Of course I wouldn’t say something like that, Manila was cool!
I went there for a few days on a business trip to conduct some audits, the call centre industry over there is huge, apparently there are over 100,000 people in the Metro Manila area working call centres, I guess their accents are a lot more neutral and perhaps ‘America Friendly’ than many of the other Asian countries.
I was supposed to stay in the Shangri-la over there, but it was a bit out of budget so we stayed across the road in the Peninsula Manila[/url], a very nice hotel I must say.
Manila is a nice city, it’s still a bit ghetto-ish in places, but in the Metro districts it reminds me a lot of Bangkok or Jakarta, I would say it’s not quite as developed as the Golden Triangle in KL.
There are 3-4 kinds of taxi things in Manila, the familiar Tuk-tuk found in Thailand and Indonesia, the FX (A kind of Utility vehicle), the normal car-type taxi and loads of these:
Which I’ve forgotten the name of.
The people there were very friendly and used to seeing westerners around, the women there are extremely beautiful, although petite they have excellent features and succulent figures 😉
I didn’t really have much time to look around as it was a short trip and we were working weird hours (Call centres there work from 9pm till 6am..).
But we heard Greenhills was the place to go for shopping and especially Pearls, so we headed over to that area.
It was around lunch time, so we grabbed some food first, I wanted to try something a bit local and I spotted a place called Bangus (no not BANGBUS) which looked localish, so I thought I should check it out.
I didn’t know what the hell most of the food was, so we just opted for the set meal thing.
Along came some crispy Calamari, which wasn’t bad.
Some nice vege soup which was vaguely tom yam-ish.
Then along came the feast!
There were spring rolls, mixed veg, prawns, mango, spring rolls, gorgeous fish and some kind of pork I think it was which was very nice too.
The fish you can see was really good, they had somehow taken out all the flesh, minced it up with herbs and spices, stuck it back in and fried it I think, very very nice.
After that we headed over to Greenhills, that place puts everywhere to shame…It’s freaking huge, I mean seriously.
If you are familiar with KL, imagine Low Yat phone section, Petaling Street (triple the size), Sungei Wang and Central Market all rolled into one, plus more..
They had everything under the sun, I managed to pick up a Ralph Lauren Polo for 40rm, it was excess export goods, a lot of the Polo stuff is produced in Philippines, so they have excess, the same shirt in F.O.S here is about 80RM (also made in Philippines).
They had the hugest range of fake sneakers (including leather shoes and sandals) I’ve ever seen plus all the normal handbags, t-shirts, shirts, jumpers etc etc..
Then the market was really good, my colleague picked up a really nice set of ceramic vases with a wooden stand for like RM40. Wish I had took a bigger case now..
Then there were the Pearls, aisles and aisles of Pearls, a few hundred stalls just selling that.
The prices are really reasonable too, you can buy from the normal non-perfect local pearls up to the flawless Japanese pearls.
Watch out for the next part…a night out in Manila with Bryanboy[/url]!
Cool pics dude!! looks like u had fun! 🙂
You manage to get the best and brighter site of things once you overlook the bad, unlike that pink donkey. hope you had a great time in the Philippines.
jeepney.
been there last year.Dare not night outing unless with th local
Peninsula Manila? As in the same Peninsula Bangkok or Peninsula HK? How could it be cheaper than Shangri-La? Peninsula is cool man. Especially the Peninsula HK.
Shangri-La is so boring ; )
I was about to say the same thing! Only I heard those ‘taxi’ things were Jeepni. (I read a story about them in 1977 … always stayed in my mind).
Same thing phonetically no?
Jeep – nee
And yeah thanks, that’s what they are called!
Yup one and the same, yeah very nice hotel. Shang there was super expensive though, the Pen in Manila is quite old I think, due for renovation, then the prices will be up again..
*Private joke with nothing whatsoever to do with this post*I kinda slid over here from another blog which i discovered from your blog. While other people have time to refresh their comment boxes every minute, others have time to trackback even traffic generated from his site 😉
OHMIGAWD!!! I’m a big fan of Bryan Boy! can you get me his autograph? and mail it to singapore pls!
Hope you are having fun! Why am I even saying that, you have already confirmed that with all those pictures… Ahhhh, the food molesting my eyes!
Do you blog for those for love you? Ha…ha…ha…. Nice blog, keep it up dude!
omg omg!! u hung out with bryan boy?!?! damnit.
ok now i’m jealous.
nice pics…just the preview that i’m looking for since i’m planning to go sometime end of the year, too. Well done again, ST 🙂
the lobby of the hotel looks great…
but the pearl…how to make sure they are real….in kota kinabalu..sabah… they sell pearl too in philipines market…but dare not to buy….scare tht it is fake…ehehehhe
Should have asked me before I went 😉
I got recommended by a guy from one of the client companies which stall to go to, mention his name and get discount…and good quality.
If you’ve seen real pearls before it’s quite easy to tell anyway by the feel, the shape, the temperature. All the pearls there are real, not all are natural (some are cultured) but the quality differs.
I actually prefer the non symmetrical pearls to the perfect ones.
Hahahaa yeah, had dinner with him, went clubbing with him 😉
who’s this bryan boy anyway? hahhaa…..
dint try balut?
oh my god!! how can you NOT know who Bryan Boy is? tsk tsk tsk!!!!!
Yay, more pretty pics to look at.
I love the pics! Show more in your next post, yeah?
And yes, I do notice some similarities in the way you take photos.
Phonetically, YEP! Same thing.
Just I always rememebred how it was spelt, as it’s so weird to spell it that way in English. Might be spelt different in different languages too.
damnit. u lucky fella 🙁
London pretty much sucks too! NOT. hehe
hahaa…sorry dude… i’m not into filipino’s entertainment…:)
OMG…y do you keep tempting me with yummy-licious food..why why why why why!!!!!!
Loved the pics. I lived in the Philippines for ten years. Always nice to see pictures.