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Published: December 4th 2009
Balut - Duck Embryo
Andrews tasty half developed duck embryo that he triedWell, Manila, what can I say!
It all started when flying into the city. I must say flying is not my favorite thing, makes me quite nervous (a mixture of my mums paranoia and too many episodes of air crash investigations) We are coming into land, slowing down and nearly on the ground, when all of a sudden the plane engines accelerated and we zoom back up into the sky, aborting the landing. We came in again and landed safely the 2nd time..Have no idea what happened, they never told us!
The traffic in Manilla is ridiculous..it took us nearly 4 hours to get from Manila airport to the city, just becuase the traffic was so horrendous!
We knew that Manila is a little more dodgy than other Asian cities, but we did not expect there to be security with M16 machine guns every couple of hundred metres on the streets! And everywhere has a security guard with a gun....from hotels, convenience stores, starbucks and even internet cafes! The signs outside all venues state that you are not allowed to bring your guns inside...(hmm, lucky i left my pistol at home right!)
We have had people on the streets try to sell us everything...from Cigarettes, sweets and the normal stuff but the more intriguing being Viagra and even someone tried to sell us a apartment block!
We have had a great time in Manila, though it is hard to find a bar that is not a girly bar (they call the girls in them GRO's - Guest Relation Officers....hmmm, I guess it is a little more subtle than saying prostitute lol!)
We met some great people last night and had a fun time with some San Miguel beers (75c a bottle...I think that is almost a record for cheapest beer we have found!) Andrew tried the local specialty cuisine called balut last night after a few beers in him for dutch courage - It is a fertilized duck egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell. It has feathers and everything. Yum.
Today we are flying to the island of Palawan, which is meant to be a lot more chilled out than Manilla, worlds apart apparently. Going to lay on some beaches and do some scuba diving. Ah, life is hard 😊
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Deb
non-member comment
OMG!!
Lisa, I saw that balut stuff on Survivor once...it looked scary ;*) Your trip sounds so amazing, keep writing, I'm living vicariously through you at the moment lol!! Big love little lady, Debsxx