Day 12

18 December 2008

What a bummer. The ForEx Rate has gotten worse since the US Fed cut a key interest rate to almost 0%. Instead of 48-50PHP per dollar, we're now getting 46. Ay na ko!

After changing money at the Robinson's near the hotel, we walked to the National Art Museum where I took some contraband photos of the interior. Hey, at least I didn't touch any of the paintings, unlike one of the other museum patrons! Mom thinks the guy was trying to scratch the eyes from the painting because he thought the subject of the painting was watching him. Crazy dude. We saw Juan Luna's great masterpiece, "Spoliarium", and Felix Hidalgo's "Assassination of Gov. Bustamante and His Son."

We had lunch at the SM City Hall Mall. Mom and I had a great merrienda meal for 50PHP. What an awesome deal! I had a bowl of arroz caldo, a lumpia shanghai, turon, and a bottle of water for a little over a $1. Leah splurged a bit, but still spent less than $4 on her larger meal. We also had to buy another pair of shoes for me, since my shoes became too uncomfortable to wear. *Darn!*

By the time we walked to the Intramuros ("Walled City"), most of the exhibits had closed. However, we were still able to see San Agustin and the Manila Cathedral, the Church of the Immaculate Conception. San Agustin is the oldest church in the Philippines, having first been built in 1571. The current structure is actually the third church built on the site and was completed in 1607. There was a wedding about to start there, so we didn't linger long. The Cathedral is where my cousin Anselmo Ferdinand got married. While it was also grand, San Agustin felt more ornate and had a greater sense of history.

We had a really excellent dinner at Philippine Classic Cuisine (C2) that consisted of laing (a Bicolano dish of gabi leaves in coconut milk), crispy tilapia with pineapple salsa and coconut emulsion, aligue rice (rice with crabfat...yummmm), garlicky pinakbet, and pancit malabon. It was a lot of food, but we had earned it with all the walking we'd done! I also had a fantastic drink made from lime soda and salabat (brown sugar and ginger syrup that were frozen into ice cubes). We thanked the chef for the wonderful meal and walked back to the hotel, during which mom sprained her ankle. :(

We'll see more of the Intramuros tomorrow if her ankle feels better.

Day 11

17 December 2008

My cousin, Maria Louisa (Marilou or Lou) took me and her daughter, Nicole, to Tiendesitas, an outdoor market about a 5-10 minute ride from BRB. It's a pretty neat place with a lot of Filipina Kultura items. Among the items that I bought there was an original oil painting by a local artist of a church in Laguna. It was a steal, at $30USD. Mostly, I ogled at the furniture they were selling there and wished that I could afford the shipping costs to bring them home with me. Lou says that Brad Pitt orders a lot of his furniture from Cebu. I don't know if that's true, but the Cebuano furniture I've seen have been really cool. Lou bought me some fruit to try - star apple and lonzanes. They were so good and brought back memories from my childhood. But apparently, I'd forgotten how to eat lonzanes because my fingers were covered in latex half-way through my first berry! We also made the unfortunate mistake of sitting near a fruit stand that was selling durian. Yuck!

Leah's been researching hotels in Manila for the past day. She thought it would be nice to spend a couple of days in Manila proper in order to make sight seeing a little easier. After what seemed like hours of exhaustive searching, she made reservations at the G Hotel on Roxas Blvd for the next two days, including tonight. Sonny was really kind to drive us all the way to the hotel, considering it was almost a 2 hour drive, with all the traffic.

Looking forward to seeing Manila tomorrow!