After the late late night (really early morning) arrival to our hotel in Makati, we were in no rush to get moving. We did have appointments though of people to meet so back to our van (no brake problems anymore, besides you don't drive very fast on any city streets - you simply can't with the traffic). First things first, we had to drop off laundry. For a rush job of 29 pieces (4 kilos) of laundry between Chris and I, it was going to cost us about $10 to have it washed, dried, and folded. If it was that inexpensive to have my clothes washed here...I might do that all the time!
After driving by a nice mall and dropping off something for someone, we hunted for a condo Chris' parents wanted to look at. We kept driving in circles until we finally entered this very nice, very luxurious area, guarded of course. It was right next to a mall and we met the caretaker of the place and proceeded into the parking structure under ground. This underground parking connected with the mall underground parking, so you wouldn't even have to go outside to get to a nice mall.
We traveled something like 38 stories up to a one bedroom, beautifully furnished apartment with a little kitchen, washer/dryer, and fancy shower. The window overlooked the city and the river that wound through it. The cost was something like 8 million pesos...which was around $180,000 in the US. Crazy to think about for me since we have been house/condo hunting ourselves in Orange County. Honestly, I wouldn't want to buy a condo that high up...I don't like heights and I hate the thought of being trapped high in a building should there be a fire or an earthquake...and let's face it, this is the Pacific Ring of Fire...there are plenty of earthquakes here. We (the family) had looked at it thinking of a family base for those that may fly over to visit and rent it out when family wasn't using it, and it came fully furnished. The 3rd floor was the lobby, also beautifully furnished. You feel like you are living in luxury here.
We ended up at one of the many many malls here in Makati because we needed lunch, we needed to return some items, and wanted to shop at Kultura - the place to buy nice Filipino souvenirs. Makati is the business district of greater Manila, so you see a lot of money here and a lot of foreigners as well. The food court was our first destination and it was huge with tons of choices - some better than others but pretty incredibly priced. I ended up with a Mongolian bowl made to order and coffee (which I was in great need of) along with a babinka.
We sat down to eat as a family after everyone had gotten their own choice of lunch. Chris' sister got up to look for something else when a lady came over to us and asked to take the chair. When we politely let her know it was being used she started to flip out. She said she was there first, and we had stolen her chair. She asked another table and they too were using their chairs. She stood there by the table talking to herself and ranting about the whole thing. I was wondering if she had mental problems. She became once again combative with us saying that she was a lady and it wasn't right to steal the chair and that we didn't know who we were dealing with. We let her have the chair, since we could always get another when it was once again needed, but even after that she continued to throw rude and combative remarks to us. We just kept ignoring her at this point, because there was nothing else to do. We talked quietly amongst ourselves about our trip from Baguio at which point she turned with a big smile on her face to us to let us know that she was from Baguio. I thought, oh no, she's going to try to tell us her big influence in Baguio and how we will be in trouble for what we did. No, she just kept smiling and then trying to make conversation about Baguio and how her daughter is a famous model there, and looks much like one of Chris's sisters (who she had insulted earlier).
We all were smiling uneasily at this big change of personality from her. Chris' dad, ever the friendly extrovert, carried the conversation. She shared then that she was actually here for medical treatment for a blood disorder she has. That was awkward. I knew there was something not right with her...and had tried to remember that we didn't know what her background story was when she was being so combative before and just tried to let the whole thing go. So this was it...this was at least part of the reason something so trivial became so big to her. It was certainly uncomfortable for most of us, so we had finished and decided to get up and leave, but Chris' dad felt the need to go over to her and pray with her before he left. These are the kinds of things he does that makes me impressed and convicted. I'm glad he did.
We went down to the lower food court where the stands were that served more local fare - especially desserts. Not all was local fare, Chris and I first bought some macaroons - coconut, carmel, vanilla, and mango - to enjoy since they were just under a dollar here (these are such expensive little cookies in the states, but so delicious). Chris bought another taho, and we share a turon. There was sugar cane juice, which I was very tempted to try, especially since it touted how healthy it was supposed to be for you...but I didn't. I was full at this point, not ready to eat more sweets.
We headed up to Kultura where we spent quite some time looking at all the lovely embroidered linens, wood carvings, pearl jewelry, home decor made from shell, traditionally influenced clothing, t-shirts, and a myriad of other souvenirs. We found the bowl with the stand we had wanted, for not much more than they had been asking in Baguio, but this one was much nicer quality. We bought a wooden platter carved in a leaf design, I bought a shirt that had some pretty embroidery on it influenced by traditional wear, a little painting that reminded us of our time in the Philippines, and calamansi flavored coconut rum as well as some coconut wine that had a really fun coconut cover over the bottle.
On our way out, we went over to Tru Value Hardward to buy travel boxes. We had too much pasalubong to fit in our suitcases, and we were allowed two pieces of luggage on our flight back home. This is clearly a practice here, and we weren't the only ones buying the boxes. There is even a specific name for them in Tagolog - balikbayan boxes. We had come with 5 large ones on our way over with Christmas gifts. In the airports you could see all the boxes similarly taped and wrapped coming out with the luggage both coming and going.
After the mall, and a milk tea for me, we headed out to pick up our cousin from Davao that lived and worked here in Manila. He had a box of our stuff that we couldn't take on all the small plane rides (remember that 10kg weight limit?) we needed to get from him. It was interested to see another neighborhood, this one had a lot of young people out and about. Manila is certainly a mix of high rise buildings, nice parks, and hidden (and sometimes not so hidden) slums. The area we were staying in though was overall very nice and very safe. We even passed by some areas decorated with lights off the trees and one particular park hidden among business buildings that was alive with color everywhere. We wished we had the time to run in and join the party going on, it looked so much fun.
We then ended up at yet another mall for a nice dinner with parents of a cousin by marriage. This mall also had the lights over each parking space that were either green for an open space, or red for an occupied space. This is such a good idea and easy way to see where the open parking is...I think they need to extend this idea to our malls.
The dinner was very nice, at a pretty upscale restaurant, and there was fish served whole...the mouth wide open looked like he wanted to say something to me. A new food I hadn't yet tried was some kind of green vegetable (I think maybe in the broccoli family), with pumpkin and okra. Not a mix we'd normally think of here, but it was tasty. Not being much of a fish person, but definitely more of a vegetable person, I think I ate the majority of the vegetables on our side of the table. We topped it off with a mango sticky rice and ice cream dessert.
Our dinner hosts had been asking us if we had gone to UCC coffee shop and said we needed to try the french toast and coffee there. Since we had limited time in Manila, and we weren't going to make it to pick up our rush laundry job anyway, we decided to go up one more level and top our night off with this deliciousness. The coffee shop was freezing cold, air blasting I guess to make the customers drink more hot coffee? The coffee was good though, and the french toast came in a mount of small bite size squares perfectly toasted. But the best part was that you split it apart and poured cream AND maple syrup on it. Oh yes, it was worth it. Perfect note to end the evening on and shut down the mall (which we had done).
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