulutan. This ranged from garlic peanuts, chips, chicharon (fried pig skins), an oyster omelet, vinegar tofu, fried chicken, dried seaweed and “balut”. Yes… for those who don’t know, “Balut” is infamous. It is the half developed duck egg that filipinos eat. It was once featured on Fear Factor as one of the things that the contestants had to eat. One of my cousins bought Balut and challenged Kevin to eat it. He wouldn’t do it, but, eventually, he agreed to just lick the egg a bit. Then, both my sister and I sipped a bit of the juice. Finally, our driver, Toti, ate the rest of the duck egg in one gulp. Ewwww! Anyways, with all of the liquor variety, my sister felt sick in the morning and my mom was not happy.

Anyways, all of that has now passed and we are just waiting to go home. We’ve got about 4 hours til we head to the airport. I think my relatives are trying to stuff us with about as much food as possible before we go. Overall, I think this trip was a success! Everyone met Kevin and we all got along splendidly! I’m sure Kevin felt overwhelmed, at times, but, we had a little bit of time off in our hotels

Updates from rainy Manila

After New Year’s, Kevin and I spent three nights just hanging out in a fairly posh part of Manila called Makati. We stayed at the Mandarin Oriental (enjoying the comforts of home) while touring the shopping in the area. We are both not that big on hanging out at big malls, but, that seems to be the thing to do in Manila. There are malls everywhere and they are huge! We usually spend some portion of our time in these malls just sitting at coffee shops and reading our books. The malls are just like those in the U.S. equipped with Starbucks, dept. stores and every major brand you can think of from Benneton to Gucci. They even have a Marks and Spencer here (from London). The malls are probably 10 times the size as those in the U.S. though. In fact, many people have told us that the “Mall of Asia” where we were yesterday is the second biggest in the world.We also had tea at the Peninsula hotel as well as brunch. We were trying to relive our good memories of the Peninsula from our honeymoon

We also travelled out to Pangasinan (a 4-5 hour drive north of Manila) to my mom’s province. We dropped off my cousin’s wife’s mother at her home in a more remote area where she owns a beach resort. The resort had cute huts with beds that you can stay in, but, no electricity or running water. It was pretty neat to walk around though. There were a bunch of coconut trees, so, our driver, Toti and a family friend, Kuya Mong used a very long stick to grab some of the coconuts off of the tree. Then, Kuya Mong used a very large knife to cut the young coconut (buco) open and we ate the meat inside and drank the juice… pretty cool! We stayed in a lavish home in Lucap close to the water. But, even in this nine room (converted home), the bathrooms were not really western. There were no hot showers except in one bathroom. Its been tough to get a warm shower with decent water pressure in the Philippines. Then, we took a boat tour of “Hundred Islands”. The islands were better than I remember. While there aren’t too many sandy beaches on these islands, the sand was clean and white while the water was clear. We couldn’t see any fishes, however, but, I hear the snorkeling in the area is great. According to a book I was reading, the diving in the area has been ruined by the fisherman, however. We walked along Governor’s Island and Quezon Island and took some nice photos. This was my mom’s second trip to hundred islands in two weeks, so, she didn’t have too much enthusiasm for the trip and stayed in the boat. Before leaving Pangasinan with a trip to the central market where Kevin got his first view of the life in a Filipino market. We were looking for Longanisa (a sweet breakfast sausage) that Alaminos, Pangasinan is known for. I got some great photos of this market. We also picked up some snacks like Two-Pig (sweet rice with coconut wrapped in banana leaves and bbq’d) and corn for the drive back to Manila. On our last stop, we visited my grandparents (Pang and Mamang) and my mom’s older brother, Kuyang, at a cemetary. I make this trip back to Pangasinan whenever I go to the Philippines to pay my respects. Of all my cousins on my mom’s side, not many will argue that I was Pang’s favorite   He stayed with us and took care of me as a child until he got sick when I was about five years old.

After returning to Manila, we hung out in Santa Cruz on M. Hizon street where many of my cousins on my mom’s side live. This is very much the Philippines that tourists would never see. Many westerners would think it was small and dirty, but, its such a community here. My aunt has lived there for 50+  years and she is like the queen bee on the street running a store and other services (like lending money) to the local residents. Everyone calls here ‘Mommy’ on the street. She maintains an alter of saints on the street as well and her family’s doors are always open. My parents also own an apt. building on this street. We enjoyed just sitting on the street (on a bench) and people watching. Vendors selling ice cream, watermellon, coconuts, gas and other items will ride by. There are also tons of children on the street. Many of them will come by my aunts store to buy candy or items like ice.

Now, we are staying in the Marina area which is very posh. We’ve got other plans to see more family now that my sister and dad have returned from China.

Happy New Year from the Philippines

We are on our fourth day here in the Philippines and have  to Manila from a great stay on the island of Palawan. On Palawan, we stayed for two nights at “Dos Palmas” resort which is a resort on its own island. This was pretty nice since you could take a speed boat out to a snorkeling site, take diving lessons, get massages, or just sit under a palappa for the afternoon. The weather was great while we were there. It was really sunny on the first day which provided for great snorkeling. We saw tons of fish and coral. Wow! This was probably the most diverse reef that I’ve ever seen. There were many large and small fish and a lot of diverse coral. On the second day, we spent the morning sitting in a palappa until we were boated off to a tiny island for lunch. Unfortunately, the snorkeling at this island was not that great, but, we did get more snorkeling in on our third day. We also spent some time getting massages at the resort and singing karaoke. Yes… pretty much every place we go… there will be karaoke. Its just a part of life here! Kevin has found that he can sing “Yellow Submarine” by the Beatles, so, I think I will be hearing a lot of that song for the rest of our trip whenever people force him to sing.

So much more has happened in just four days here. On our first day, there was very little rest. A cousin of mine picked us up at 5:00 am from Manila International. We felt like VIPs because he had a porter and special pass to get into baggage claim to help us retrieve our bags and go through customs. Then, he took us to breakfast and gave us a driving tour of the city. We then went to another cousin’s home to settle in with our stuff. After a quick snack (more eating) and a shower, we headed off to my parents’ apartment in Metro Manila. Here, Kevin was again introduced to at least a dozen more family members. Then, at dinner, we had an unexpected family reunion for my dad’s side. I saw three cousins along with their married children and grandchildren. It was 12 course Chinese dinner with about 30 people. We were pretty tired by the end (and jet-lagged). But, by the end of the dinner, my cousin, carted us all off to get massages. Now, we really wanted to go to bed…but, can we really say no to massages that he already paid for? Of course not. So, at about 10 pm, we went to a massage place where about 9 of us got full body massages. This was actually fantastic. I fell in and out of sleep and felt very relaxed. By the time we arrived home, it was past 12:30 and we only had about 3 hours to sleep before leaving for our flight to the island of Palawan. I don’t think Kevin expected such a jam packed first day. But, he got a lot of family introductions done early!

Today, we are checking into the Mandarin Oriental in Makati. It should be pretty nice to get about 24 hours to ourselves before a festival of more relatives tomorrow evening. My sister has planned a party for my mom’s side of the family to all meet Kevin and welcome me back tomorrow night. Surely, there will be lots of food, beer and karaoke. (of course!)