2 Asian Birds With 1 Stone: Manila

Finally I made it to the Philippines – to the call center hotspot to visit our partner sites there. And as I was there I tried to hit two birds with one stone. I got to meet with Anneliese in Manila.

When I received the okay to go there I contacted the cousin of my dad who is living in Manila for 45 years. The contact happened via Facebook and the details were covered in an email. When asking her what she would like to have from Germany she wanted to have the honey my dad makes. The honey actually made it to Hong Kong. But then when I wanted to go from Hong Kong to Manila the airport officers took it from me. Stupid me, I put it into the hand luggage while I was at Dagmar and Joris. I only hope Anneliese is right and a Chinese tasted this marvelous honey. On my first day in Manila she picked me up at my hotel and showed me the historical center of the country and a crash course of the history of Manila. She even showed me her favorite souvenir store in which she goes shopping since quite a while even some part of her furniture comes from there. Of course even I went shopping there.... Next agenda item was real Philippine lunch in the close by Ilustrado. I had meat in vinegar garlic marinade (Adobo), with Papaya sour (Atsara)...

...and a juice of coconut and water (Buko).

Anneliese had a blood sausage stew (Dinuguan) with rice balls (Puto) which I tried as well and it was delicious.

At the end we drove to her beautiful house 30 km away from the city with a huge tropical garden.

Her maid had already prepared coffee and cake for us. She offered us rice dumplings (Suman) with coconut jam. Anneliese loves this jam and had almost covered the whole dumplings with it. Moreover there were sweet biscuits with cheese (Ensaymada) and of course apple cake – only with Mango instead of apples.

When I came back to the hotel in the evening, I was confident that I cannot eat anything else for the next 2 days. Tired but happy I went to bed – happy that I had taken this opportunity. This might have been my last opportunity to see Anneliese in Manila as she moves to her son to USA. This depends whenever she can sell her house in Manila – if you are interested let me know.