A delectable art

While we have not seen a lot of artwork in the form of paintings in the Philippines, we have seen some amazing edible art at the various hotels. When talking to the chefs, some of these pieces take days in the making and even this simple watermelon carving took 4 hours.

On the other hand, valentines day led to some amazing floral displays and if you look outside the square you can find a little slice of interesting art anywhere.

The presentation at the hotels and the attention to detail is amazing – quite often there are 3 or 4 chefs (of varying rank) as well as maitre'd and wait staff all checking food presentation is at its peak at all times.

The edible art can be made from fruit

Vegetables from the sea??

Chocolate – this was amazing!

Or icing

One day there was an amazing bowl of flowers made completely from baked pastry but sadly, the weight of the pastry made the leaves droop and break before we had a chance to photograph it. They did however make amends and 2 days later this masterpiece appeared.

Another fine example of local art was at a dog show we stumbled upon. One of the classes required owners and pets to be matching.

Another option of not so edible art are the topiaries found

The end of the school year is in March in the Philippines so just to finish off, these girls, looking gorgeous in their senior prom outfits are themselves, each a work of art!

And for the grand finale, fireworks as you have never seen them - countries competing against each other in the international pyromusical festival held at The Mall of Asia, the 2nd largest shopping centre in the world!!

Our first island getaway

There are many lovely places to go in the Philippines but most of them you have to fly to. We wanted to go somewhere we could drive to so we decided on Peurto Galera. It takes about 1 ½ hours drive south of Manila to a place called Batangas. From there we hired a private boat to take us to the island.

There are many resorts on the island and they vary greatly. Some are a little seedy, some are a lot seedy and some are really lovely.

Friends recommended Coco Beach Resort. It was really pretty with its own private beach and all the bungalows nestled into the hillside.

It was also all natural so no concrete or glass anywhere to be seen - mostly thatched bamboo with doors and windows with mother of pearl inserts. Each room is serviced by a local family who lives beside it. They are very proud of their responsibility and live from the tips. A trap for young players though, you do need to ask if the room has hot water! The sunsets were lovely though.

The food and naturally the cocktails were good

and they took us snorkelling to other beaches.

All the resorts run fantastic dive centres too. Naturally we bought lots of hand made things to add a local touch to our home and also to help the locals as their only income is from the tourist trade.

In true island style, we had a huge beach BBQ on the Saturday night with a live band and dancing on the beach. It was the latest I had been up since we arrived!!

The trip home was a little rough and wet but it was all worth it.

An expat's life

An expat’s life

We are adapting to life in The Philippines. Usually things take a while to get done but eventually it happens. Just to give an idea of our new life, I thought I would send some pics. Firstly, we never walk anywhere. There are a few options:

A trike         

A Jeepney

But we choose out faithful driver, Dindo

We have had a black 4wd but we are now in the process of awaiting our new car. Similarly we are in the process of waiting for our condo to be made ready for us to move in. One would think a month is plenty of time, especially when they get paid the full six months’ rent up front.

Anyway, in the meantime we both spend a bit of time at the gym with our personal trainer, Romy.

Or head off for a bit of golf with my new friend Holly

I am also doing Pilates with another friend but I will spare you pictures of that.

We try and travel around as much as we can but it is usually fairly slow due to traffic.
When I told people I was coming here, everyone said we would have a great time with the expats. They have all been really, really welcoming and I have joined the local ladies group alig. In true style, within 2 weeks I was on the board looking after public relations and sponsorship.  I think 12 countries are represented here.

But just in case you are reading this and thinking it is all work and no play, there are times when the true expat community style everyone promised was prolific, raises its head. Just a little afternoon entertainment!

South West Luzon

South West Luzon

You would think an 80 km drive to the beach might take an hour.  On the other hand, if the traffic was horrid on the way to the coast maybe an hour and a half.  You have not been to the Philippines.  This trip would take almost 3 hours.  The first 75 minutes would get us almost 60km then we got to the port of Batangas.  Near the beach you may think, smell the salt air, seagulls or surfboards. NO!!!  We got to a traffic jam through parts of the Philippines that would make a town planner think they were in a nightmare.  The car wreckers were next to the primary school, food outlets next to the fertiliser factory.  Then things got ugly.  The oil refinery was next door to the up market housing estate.  During the next 150 minutes we saw about 25 schools, 30 churches, enough political advertising to make even Anna and Campbell blush, about 500 stray anorexic cats and probably a million Jeepneys and trikes (more on these in another blog, you have been warned.  Think of John Cleese in the travelogue before Life of Brian and those lovely gondolas.

We reached Anilao, a not so sleepy seaside town that looks beautiful in the picture below.

After a look around this little town, we decided to go in search of a beach.  Looked at the map with our faithful driver Dindo and set out for Matabungkay.  It took about as long to drive there as pronounce it.  About 70km away to the north west, the nearest beach to the south of Metro Manila.  We thought we would be there in 2 hours based on our earlier experience.  NO!!!.  Think of Mackay during the cane harvest, factor in Filipino drivers and of course Jeepneys and trikes.  The photo below shows about 5% of the cane trucks we saw on the road that day.  We finally reached our destination, I know you are still trying to pronounce the name of this little beach side town.  On the way we encountered our first Filipino road accident, amazingly, this had taken more than a day.  After an accident, Filipinos stand in the middle of the road with their motorcycles prone beside them wondering what happened and what to do next.  Dindo avoided them by several honks of the horn, the accepted method of communication on the roads.  Still, much better than the road rage at home.

Did you know that beaches in the Philippines are actually privately owned and you have to run the gauntlet of everyone trying to entice you to their resort. This is achieved by standing in the mddle of the road, flagging down your car and then bashing on the windows when you fail to do what they want.   Eventually, we decided on the one that had a sign ordering you to leave your firearms at the gate.  We stepped back in time, this was left over from the 1980s but had some great beachsideoptions where you could eat.  Next stop Tagatay.

A beautiful city that overlooks Taal.  A lake, within a volcano, within a lake within a volcano.  We decided on the Taal Vista Hotel for lunch and were rewarded with this stunning view .

Unfortunately, there was a market and Liz could not be denied, we had to investigate.  On the way back to our hotel we drove down the mountain from Tagatay to home.  More furniture for sale than every Harvey Norman in Australia, some beautiful fruit and vegetable stalls and enough orchids to fill Wivenhoe Dam.  After the obligatory traffic jam on the way home we reached our hotel and promptly orderd a stiff drink.  Our little 250km odyssey had taken over 9 hours including the stops.  Imagine how we would have felt if we were driving!! Poor Dindo, he then had 1 ½ hours travel home.

Our first week in Manila

Saturday 21 January 2012.

Here is a photo of the intrepid adventurers outside Fort Santiago inside Manila's famous walled city, Intramuros.  This site has been variously used by the Spanish, British, Americans and Japanese when they invaded The Philippines.  Inside the walls are a couple of churches including the famous Manila Cathedral.  Could you believe we went to 2 churches in one day?  The horse and buggy tour around Intramuros (means inside the wall) was very interesting.  Horse and buggy travel s not the most comfortble over 16th century cobbles!  The Manila Cathedral has been replaced 3 times from and old timber structure to the stone buiding of today.  So far it has been destroyed by fire, earthuake and Japanese bombs during its 440 years of history. 

Inside the cathedral was very ornate as can be seen by the ceremonial headdress that has more gold than the average Filipino could earn in several lifetimes.

The wall surrounding Intramuros is pockmarked with bullets from the Japanese invasion.

After our brief lesson in Filipino history it was onto the Manila Hotel on the shores of Manila Bay.

Very grand hotel with some pretty impressive chandeliers. Nice cold beer too, just took a while to get to the lips of the thirsty travellers.

Then it was back to Alabang, Muntinlupa City on the southern outskirts of Metro Manila.  About 20km, so to us naive Brisbanites we thought about 20 to 30 minutes.  Manila traffc soon had this at 100 minutes causing immense frustration to our poor driver Dindo.

More about the Philippines soon.