Manilla

We recently spent four days in Manilla, Philippines with our friend Rommel. He has been inviting us to see his home country and meet his family since our arrival in Hong Kong. We finally were able to do that over the Labor Day weekend. Labor Day here is May 1st and we headed off to the Philippines on the Saturday before. 


It is amazing how much you can cram into four days and almost impossible to categorize it all, but I will try. There are some very modern parts of Manilal and some extremely old parts. I am starting with an overview of the older parts and will work my way through posts on many of the interesting places and things we were able to see.


In the older parts of Manilla the streets are narrow and filled with all forms of transportation.

Travel on public transportation consists mainly of bike and motorcycle taxis and Jeepneys. I will do more on the Jeepneys in a later post. They are really quite something.


As we rode the streets I became fascinated by the power lines over head. All lines are above ground because of the frequency of typhoons (it seems everyone spawned in the Pacific hits the Philippines at some point). Since all utilities use the poles and the city is densely populated, the overhead wire-scape it a sight to behold.

I cannot imagine what the job must be like for the repairmen who are tasked to find the one line that isn't working. It must be brutal.


One place we went was an indoor market. It was filled with stalls selling everything you can possibly imagine. One entire area was devoted to selling pearls and pearl jewelry. And no, I did not spend here since Rommel had already picked up some beautiful pearls on an earlier visit home.

The last part of old Manilla I am going to put in this post is a restaurant called The Aristocrat. It has been in continuous operation since 1936. My dad was in Manilla at the end of World War II. I am going to see if he remembers eating there. The food was great and we had many of the local favorites. 

Our drink was filled with large tapioca beads and shaved ice mixed with juices. It was yummy. The local spring rolls are in the most delicate of wrappers and the roast beef was fork tender. One of the specialties of the house was the barbecued chicken (we had two orders). And another specialty is the flying saucer sandwich. This grilled treat is filled with adobo. Adobo is made with chicken and/or pork cooked long and slow with laurel leaves and other seasonings. For the sandwich it is then shredded and placed between the bread for grilling. My mouth waters just thinking about adobo.


There is much more to show, but that will come in the succeeding posts. This is just a little taste of a very tasty weekend.