It’s been a busy few weeks… I started work on 1 March, so I have far less time on my hands. We’ve also recently moved apartments and now have no permanent internet access. We’re off for a week’s holiday from Friday. Hopefully when we return we’ll be connected back to the web and normal service …
Upon arriving home from work at about 7:45 on Friday night, Simon asked if I fancied going for a few drinks with some of his work colleagues at a local bar – Handlebar. We didn’t have any plans at all for the weekend, so why not? There was a good crowd there – a mix …
The price of being spontaneous in The Philippines Read More »
After the strenuous ascent to the top of Taipei 101, we went in search of some much-needed sustenance. There are a number of night markets in Taipei: Shilin seems to be the most famous; Hwahsi Jie is also referred to as ‘Snake Alley’ and the one we chose, Raohe Street. There are others too. Shilin gets …
A few weeks ago we received an invitation, from my friend Petula, to join her and her in-laws in Taiwan for the tail end of Chinese New Year. We checked out flights, Simon booked the time off work and away we went. In the Manila area we have a choice of 2 airports: Ninoy Aquino …
Heard of it? I hadn’t either. This was one of the ingredients on a recent snack of Baconette Strips, a ‘Bacon-flavored snack’ with ‘No-meat goodness’! Look out for the ‘Nature-Identical Bacon Flavor’ too.
Taal Volcano Island’s lake On Friday 8 February, I received another forwarded email from Simon. This time a bunch of his colleagues had arranged a day trip to the nearby volcano town, Tagatay. There were 7 of us, so we hired a car with a driver to take us the 60km South to Tagatay. The …
We have a very good supermarket, Rustan’s, a 2 minute walk from our apartment. There is also a local market about a 10 minute walk away. The prices in the market are probably about half of what they are in Rustan’s for fruit & veg. The first thing that you see when you walk into …
On Friday 1 February, I received a forwarded email from Simon. One of his colleagues was suggesting a one-night getaway to ‘Puerto Galera’ on Mindoro Island (the island immediately south of Luzon, where Manila is). It was rather serendipitous as we’d been planning to get out of Manila in one way or another that weekend. …
36 hour beach break: Manila – Sabang (Mindoro island) Read More »
For me, words like ‘baywalk’ conjure up romantic strolls along palm-tree lined promenades, listening to the sounds of waves crashing gently on the shore. Something like that anyway. We decided to venture out to Manila Bay, which we can just see from our apartment window, last Sunday. We hailed a taxi to take us to …
Whilst it’s relatively inexpensive to eat out, it can get a bit much to eat out all the time. It stops feeling like a treat and I’m sure it’s not good for our waistlines, or in fact our wallets overall. And often it’s just nicer to eat a home cooked meal. But cooking here has …
