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 Ocean Park.  We weren't quite sure what Ocean Park was, but had seen it on a map and figured it was a landmark that a Manila taxi driver would know.  It would also give us an opportunity to do the baywalk, ending up at the Manila Yacht Club with the option to carry on to Harbour Square.

Ocean Park turned out to be theme park with an aquarium, a bird-of-prey kingdom, a swimming pool etc. which was absolutely full of school groups.  We decided to give it a miss, not wanting to battle with crowds of school children.

Instead we wandered into nearby Rizal Park and happened upon a lovely Chinese Garden.  We spent some time there, just relaxing in the shade and taking in the sights and sounds before heading off to find Manila Bay's baywalk.

Wow.  The first thing that hit us was the stench.  It was not pleasant.  It didn't smell of the sea at all.  We peered over the wall and the beach was strewn with waste.  I don't know for certain what this waste was, but it didn't look or smell good.  But there were people swimming in the water.  We decided not to join them.

We opted to walk down the busier part of the pavement, a little bit removed from the seafront.

It was fantastic.  Various people offering foot massages, reflexology, Thai massage, manicures, pedicures.  All on the pavement.  Ice-cream vendors - some pedalling along an ice-cream cart with branded ice-cream, others pushing the traditional ice-cream carts with home-made ice cream.  Snack vendors with massive bags of all sorts of snacks.  Other snack vendors setting up to cook what I presume were meat sticks, shrimp balls etc. (we didn't see the food, just the setting up - it was just before lunch time).

The ice cream was delicious.  I couldn't definitively identify the tastes, but I think there was some mango and chocolate in there.  And all for 15 pesos - about 25p.

By the end of our walk down the bay we were pretty hot and bothered, so we hailed another cab and made our way to Mall of Asia.  It really is amazing just how many malls there are here.  And how many people go to the malls.  Apparently it's because they are air conditioned, so they provide a welcome respite from the heat.

Mall of Asia is massive.  It has hundreds of shops, eating establishments, cinemas and great views out over the bay.

Another interesting day out in Manila.  And it was so hot.  Apparently it's just going to get hotter for the next few months.  Summer here is March - May.  And then the rainy season hits.

Cooking in Manila

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 been a challenge.

For a start, whilst we live in a furnished apartment, we don't have all the equipment we had at home.  This is what we had when we moved in:

1 x narrow diameter, but tallish saucepan 

1 x medium sized saucepan

1 x wok

1 x frying pan

4 x steak knives

1 x plastic general purpose cooking spoon

2 x fish slice (1 plastic, one metal)

1 x serving spoon

1 x set of measuring cups

After a nasty accident with my penknife whilst trying to open a tin of tuna (I ripped a portion of my thumb nail off), I invested in a tin opener.  I have also invested in:

A vegetable peeler

A chopping board

A Japanese vegetable slicer / ginger grater (see picture to the right - what are the round holes for?)

But we still don't have various things which I would probably use at home on a daily basis:

• Wooden spoons
• Colander
• Cheese grater
• Kettle
• Scales
• Baking trays
• etc.

It's also not entirely easy to get all the ingredients you might need for a recipe.  When we were packing up to leave I debated whether to bring any recipe books with me or not.  I decided to bring one book "British Food Bible" and a collection of my favourite recipes in a binder my mum had given me for a birthday present a few years ago.  I figured I'd be able to find any other recipe I needed online.  Which I will be able to.  Finding a recipe you can actually cook in its entirety is a different challenge.  I have flicked through my books a number of times, and when I go through to make a shopping list I realise that I won't be able to make it after all.  Ingredients which I wouldn't have thought twice about at home - cheese, flour, golden syrup, various herbs & spices - are a bit more difficult to get hold of here.  I am sure you can buy absolutely anything you want.  If you know where to go.  And if you have a limitless budget.

I was making a french bean salad the other night.  The ingredients included white wine vinegar and Dijon mustard.  "I'll be able to get them in the local supermarket" I thought to myself.  I ended up with cane vinegar (it would have to have a sugar base being produced in the Philippines) and 'French's mustard' which tastes nothing like Dijon mustard.

But, we've been getting by.  In fact, we have eaten some pretty decent meals since we've been here - roast chicken (with roast potatoes of course), spaghetti bolognaise, tuna pasta, some delicious salads and so on.  And I'm making some sundried tomatoes (in the oven, not on the balcony!!!) as I type.  However, I am running out of inspiration for meals which use local ingredients and therefore don't cost an arm and a leg to cook.

Recipe ideas which include tropical fruit & veg would be much welcomed!

Choosing an apartment. Help!

We have up to 3 months in our current apartment, and then we need to find somewhere a bit more permanent.  The norm here is to pay 12 months' rent in advance + a 2 month deposit.  Ouch.

We decided to start looking for an apartment fairly soon after we arrived, for a few reasons:

1. I am not working at the moment, so I have more flexibility to go and look at apartments during the week
2. It would be nice to have somewhere a bit more permanent so we can properly unpack and start to make it feel like home
3. It just gives us longer to find somewhere where we really want to live

I've already lost count of how many places we've looked at.  There are a lot available!  And there is a lot of variation in terms of quality.

The biggest decisions we're going to have to make are:

1. Do we want to stay in our bubble-within-a-bubble where it's relatively quiet, clean and there are a few shops, restaurants and bars within a 2 minute walk, or a few more within a 15-20 minute walk or taxi ride?  Or do we want to live in the CBD where it's noisy and busy but it's close to where Simon works, and there are many more bars, restaurants shops etc.
2. Can we live without a balcony?

Can we live without a balcony?  We've seen a fantastic apartment, in Rockwell, which gives us way more space for our money than any of the other apartments we've seen.  It's one of the few that we've walked into that we think 'we could actually live here'.  But it doesn't have a balcony.  And I love being on the balcony to watch the world go by and to get some 'fresh' air every now and again.

The more we explore Manila, the more we enjoy living within our bubble-in-a-bubble.  But is being this sheltered a good thing?

Guidance, suggestions, questions welcome!

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).  The quality of taxi drivers in Manila can be quite hit & miss.  It is a big, sprawling city and it is quite common to get into a taxi, explain where you want to go and then be met with a blank stare.  The taxi driver we had on Sunday definitely knew his way around - he drove on main roads where required, but also took us on a number of rat runs eventually depositing us on the main road through China Town.

Manila's China Town is the original China Town, established in 1594.  The main street running through China Town is Ongpin Street.  Branching off from Ongpin Street are a number of side streets, mostly all with Spanish-sounding names.  A reminder of Manila's past.  And an odd contradiction.

Friendship arch at Manila's chinatown

To enter China Town you pass through 'Friendship Arch'.  It's not as big, colourful or as intricate as the arches you may have seen at other China Town locations throughout the world, but the view I caught on camera is typically 'Manila'.  Look out for the jeepney!

More about jeepneys to come in a separate post...

China Town is full of shops selling Chinese medicine, jewellery and trinkets.  There were also a number of fruit carts laden with everything from the familiar broccoli, carrots & mangoes to more exotic delights of mangosteens and some unidentified herbs which are apparently suitable for curing all sorts of ailments.  When the carts were not laden with fruit and veg, they were used as beds to catch an afternoon siesta.

Chicken noodle soup at Ling Nam Noodle Factory

For lunch we decided to try somewhere called Ling Nam Noodle Factory.  We were delighted to be the only Caucasians in the joint until we opened the Lonely Planet to plan our next move, only to find that this very restaurant was listed in there.  Still, it was a delicious meal of fresh noodles in a chicken broth.

Walking around China Town did make us feel a bit more like we are in Asia.  Whilst I'm sure it was not as busy as it might be on a normal day, there was a lot of traffic, quite a lot of people and not much space to walk around as entrepreneurs had set up stalls on any free space they could to pedal their wares.

Traffic consisted of cars, mopeds, tricycles (of the motor and push variety) and horse & carts.  And it was quite dirty.  There were open drains, some of which were covered by makeshift wooden structures, some piles of rubbish and a very dirty canal.  The endless exhaust fumes make you feel like you are breathing very thick air.

From China Town we headed over to the famous Quiapo Church.  According to the Lonely Planet, the market area around the church is the bit that's really worth the visit.

Quiapo Church

The Lonely Planet wasn't wrong when it said "The action is particularly feverish at weekends, when the half of the population not in malls is shopping here."  It was heaving.

People come here to sell and buy almost anything.  We saw clothes, shoes, toiletries, moth balls, plastic cockroaches, household goods, lotions & potions to name a few.

My personal favourite was the multi-coloured chicks on offer.  Haven't you always wanted a bright pink little chick?  Or perhaps blue is more your colour?

Coloured chicks for sale near Quiapo Church

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 cross them!  

Rockwell is roughly rectangular in shape.  On one side is the 'Bel Air Village', a gated community which seems to have lots of pretty big, luxurious looking houses and on the opposite side the Pasig river.  On another side there are low-rise apartment blocks as well as shops, restaurants & hotels and on it's opposite side an area of local housing.

I am sure, as we get to explore more of the city, we will notice the stark contrasts between rich and poor even more.  This is just one of them - the upscale Rockwell centre bordered immediately with high density local housing, of mixed construction.  Some of the houses appear to be built as you'd expect - concrete, bricks and roofs, whilst others seem to be made entirely of corrugated iron.

The nearby areas

Metro Manila is a metropolis made up of 16 cities.  Makati city, where we live, is to the South East of 'Downtown Manila', described in the Lonely Planet as 'the real heart of the city'.

Makati City is the business hub of Manila and is also host to the big hotels (Mandarin Oriental, Intercontinental, Dusit Thani, Sofitel etc.), numerous shopping malls and plenty of places to eat and drink.  The main streets which run through Makati - Ayala and Makati Avenues - were previously runways to the city's airport before the Ayala family started building here post WWII.  Walking up them now it's difficult to believe that they could have been runways - both are flanked by tall buildings which house the businesses and many apartments in the area. 

South East of Makati is Taguig City (pronounced Tag ig), where Fort Bonifacio can be found.  Fort Bonifacio was built on ex-military land and comprises a large number of office blocks, residential and shopping areas.  It is home to a number of global businesses, with more moving in the next few years, as well as the British Embassy.  The infrastructure in this area of the city is probably the most modern, and by the looks of things this will be where a lot of the big businesses end up (according to Wikipedia anyway).

Makati and Fort Bonifacio are the 2 places we have explored so far.  In both areas you feel as though you are in a bit of a bubble.  To compare them to other Asian cities we've visited, they are most like Hong Kong in the sense that, as a Westerner, you don't get any hassle from the locals at all, they are both incredibly multi-cultural and they also feel clean, organised and modern.

There is a fair amount of open space in both the Fort and in Makati.  The Fort has a 'High Street' which is effectively a long pedestrianised area with greenery in the middle and upscale shops either side.  In Makati there is an area called 'Greenbelt' which has more mall space, loads of open air cafes and restaurants and a few cinemas.  When you're there, you could be anywhere in the world.

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.

Our lounge

Lounge looking towards dining area

Kitchen (taken from dining area)

Bedroom, with the same panoramic view as the lounge

We have access to 3 pools - one on the 41st floor of our building, one on the 53rd floor of the adjacent building and one at ground level - and a gym on site.  There are also various cafes, bars and restaurants.

Rooftop pool on the 41st floor of our building.

The flight

Having worked at British Airways for the past 2.5 years, and having been on my mum’s concessions at bmi for the preceeding 12 years, I was used to arriving at airports not knowing whether I would be getting on the flight I was booked on or not.  I didn’t have this issue on the day we were due to fly to Manila, but I was concerned about whether or not all our bags would be within Cathay’s specified allowance of 20kg for checked baggage and 7kg hand baggage per person.

My checked bag was close to 23kg the last time I had weighed it and Simon’s 2 bags were close to 25kg.  We were allowed one main piece of hand baggage and one extra small bag.  I easily had what could constitute 2 ‘normal’ sized pieces of hand baggage, and they easily weighed more than double our allowance.  I had prepared myself for a hefty excess baggage charge.  When we checked in, the lady behind the counter didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow.  She checked us in all the way to Manila and sent us to the ‘out of gauge’ belt for the 2 backpacks Mr H was checking in.  He had kindly offered to split his belongings over 2 bags so that my backpack could come with us to Asia as well.

I needn’t have worried when I saw some of the bags that people were trying to squeeze into the overhead lockers!

The flight to Hong Kong (on a Boeing 777) felt very long – 11 hours 40 minutes.  And neither of us managed a huge amount of sleep.  We had a 55 minute slot in Hong Kong to catch our connecting flight to Manila.  As we neared Hong Kong, the entertainment screens began listing which gate connecting flights would be leaving from.  The minutes were ticking away and by the time we landed we only had about 30 minutes to make our flight.  We didn’t make it.  As we got into the terminal, there was someone from Cathay there with boarding passes printed for another flight to Manila, leaving in 2 hour’s time.  There were also 2 vouchers to be used on refreshments.

Part of the entertainment system on our flight from London to Hong Kong included a view from a camera placed on the undercarriage of the plane.  Hong Kong airport is built on reclaimed land, surrounded by the South China Sea.  For a large part of the descent you look like you’re going to land on water.  It was both terrifying & exhilarating to watch.

The flight time from Hong Kong to Manila is about 1.5 hours, on a Boeing 747.  I was really surprised that it would be such a big plane for such a short flight.  Clearly a lot of people travel between Hong Kong and Manila.  We were given a snack on board - a sort of pasty with some unidentified, yet delicious, filling.

Unfortunately, because of our missed connection, it was dark by the time we approached Manila, so we didn’t get much of a view.

We were met in Manila by a driver from Mr H's new employer who took us to our apartment.  It was such a relief to get to our apartment almost 24 hours after we’d left our flat in Wokingham.

Packing up

There is a distinct difference between the way my husband, Mr H, and I do things.  As soon as I have something to organise, I like to break down what needs doing to achieve this and make a list.  Or in this case lots of lists.  And I like to start working through the list straight away.  This drives Mr H mad.  Mr H is more of the 'it can wait until tomorrow' mentality.  Generally, we balance each other out.  Sometimes we just don't get everything done.

For our wedding, we found that using a 'Kanban' (used in Agile software development) was an effective way to manage our list of tasks.  We tried the same for our move to Manila.  Broadly, it worked - there are a number of tasks in the 'DONE' column.  But I'm sure it won't escape you that there are still things in the 'TO DO' and 'IN PROGRESS' columns.  It was all about priorities.  Some things absolutely had to be done before we flew, other things could wait.

The number of tasks is one thing.  The size of each individual task is another.  I think it's fair to say that neither of us realised just how long it would take to pack up the house into storage.  What we hadn't factored in was that there would be so many decisions to make along the way.  Will I need this item in Manila?  Will I need it immediately, or can I ship it to be there in 3 months?  Will I need this item at all?

So in the days between 30 December and 6 January we made umpteen trips from our flat to the storage unit; re-arranged it countless times and finally managed to fit EVERYTHING in.  I hope there's nothing we need from the back corner.

If we did this again, we would make sure that we had more than enough boxes, and that they are all proportionate dimensions to each other.  As you can see, there are lots of things which didn't fit into boxes and a number of things quite precariously stacked.  All the more fun for when we need to move it out of storage then!

So by 2:30pm on Sunday 6th January, we were ready to go.  Phew.  The weeks and months prior to this date had been intense with all the admin and other tasks we had to do for the move, as well as Christmas and trying to see as many friends and family as possible, that it was a relief to know we had 15 or so hours where we didn't have to do a thing.

Who we are

I am Rebecca Harvey and in October 2012 Mr H and I decided that we were going to move to Manila!  This was after many years of 'imagine we lived in...'!

The imaginings are now a reality!

This blog is primarily for us to update friends and family back in the UK (and elsewhere) on our life in Manila, but hopefully there will be things here which are of interest to other people too.  Before we moved to Manila we scoured the web to find information about what to expect when we arrived here, what we should bring from home etc.  There wasn't really one definitive source of information (and I don't for a minute think that this will fill that gap), so we're going to try to provide a little more information about life in Manila.

Any comments, suggestions etc. gratefully received.