Fast Food Christmas Crawl

---

We left our surf/beach/friendship paradise and made our way to Vigan, a few hours north. But first we took a jeepney back south to San Fernando, figuring we'd have better luck catching a bus with some room. It was Christmas day after all.

And San Fernando was bustling, with a festival atmosphere. Everyone was out with their families in the park and in the markets. It was a festival atmosphere. All of the shops were open, which was good for us, but also a bit of a shock. Christmas is definitely celebrated differently here. It's an outdoor party with family, friends, and the rest of the town.

We bought ourselves some water at one of the open shops. In the heat, we'd each been drinking about three litres of water a day just sitting around and doing nothing (except for the occasional surfing lesson, but that only lasted an hour).

We boarded a bus to Vigan, and arrived just after dark. We found a guesthouse and went to the square to watch the fountain show.

Let me expand on the fountain for a minute. Every city/big town in the Philippines has a fountain, and they are big and impressive. I'm not sure if they always have water/light shows choreographed to music, but they definitely do during the Christmas season. And they are really well done, and it seems like the whole town shows up to watch. And the Christmas show in Vigan was the best we've seen so far.

After the fountain show, we set out to get some Christmas dinner. While everything had been open earlier and it seemed like “business as usual”, most restaurants were now closed. But just across from the square, lined up in a row, were three iconic fast food restaurants: Jollibee, Chowking, and McDonalds.

Fast food is big in the Philippines, and they have their own national chains that compete with McDonalds and are just as plentiful, if not more. Jollibee might be the most common one, and we went there first.

It was very busy, probably because it was one of the few restaurants open, and everyone in town was out with their family to see the fountain show, so it was a natural stop. Actually though, any Jollibee we've seen has always been pretty busy, so we had to try it.

Odd had raved about the spaghetti with its sweet tomato sauce, so I ordered that. There can't be too many spaghetti fast food options out there, but it's definitely a hit in the Philippines. Odd says it's so popular that McDonalds in the Philippines also started serving a spaghetti dish to compete, but he says it's not as good. And Jollibee is really primarily a burger restaurant, so I made sure to try the Yum Burger on the side, and had a strawberry sundae, because it's Christmas dammit! Vanessa had a burger and fries. And you know what? It was all pretty darn good.

We've also seen Cowking restuarants almost as frequently as Jollibee's, and it's mostly a fried chicken restaurant. Chris (who we had met in Manila) had noted that at first glance, sometimes he read it as “Choking”, and there are signs on the street that say “Stop! Chowking”, so if you misread them it looks like “Stop Choking!”. It was right next door to the Jollibee, and we were craving a bit more for our Christmas feast, so we went to try it. Instead of the fried chicken though, we ordered some spring rolls and a Filipino pastry. It was pretty good, but we didn't think it was quite as good as Jollibee.

Then we figured, what the hell. McDonalds was right next door, so we might as well complete the Christmas fast food crawl we had started. It was our desert stop, and I ordered a coke float, but Vanessa ordered fries. And you know what? The Jollibee fries were better. So file that piece of information away for future use...

And that was our Christmas dinner.

We capped it off with some rum we bought at a liquor store, and went to bed.

The next morning, we set out to explore Vigan. The drawcard in Vigan is the colonial town centre. Vigan is pretty much the only place in the Philippines with surviving Spanish colonial architecture. Everywhere else was destroyed in WWII and not rebuilt. Vigan was just barely spared from bombing when the Japanese retreated minutes before the Americans were going to carpet bomb the place, and they called off the airstrike. So it's unique to the Philippines, but not unique as far as Spanish colonial towns go.

We walked around a bit, replenished our cash at an ATM, bought some water, and Vanessa bought some scarves. We also had the best empanadas I've ever tasted in my entire life. That's not really that big a claim, since I haven't had too many empanadas in my life, but these were delicious, and I'd put them up against any others that I'll try. So good. So if you're looking for the best empanadas in the world, better head to Vigan in the Philippines. Maybe not the first place you'd think to check...

Before checking out of our hotel I flipped on the TV and caught televised cockfighting. Since it's illegal pretty much everywhere else on Earth, I was surprised to say the least, and I watched with a morbid fascination for a short time. They don't let them fight to the death, and there are referees and judges, and it's all taken pretty seriously. I don't know how a cock fight like this is judged, but I imagine there's a lot of gambling involved with the... uh... sport? Anyway, you can add cockfighting to “Things in the Philippines.”

---

Photos

Is It Snowing?
Of Course Not. It's 30 Degrees. It's Bubbles

Best Empanadas of All Time
I'm'a Let You Finish Tho...