Kamustaz everyone!
This time I'm going to share about my vacation trip to Philippines last year!
As some of you may know, my mom is a Filipino.
I was 19 last year, and for the whole 19 years I've never been to my mom's hometown.
I did had a chance to go there when I was younger, but dad's side of the family strongly disallowed.
But whatever it is, I finally went there. Yay me!
There were 7 of us. Uncle, mamy, and us 5 siblings.
There were 7 of us. Uncle, mamy, and us 5 siblings.
AirAsia didn't have a direct flight, so our flights were actually like these.
Miri > KK > Philippines
So the date was 16th December.
The vacation was 3 weeks. Sayang was the one driving us to the airport. I cried when he was leaving the airport.
The expectation time to arrive KK was actually 1540. But we arrived 15 minutes earlier.
We were staying the night over. Our flight to Philippines was the next day.
So we were staying at New Town Home stay The guests there were all Filipinos, even the one who runs the place, she was actually mom's friend. The home stay is somewhere near Servay Supermarket. We didn't go anywhere when we were at KK because we were all quite exhausted. We only went to Servay to buy some toiletries for us to clean ourselves up & some snacks.
I bought these Takoyaki, it was sooooo yummy!
I swear if I have any chance to go to KK again, I'd definitely buy those again!
17th December.
We were 3 hours early than the boarding time.
Had some of these while waiting.
Tadaaaa! Arrived safely Alhamdulillah.
Clark, Philippines.
2 hours of flight was a bit tiring.
Not only that, mom's place is actually at Manila, Metro Manila. From Clark, it takes about 2 hours driving to get there.
Lolo, lola & tita Pinang were the one fetching us at the airport. (Mind you, lolo = granpa, lola = grandma, tita = aunt , tito = uncle)
When we arrived Manila, it was 6pm and it was very dark already. All exhausted and hungry we finally arrived lolo's place. First day at Manila didn't went out really well. After having all the tita(s) & tito(s) & cousins came see us, mamy & tita Pinang brought us to SM, the nearest mall which took about 3-5 minutes walk only. We thought that we can finally eat. But guess what, no money changer available. Mom did prepared peso(s) but she sent it to the BDO bank of Philippines. And the bank was close too. So we have to borrow money from tita Pinang on the first day. To add what's worst, I couldn't buy myself a new simcard there. I was worried that sayang had been waiting for my calls. Tried to borrow the relatives phone but no one have enough credit. Imagine how desperate & frustrated was I at that moment? There's nothing I can do except to sleep that feeling in.
First day sucks, but then the remaining days were good. I got my own global sim card the second day. For the whole 3 weeks in Manila, we went to SM a lot. It was really huge, and there were so many people all the time!
Those were all taken at SM. There were actually a lot of SM in Manila and out of Manila. The SM that I went was SM San Lazaro.
Besides that I also went to PICC ( Philippine International Convention Centre ). It was beautiful but we didn't stayed long enough. The opposite of PICC is Starcity! It's like funfair, but indoors. It was a lot of fun playing there with only just 400 peso ( all rides & entrance fee ).
I didn't take much photos here cz I was busy enjoying my day. Hehhhh
Manila is actually beautiful. It is a very busy city. Every hour there's so many vehicles on the road, even midnight! And they barely have any traffic lights. The drivers there know what they are doing, they drive fast, crazily but yet carefully.
Talking about vehicles, the main transport in Philippines aren't bus. It was jeeps & tricycles. When me & my family was there, we used jeeps all the time. It was really cheap. One ride only cost not more than 10 peso. Well, depends on where you're heading of course.
Here are the jeeps & tricycles.
Besides jeeps & tricycles, there's these too
But these are only at the centers of the town. I didn't get the chance to ride on those hmmm.
Done with the local public transport, now let's go to the local food.
I was actually losing weight before I went there, but I gained like at least 5-8 kg when I came back here. The food there are just too delish. And of course I had the halal ones okay. No worries.
The food there are mainly western. I ate a lot of spaghetti, lasagna & pizza when I was here.
My favourites are at the Greenwich. The lasagna there was a heaven on earth I tell you, and cheap! Yellow Cab is okay too, for those who love heavy cheese & sauces.
Anddddd here goes the desserts & sweets.
My favorites are the halo-halo from Chowking & crunchy ice-cream from Jolibee. Yumyum!
And to be honest, I barely drink water when I was there. That's why I lost my voice when we were back at Miri. I drank a lot of pepsi, chocolate slurpee, starbucks when I was there. Coz it was really cheap & SM is just nearby.
Kihkih. What a heavenly escape from the healthy life!
So on the 24th of December was actually lola's birthday. Bought cake from the Goldilocks and celebrated it at the house.
Pretty lola still look young to me :)
MOA. Mall Of Asia. They said it's one of the biggest mall in Asia. And lucky me I went there!
See! They even have a huge ice-skating there. But it was already close when I went to that part. I only managed to went to like 1/3 parts of the MOA. It is too big & everything there attracted me which left me no time to look at the rest of the mall.
And thanks to meimei who is a fanatic fan of the kpops. We had dinner at a Korean restaurant at MOA.
Christmas! It is the biggest day for most of the Filipino there. All the families are together. Which means, I got the chance to meet more of my titas & titos.
These are part of the Mendoza's, Salinas's & Collantes's.
Little brother RG & EG were so lucky they got a lot of Christmas gifts. I didn't get any.
But I managed to took the pictures of each of us siblings, except RG. So these is us Mendoza's Bong's.
Next to Christmas is New Year.
On New Year's eve, we woke up extra early. We went to the Baywalk at 5 in the morning. Just to breathe in some fresh air & watch the last sunrise of 2012. There were so many people at the Baywalk that early in the morning. I noticed some of them brought their own mats, blankets, seems like they were sleeping the night over. I guess all wanted to watch the sunrise. Mostly were couples.
After Baywalk, we went to the Manila Zoo!
The best thing was that you can get a horse ride. Me, of course, wouldn't wanna miss the chance.
Spending the New Year's eve at Manila was a blast! It was so noisy, everyone was out on the street.
The countdown with the neighbourhood. Everyone around was friendly. They shook everyone's hands to wish a happy new year.
And the fireworks, they were so many & so pretty. I took a few shots of the fireworks, see..
After New Year, there goes all the packing. I hate packing, took me hours to packed all my stuff.
But what made me so happy was that I realised I did a lot of shopping. Packing my stuffs and looking at all the things I bought, AHHHHH satisfaction.
And these were all the stuffs I bought for myself and sayang.
3rd of January.
We were heading home. Just like how we came here. Our flights were
Philippines > KK > Miri
The worst part was, take a look at all of our bags.....
This time, tita Pinang followed us back. So there were 8 of us.
I cried when we were leaving. If I had the chance to choose, I'd bring sayang over and stayed there. I love it there so much. But it's okay, end of this year In Shaa Allah, I'll be going there again. And this time, with sayang.
The flight back to KK was scary. It was really bumpy. But Alhamdulillah we arrived safely. It was dark and heavily rain when we arrived KK. Head back to the inn and all crashed to bed. Our flight to Miri the next day was at 8 in the morning.
4th of January.
Going back home.
I was all excited that morning. And I miss all the Malaysian's food. But mostly I can't wait to see sayang!
