Manila, Philippines Trip (Day 1)

My TCC Breakfast for Flight Day

24th July 2014, Thursday
Many things happened after my last trip, all my friends left the company and i got a new job due to "retrenchment" but i gained new colleagues in the new company. Lately got to know a new friend from Philippines in the new company, who invited me to go visit Philippines and her hometown. So, why not? Since i need a break from the stupid and boring work, so i agreed to go along. And then my friend booked the air tickets and planned the whole itinerary, even ordered a whole roast pig back at her hometown for our arrival. Oh well, it seems damn long to wait until our flight day and finally it came!! Time to fly away!! We met at the airport @ around 7 plus, and then we checked in our luggage. My friend gave me a Nike cap when we were having breakfast...hehehe....Then we went to our gate to board our plane. Our flight time is 9.35 am, and off we go.

Condo Building

We reached Manila @ around 1 plus in the afternoon. After we arrived, my friend went to draw some cash out for our expenses for the trip. Later we went out to meet her brother (Joseph), who was picking us up. In the airport, the waiting areas were indicated by the starting letter of their surnames. Eg: if the surname is starting with M, then u will need to go to the F-M areas to wait (something like that). This is something interesting...hahaa....Then suddenly, there was a super loud thunder sound, i thought it was going to have typhoon soon (as got reports of typhoons in Philippines earlier in the previous weeks). Then we met up with my friend's brother, and we went to take public bus to their condo building. The bus was like our coach buses, full with people and the ticket man walked in the bus to collect $ and issued the bus tickets. The ride was $25 peso per pax, and it took us like almost an hour to reach our destination due to the traffic jam. The vehicles really didn't move much on the jam, it is how bad people were saying the traffic jams in Manila....kekekee....After the ride in the bus, we reached our stop but we still need to walk a short distance to the condo. My friend was cautioning me to carry my bag infront instead of at the back...

Half Chicken with 3 different sauces

The condo building looks very nice from outside, looks like our HDB buildings. But the space inside was much smaller than our Singapore flats. When i walked in, can see the kitchen on the left side and there were 2 bunk beds. There was another room with 1 bunk bed and the toilet. The flat size was really small. Anyway, we put our luggage there and rested for awhile and we went out for lunch. We went to the mall nearby, and it was amazing that the security guards in the mall were doing bags inspection on people who were going into the mall (And is every shopping mall in Philippines). We went lunch in Max's Restaurant. It's the restaurant where it is selling the carmel bars (which was always brought back by my ex-colleagues previously). Ohh...the fried chicken was nice, crispy and tender. My friend don't let me drink the iced water from the restaurant, so she got her brother to get mineral water from the supermarket..heheee....The whole meal cost like $724 peso, which is like around $21 sgd..

Flan & Ube Turon

After the nice lunch, we went for dessert in Adobe Connection. We ordered Flan Turon and Ube Turon. It was a small triangular shape snack, not a bad snack....hehehee....Then we took a cab to Fiesta Market (along the way, past by the streets and saw tall buildings in the old and new CBD areas), there, are some small stalls selling the local products  from different parts of Philippines. After the viewing of the market, we walked to a shopping mall called SM Aura. It was owned by Philippines's biggest mall developer, SM Prime Holdings. So there were alot of shopping malls under SM around Philippines. This is just one of them, it was a big mall with all the branded shops in it but there wasn't packed with people. There, we walked around while waiting for my friend's sister-in-law to come meet us after work. My friend wanted to buy me a new basketball but we cannot bring it back to Singapore as the ball cannot be inflated to stuff in the luggage....so sadz....

Pork Knuckles

Then my friend's sister-in-law came and we went to phone service provider to get a data SIM card. And waited to top up the prepaid card, i got abit bored and was going to sleep mode soon. Me and my friend went down to the supermarket first to get some stuffs while her sister-in-law was helping us to top up the data card. Then later we all met up in the supermarket, after that we went for dinner @ Elias in Bonifacio High Street. There looked like got a lot of restaurants and shops in the area but didn't managed to walk along the streets to see. Dinner was nice but i was not even hungry for dinner.
But still, ate the rice and dishes but very slowly. My friend was telling her brother that i can finish up the rice very fast in Singapore but don't know what happened, i was like eating so slow in Philippines...hahahaha....

Different types of intestines to bbq

After dinner, it was already like 8 plus and we need to get ready to catch our bus to Baiguo later. So we took cab back to a food market (just behind the condo), which was only opened on Wednesday and Thursday (i think). There were alot of stalls selling different food and drinks but i was still too full to eat anything. I got a mango juice instead, the juice was very thick and can really taste the mango in it. We sat down and ate fishballs while my friend's sister-in-law went back to her office to take her stuffs back. Later we walked back to the condo and had shower, i almost falling asleep on the bed. Joseph and his wife were sleeping already while my friend unpacked some of her stuffs out from her backpack. And we waited until 11 plus and woke Joseph up to bring us to the bus terminal. We took cab to the bus terminal and we boarded the bus when we arrived. There was a lady steward onboard the bus who gave us a bottle of mineral water and a cake. And she also collected $ and issued us our tickets. After that, it was lights out and with that, it was about 4 hours ride to Baiguo.