Roses and Thorns in PI

 Hi Everyone! 

I wouldn’t be a good blogger if I didn’t give you the full picture of my travels, so let’s play a little game called roses and thorns. 

A major thorn was breakfast at Uncle Vic’s friend’s house. Over these two days it became apparent that me and his friends had different standards of cleanliness, which reached its peak as we dined with bugs at 7:30 am in the morning. Yup, you read that right…bugs. There were ants in the pan de leche container and flies in the lonzones and little critters in the fried food left out at night. I sat at the table to be polite and you bet your money the only thing I ate was a fresh mango I cut myself. It was only extreme discipline that kept my butt in the chair for the full 20 minutes of torture. Happy to report that this will be my last meal in this house! 

A rose was that because I was starving, as soon our driver came I asked to stop at a coffee shop and ended up at a super famous Starbucks Reserve that we couldn’t get into at all for the past two days because the lines were at least three hours long. It has a great view of Taal and I got to try a vanilla mille feuille latte, thank you Asia for coming up with the best flavors! 

Another rose is that we drove to another city called Nuvali where Uncle Vic’s cousin lives and their dining table was ant free!! Issa and I were soooooo happy we could hardly contain ourselves.

They live in what I’m assuming is the lowlands, but I’m not quite sure because the name of the area roughly translates to “tall grass.” It’s a developing suburb that has a huge mall where Issa and I got lots of local snacks and even stopped for boba. By far our best find was a bookstore which carried Filipino authors and we found this awesome young adult book which is basically a k drama in 200 pages. Issa and I giggled the whole time reading together because it was so silly! Also it was so nice to read for fun again, without the need to critically analyze every single word, I really missed this.

The last rose of the day is that Auntie Weng cooked us an awesome dinner of chicken piccata, bistek, and salad. I could have cried I was so happy to have pasta! I had a double portion and did a little dance throughout the dinner, that’s how good the food was.

But as we all know, every rose has a thorn, and today I finally fell prey to faulty heating out in the suburbs and was forced to take a cold shower. Issa and Auntie Weng were laughing at me the entire time (all 60 seconds) for being such a big baby over it, but 10 years was still too soon for this! Alas, I guess if it comes to choosing between dining with crawlers or no hot water, I’ll take a cold shower any day. 

Thinking of you all and missing you!

Aisha 

Pancakes and a Hike in Tagaytay

 Hi Everyone! 

It’s day 2 and I’m very excited to be going to the gardens today. We first stopped at this cute coffee shop called Bag of Beans. Tagaytay is the definition of not judging a book by its cover because on the outside everything looks a bit run down and questionable but on the inside are ultra modern, sleek spaces. Bag of beans was no different with their Parisian themed decor. I ordered two eggs with pancakes and finished my whole plate! Everyone at the table was shocked, including myself. What can I say? There’s something so comforting about safe and familiar food. 

Afterward breakfast we all drove to Caleruega, a famous church and garden. It is located in the mountains so what was meant to be a garden stroll turned into a hike up and down the mountain, including at least a hundred steps to get to what we thought was the entrance, only to find a chapel and a dead end. But we were having such a fun time exploring nature we hardly noticed until we were exhausted and still had to walk back up the hill in 85° sunny weather. The walk back down the 10 flights of stairs was way less jovial than the flight up so don’t be too fooled by the smiles on our faces on the stairs lol.

The whole space was beautiful and the views overlooked these farmlands. This blue flower was my absolute favorite in the forest and it was so cute because it looked like little fairies on the ground everywhere! I was most definitely enchanted by the space and could have spent hours more there had the sunshine and staircases not left me starving.

We had a special treat for lunch because we ate in another garden lined with Kubos. Kubos are like little huts for rest and meals and you’ll find them all around town. They helped us to stay cool while eating outside because the roof and the bamboo don’t retain heat as a metal or synthetic picnic table would. We had more traditional Filipino dishes including my favorite dessert, halo halo. It’s a milky ice cream dish that has ice, ube, ice cream, beans, jelly, coconut, and flan with condensed milk poured on top. It’s the best treat to beat the heat! 

With our bellies full and having gotten our workout of the day done, Issa and I opted to nap rather than continue exploring the town which was perfect because it gave us just enough time to recover before dinner! We went to a five star hotel which had this beautiful outdoor space. Unfortunately the wind was wild, and after walking around for 20 minutes we decided to opt for indoor dining. 

Tagaytay was lovely, but I feel like we’ve seen it all. I’m excited we made a last minute change to our plans and are going to visit another town tomorrow. 

Miss you all and sending lots of love,

Carolyn 

Tagaytay

 Hi Friends!! 

Today we got up bright and early to travel to a suburban vacation town called Tagaytay. It’s pronounced tah-guy-tie in case you were really confused reading that like I was. Uncle Vic has a childhood best friend here in the Philippines, so we will be staying with their family in their vacation home. Auntie Weng and I have been going crazy over how big the plants get over here and the garden in the vacation home did not disappoint!

Since we were eating home cooked food, Uncle Vic’s friends were able to accommodate my allergies and I got to try real Filipino dishes, chicken tinola (which is a ginger garlic chicken soup) and beef bulalo (which is a bone marrow soup). I didn’t eat the marrow itself because the texture was too weird for me but I did enjoy the tenderness of the meat and the bone broth. As you can see on our plates are a fork and a spoon because they don’t use knives here at the table. It didn’t take me too long to figure out how to use the spoon and fork to cut the meat but I will say that I think the Bengalis have it right, eating with your hands is so much easier and the food tastes better too! 

Our afternoon adventure was to the People’s Park in the Sky which was a viewpoint at the very top of a mountain. I’m usually unafraid of heights but it was our driver’s first time driving a stick shift and it was a two lane road the whole way up, definitely not a good idea on any account, but it’s not like I could drive the van myself. We were all holding our breaths when the driver stalled the car a few times up the road! Also, unbeknownst to us cars can’t go to the very top, so Issa and I had to hike the rest of the way in flip flops! At least there was a paved road which made it a little bit easier.

The view was definitely worth the journey. Down below you see the lake and Taal Volcano. Its last eruption was on March 26, 2022  and it is currently degassing at 14 thousand tons per day which made the air smell like sulfur, even from where we were.

With all the hiking we were ready for a snack and I was in heaven when I saw the fruit stalls! Of course I asked everyone if we could stop and stock up. We got half a kilo of mangosteen for $5, which is unheard of in the U.S. There was also a local fruit called lanzones which I tried and really loved! It’s sweet and sour and kind of has the texture of a grape. And I think we bought like 15 mangos since I’ve been pretty much finishing a whole mango myself every day. They’re just too good to resist and don’t taste anything like the ones we get back home. 

Exhausted from our day in the sun and travels we called it a night only to find that none of us were actually prepared for what it means to be living in the suburbs of a third world country. Aka Issa and Auntie Weng took cold showers while I researched the hot water heater. You’ll be impressed, I found the exact Panasonic model and read the entire manual and managed to get the hot water going! Desperate times calls for desperate measures. For those of you that remember I lived in Bangladesh for a summer and took cold showers every. single. day. Mostly because my grandma insisted on showering before me and finished the hot water but either way I was NOT about to do that again lol. And you can forget about having any water pressure, unless you want to shower in cold water. Also, they don’t use mosquito nets here, so we learned the hard way that those buggers could get through the screens on the windows. We basically had to pick between the overwhelmingly loud noise of the AC unit or cracking the window and letting a few bugs into the room, to which we chose the latter. Issa and I went to bed giggling so hard at how Americanized and spoiled we are. Here’s to hoping we adjust quickly!

Love you all,

Carolyn 

Manila

 Hi Everyone!

Isabel and I crashed so hard last night when we finally arrived in Manila at midnight, let’s just say I’m going to think twice before traveling for over 35 hours without a bed again. It was totally worth it though! Even if the 8 am wake up call from Uncle Vic (Isabel’s dad) was rough and jet lag was pretty hard to beat today.

It’s Sunday here and because the dominant religion of the Philippines is Catholicism most of the city was at church today, including myself! Each culture is so different and Filipino church in the Philippines was quite the experience. At the end of mass everyone rushed to the front, hands raised in the air, as the priest threw holy water on the crowd, almost like he was a DJ that had popped a champagne bottle and was spraying it around at a club. I can only compare as far as I’ve seen in movies of course ;)

You guys would be so surprised if you came here. I know I was, especially since the last time I was in an Asian third world country was ten years ago. And I know we were staying in the nicer district here but everything was beautiful and clean and so safe! It was way better than LA or even Pasadena, which really says something about our country. Being back in Asia is like wrapping myself in my favorite warm blanket on a winter’s day. The plants are so lush and green and everyone is so warm and friendly. It’s so amazing to me that these are people who are really struggling, and live hard lives to earn few dollars, and yet you’re never left wanting for a helping hand or a genuine smile.

Isabel, Uncle Vic, and I walked around the neighboring hotels and casinos, it was so strange because it really felt like we were in Vegas. The casinos connected into high end shops, all the lobbies were decorated for Chinese New Year, and the indoor greenery was spectacular. 

Auntie Weng joined us for lunch after our walk around town and we went to an authentic Filipino restaurant. Finding food here is not easy! Everything is pork and if it doesn’t have pork then it has fish sauce. Even today Auntie Weng ordered veggies for me which we specially requested to be made without fish sauce only to find that veggies here are made with chicken, shrimp, and pork. Oh well, you live and learn, next time I’ll make sure that my side of veggies is actually vegetarian lol! 

The most surprising part of my day was when went to the Rockwell. It was an old power plant that had been converted into a mall, and too be honest I wasn’t expecting much. To my surprise it was a mall of luxury and foreign brands! You name it, you could find it here, Chanel, Versace, they even had a Levi’s store! It’s so weird being half way across the world and feeling like I’m at the South Coast Plaza in Orange County. The one thing I will say is that their mall has way better snacks, we stopped for this traditional dish called Taho, which is tofu and tapioca pearls drizzled in syrup. It was delicious! The tofu was almost like flan with its texture, I’ve never tasted anything like it and I’ll definitely be ordering it again while I’m here. I also got a calamansi melon soda which was tart and refreshing. Calamansi is a type of lime that’s really popular here, it’s less bitter than a regular lime but still has that sharp tang to it. If you ever come across one you should definitely try it! 

Having successfully defeated jet lag, and rather unsuccessfully shopped (it’s hard to buy things you can get cheaper back at home), we happily called it a night. 

I’ll keep you posted on our new adventures tomorrow. We’re already heading out to another town in the morning, wish us luck dealing with traffic in the PI! 

Love you all,

Aisha