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Published: August 28th 2007
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Side Street in Manila
This was around the corner from an office park! Hola and back by popular demand (well just kidding but I guess two or three asked about the volcano). So Nono, Oliver, and Dennis picked me up at the hotel and we headed off to
Tagaytay. We had been in the car about 10 minutes when I announced that I had now officially seen more of Manila than I’d seen in my entire last trip here. It was fun to drive through town, see all the people about on a Sunday. Manila has many dichotomies of class - huge modern skyscrapers around the corner from shacks on the side of the road with goats walking along the side of the road. I think that’s nuts. The guys got a kick out of me announcing whenever I saw a rooster or goat, and I had to explain, I just don’t see farm animals in Atlanta, well, ever.
Traffic is insane. Nono (who is a wealth of information - so great for me with all the questions!) explained that there is one day per week that you are not allowed to drive, depending on your license plate number. They do this in order to reduce the traffic each day. Saturdays everyone can
drive, so Saturdays are the worst traffic of all. But Sunday was no picnic either. It took about 1 ½ hours to go 30 miles. But I didn’t mind because I was taking in the sights. Once we got out of Manila, it turned into more countryside, and it was really beautiful - pineapple crops/fields, even some corn crops, lots of jungle-looking trees, little villages, then suburban establishments with names like Windsor Heights. Hahaha. There were people with little “storefronts” along the road - selling furniture made from the wood in the jungle, selling fruit, selling flowers. The landscape itself reminded me of Hawaii the most of all the places I’ve been.
Tagaytay is a town/city on the cliffs that overlook the
Taal Volcano and Taal Lake. It is a more mountainous area and was actually a little cooler than Manila (probably like 85 instead of 90). The volcano is actually in the middle of the lake, and there is another lake (Crater Lake I believe) in the crater of the volcano itself. It is considered an active volcano, but it hasn’t erupted since 1977. It was really beautiful! We didn’t take a boat ride over to the volcano itself
- just admired the views from various spots along the cliff, but it was very cool. Since it is the rainy season, it was a little cloudy/hazy, but we could still see it and I thought it was lovely. And my luck ran through - my dad told me that since I’d had all the hassle with the luggage, this was now “my trip” and all things should go my way from then on. So Nono and I had been joking about that since he was worried it would rain for our trip to the volcano and we wouldn’t even be able to see it. But we could see it, and I’m glad because I had assured Nono that it couldn’t rain because it was “my trip” now.
We had lunch at a wonderful restaurant
Josephine in Tagaytay with an amazing view - and my first Filipino food too! Nono ordered for us all (after being slightly disappointed when I told them I didn’t eat beef or pork). We had huge spreads of mussels, clams, crab, shrimp, some other fish I’d never heard of, chicken, fried rice with crab, different fried rice, plain rice, etc. What a great meal!
I also had a fresh coconut. Literally, the whole thing. You drink the juice and scrape out and eat the “meat.” I always thought I didn’t like coconuts, but I discovered that I do like them when they are REAL, as opposed to processed shavings on top of a cake. And then after lunch, we had “dirty ice cream.” It is not dirty, they assured me, but that is just what they call it. So we head over to the ice cream guy, and Dennis is translating the flavors for me: purple yam or cheese. I said, “What? Cheese ice cream? And what is purple yam?” So they got me a taste spoon and I settled on cheese. I’m eating it thinking it tastes pretty good kind of like cheesecake-y, when suddenly I’m literally biting into chunks of actual cheese! So weird! I said it out loud, and Dennis says “Yes, you ordered cheese ice cream.” And I said “But I didn’t think there would be cheese chunks in it.” Again, I amuse these guys to no end. Not that it wasn’t good, I was just so surprised. Imagine you’re sitting there, eating some good ice cream and all of
Church in Tagaytay
with a jeepney out front! a sudden you get a bite of cheddar. OK so it wasn’t that extreme and it wasn’t cheddar, but that’s sort of what it felt like.
As we were leaving and settled in the car, I learned what the rainy season is. It started to pour, and I mean REALLY RAIN. All the people in their road-side shacks/stalls just sort of braved it out as best they could. Some people just carried on with their business, getting absolutely soaked, as if they couldn’t be bothered. We stopped at a sweets shop to buy coconut pies and this other sweet thing that I’ve asked the name of five times and cannot remember it. Dennis has been prepping me for coconut pie from Tagaytay for over a month, so we HAD to get it. Again, fresh coconut is so good! And those other sugary concoctions are quite good too. Apparently you can’t buy either of these things in Manila - only where we were, so it was a real treat.
And back to Manila (and traffic). A really nice day where I got to see some beautiful and different things. And spend more time with Dennis, Oliver, and Nono -
all of whom I IM with a lot from Atlanta, so it’s fun to be with them in person.
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Beth Loggins
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Great account! Just love those buko (coconut) pies. yum!