This sculpture of several carabao was near the restaurant where we had lunch in Makati. I had to take a picture, because hey, carabao!
January 6, 2009: Meandering around Manila
Our last full day in the Philippines was spent in relative ease, at least from a travel standpoint. While we were in Romblon, Alma's cousin texted me to see if we wanted to go to Corregidor on the 6th, but after consulting with Alma and her mother we decided it was too much for the last day - we'd have had to be up at 5 or 5:30 yet again, it would have been an all-day thing, and it wasn't particularly cheap either (although by no means was it prohibitively expensive). Instead, we relaxed a bit and spent some time in Makati, our only foray of the whole trip into the key commercial district of Metro Manila.
Considering the degree to which the average Filipino dish is out of my culinary comfort zone, I had great luck with food on the trip, finding almost nothing I didn't like. Ironically, the dish that nearly ruined me came at lunch in Makati, one of the very few meals at which I was able to order for myself. We went to a place that touted oysters as the signature entree, but none of us actually ordered them; I went with tokwa't baboy, fried tofu and boiled pork in garlic soy sauce, figuring it sounded fairly safe given my good luck with pork throughout the trip. It didn't last. The first couple bites seemed pretty good, but the sauce quickly became overpowering and the meat started making me gag. In retrospect, I should have remembered that boiled meat is almost always awful, and most of the pieces seemed to be nothing but skin and fat, which didn't help. Worse still, some of the pieces of skin still had pig hair sticking out of them! When I asked Alma if this was okay, she assured me it could be eaten (though she didn't necessarily recommend it), so I did - and then almost immediately regretted it. As far as I'm concerned, the gross-out factor is right up there with finding a chunk of hoof in your Big Mac. Moments later I bit into something - God only knows what - that had one of the most repellent tastes ever to cross my tongue. I quickly swallowed lest I experience it again, but my gorge pushed up to at least 90% and didn't recede quickly. I choked down the remainder of the tofu and tried to wash out some of the taste with a few pieces of Alma's mango, but it only partially worked and I spent the entire rest of the day feeling ill.
After lunch we went to the Ayala Museum, which had a fascinating exhibit - at least I thought so - on gold artifacts from Philippine history, as well as some paintings by Filipino artists and a few other things. No pictures were allowed in the museum - cameras had to be checked at the front desk - so that's a large part of why today is so devoid of shots. After a short side trip to visit another family friend - a woman who had helped take care of Alma in Chicago many years earlier - we went to dinner in a modern, upscale part of town, where I was also able to get a nice book for my mom.
This sculpture of several carabao was near the restaurant where we had
lunch in Makati. I had to take a picture, because hey, carabao!