Philippines

36 hour beach break: Manila – Sabang (Mindoro island)

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. …

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The baywalk

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 …

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Binondo

On Sunday, Simon and I ventured out of our Rockwell bubble-in-a-bubble and headed to China Town in old Manila. The roads were blissfully quiet and we even managed to get to 80kph at one point!  We drove North from Makati through San Andres, past the Manila City Hall and into Binondo (where China Town is). …

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Our immediate surroundings -Rockwell, Makati & Fort Bonifacio

Rockwell We live in an area called Rockwell, in Makati City.  It comprises about 11 apartments blocks, a shopping mall – Powerplant Mall – and a couple of office blocks (Nestle has its Philippines headquarters here).  The 4, or so, roads running through the complex are quiet, and there are traffic wardens to help you …

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Our apartment

Our apartment, for the first 3 months of our stay in Manila at least, is located on the 36th Floor of ‘One Rockwell’ within the Rockwell complex in Makati City, Manila.  It’s been provided to us fully furnished. It could be described as ‘small, but perfectly formed’, which I think most apartments in Makati City are. …

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