Christmas Day Zamboanga Part 3

Christmas morning after a good sleep we all woke up feeling refreshed. We were all pretty deprived of sleep from all the traveling. Today we were going to the beach for a picnic. All gathered at the family house for breakfast first. We took a Tricycle there. So fun. Tricyles here are extremely colourfull as the owners can colour and decorate their tricycles however they want it. Something like how Penang Trishaw owners do too.

The tricycle

Ed in the tricycle. I'm sitting in front of him

Breakfast we had fried banana, pan de sal and steamed banana.

This is the fried banana which we had. It's fried in oil with no batter like how we do our Goreng Pisang. Then you eat it together with the sugar provided. A bite with a dip of sugar. I loved it coming from a no banana fan. It's good when you eat it still hot and crispy. Then the steamed banana which I did not take a pic. It's the whole banana with the skin they steam it first before serving. So the banana when you peel it open is all soft and cooked like. I didn't try this as was abit banana-fied from the fried bananas I ate.

Fried banana 'brito saging' (left) and the Pan de Sal bun (right)

Then there was the ever famous Pan De Sal bun. This bun according to the aunty is the main bun which every home here in the Philippines will have for breakfast. The bun has a very rich butter taste and is hard on the outside and soft inside. You can eat the bun with anything but this morning we ate it plain. Ed's favourite. I do not know how many buns he took.

After breakfast we hired a jeepney to take the whole family to the beach. I love sitting in these jeepneys as its something you will never get in Penang. These Jeepneys can carry up to 15 people on time. Where do the rest go, well they stand behind holding on a half their body is in and the other half hanging outside. There's also some jeepney which I saw which had people sitting on the roof top. My gosh aint that dangerous. Jeepneys here are crazy drivers as they roam the streets driving fast and cutting to the opposite site. But the weird thing is that even if you drive the opposite direction, the vehicles all give way. They have somekind of understanding here. Not like here in Penang, where no one will give way and show you the finger straight away or give a loud honk. Also accident here rarely happens too.

The Jeepney backside where you enter in

Me in the jeepney

Ed in the Jeepney

The journey to the beach, we passed by some houses along the roads which had really poor people staying. There were some areas which I saw like a community of people staying together just like a small kampung area. Then there was a stretch of houses that were right at the beach area. Houses were in the shape like those orang Asli houses you find on the way up to Cameron Highlands. Different in it's own way.

When we reached the beach, I instantly fell in love with the beach. The water was so clear and it was so beautiful. But i'm sure there's other beaches better but this was my first experience in seeing such a clear water beach. The tide was low so there were alot of seaweed growing at the shore of the beach. Then there was a group of small boys catching something in the water, so we went to buat kaypo. They were actually catching puffer fish. For what reason, I think to sell and eat. I guess the locals here living by the beach knows how to each this fish without getting poisoned. Then later on saw another lady squatting down peeling something which had the water around turn red. Went to buat kaypo again. She was actually catching something like oyster here. I was so amazed! It was so easy for them to find it under the rock and all. And it's all at the shore. I went in for a swim. Couldn't resist the water. You could actually walk really far in and the water level stays up till my below chest. Oohh lovely. Water was all cold and clear....we rented a tyre and went floating around in the water. If it wasn't for the hot sun, we would have just kept floating till evening.

The Beach

The green seaweed and alga

The boys looking for the puffer fish

The captured puffer fish which we touched

The people swimming in the beach

The water. Tide coming in

Me in the water standing on a rock

Ed and his uncle standing on the rock

Clear water. See my feet!!!!!

The beach shore side

The 'oyster' like creature which lady was catching

She slaughters it. Cuts it open

And this is what the lady takes to eat

Lunch on the other hand was extremely good. We rented a little hut to sit, eat and enjoy the beach. I took pictures of the food but sadly it is some elses camera which I forgot to ask to upload the pics for me. So I only manage to get the snap shot of this fish dish below.

The hut we rented by the beach

This is called the 'Kinilaw'. It's the Philippines style of sashimi. It's actually raw fish mixed with vinegar, lime, chilly, lotsa ginger and onions and abit of santan. At first when I was offered this dish I did not know that it was raw fish. My first few bites I loved this dish as it was nice and sour. Then later on one of the uncles told me it's raw fish....wHAT!!!!! I never ever had raw fish before. But I guess that's why no one told me before I ate it so that I would taste how it is. I fell in love with this dish even though it was raw fish. But come to think of it, with the amount of vinegar used to wash the fish and mix it together, the flesh is probably already half cooked.

Kinilaw. The raw fish dish

Besides this dish we had my ever favourite stuffed squid which was humongous, BBQ fish, anchovies fried in batter to a cucur type like, left over lechon from last nights dinner which they make it into the bak kut teh like dish and rice. Food was so good!

What was leftover after eating.
Remember I mentioned Zamboanga not so save, this was one of the road blocks we crossed on the way to the beach. It's guarded by the military who are armed with guns.

Zamboanga Part 2 (ChristmasMas Eve Dinner)

Christmas Eve we spent the time at the family house having dinner. What was the biggest anticipation was to see the roasted Lechon (pig). When we reached, the pig was still wrapped up with the brown paper. Lotsa oil soaked up. Pig was pretty small not what I imagined it to be. Uncle said smaller pigs are nicer as the bigger ones would have more fats and the meat would be chewy.

The Lechon still wrapped up.

The pork tasted so so for me. I guess I was comparing back to Penangs Roasted piglet style. But Ed on the other hand loved it that throughout the whole eating session he was standing around the pig eating away. You had two choices of vinegar to dip the pork in. One was a plain vinegar with soya sauce, and the other was the spiced vinegar which has chilly. Ed offered me the skin area. Took a bite and offered him back as one bite of it suddenly made me feel so geli-fied. I think because I was actually looking at the whole figure of the pig that it got to my head subconsciously. Also the skin was rather oily and had a layer of fat.

Took this shot as soon as the wrappers were taken off. Before I could snap the photo of the pig, an aunty came and ripped off the pigs ear. See it's missing a right ear.

The after effect of all our hungry stomachs.

Besides the pork, we also had other local foods such as this dish called 'valenciana'. It looks like those risoto rice we get in italian restaurants. It has all sorts of ingredients in the rice that I myself don't really know how to say. But taste wise, it was good. You only eat abit cos it's rather filling.

Valenciana

Then there was this dish called 'dinogoan' which is a favorite local dish in Philippines also known as 'bloody bloody'. Now this dish may get your stomach turning. It has all the spare parts of the pig cooked together with the pig blood. The pigs blood has to be fresh and how do they get it, when they slaughter the pig, they poke the neck with a sharp object and have a bucket ready to catch the blood oozing out. OOuughh......I felt so sad for the pig when the uncle told me this. I dared myself to try this dish. It tasted salty and sour. Didn't have the blood taste, but I just took a bit to try. Stomach wasn't quite accepting this dish.

Dinogoan also known as bloody bloody

Besides the main highlighted dishes, there was also some BBQ (pangang fish), Roasted crabs, Spaghetti with pork sausages (this was good. Cooked the Philippino way) and a huge bowl of salad. For drinks they made lovely fruit punch minus the liquor.

The table with all the dishes

For dessert we had the cream caramel. It tasted good, but it was extremely sweet. Every spoon bite was like taking a spoon of condense milk.

Cream Caramel

After dinner, we played Bingo with everyone. Bingo is one of a favourite past time game here in Philippines. It was real havoc I tell you with all the aunties and uncles playing together. Laughed and laughed as they were all joking around. We bet with each card with 1 piso. That would be only less than 10 cent RM. The first round, to my luck I WON!!!!! but wasn't so lucky for the remaining rounds. But it was a good experience. Thanks to the Bingo game we played at the Mall of Asia, my brain was at least working on the winning styles.

Playing bingo. Laughing cos I won the first round. See the money!

Throughout the dinner we had a group of ladies who came over to the house to sing Christmas carols. They were very very good. Good voices and good music accompaniment. I took a video of it. Uploaded it in this post. So take a look. They are singing O Holy Night in this video and also you get to see Ed being incharged of the roasted Lechon area. The dinner was good. It eneded around 10pm as we all had to head back to the hotel. Why so early, well Zamboanga ain't a safe place to be wandering at night due to the christian muslim thing. Pretty sad though but we didn't want to risk our chances. So the night ended early, Headed back to the hotel all exhausted that before midnight came, we were all fast asleep.

Zamboanga Part 1

After a short sleep from 11 pm to 2 am, woke up to get ready for our flight to Zamboanga. Had to be at the airport by 3.45 am. Airport was packed with people all rushing to head back to their hometown. The check in queue was long as ever and everyone was all pushing around. Airport authorities did not do a good job with ensuring proper queues were formed. It was just like the roads here in Penang with 4 lanes squeezing into 1 lane. But this was human beings not cars.

After a long wait, and good thing we came 2 hours earlier, we survived and headed to the boarding area, sat down and waited again for the flight. Flight was delayed again. We were so tired, thay we actually slept on the chair sitting straight up. I was a total Zombie. During the wait I was offered to try this sweet snack called Polvoron. When I say sweet…..it’s REALLY sweet. It tastes like a very rich and creamy shortbread with extra sugar. It was good, but really too sweet for me.

Polvoron

The texture of the Polvoron. Look exactly like those shortbread we find.

When we reached Zamboanga, the town was like a real cowboy town. The place was not much developed and there were a lot of kampong areas. But it was a good experience for me since I’m a city girl. People here travel mostly in the Jeepney or the tricycles. Not many cars around. Poverty here I think is quite bad as some areas we passed by, the houses were so shabby, dirty and small. Feel pitty for those people actually. Area here is rather humid and dusty.

Zamboanga Airport

That was our aeroplane, Cebu Pacific

After checking in at the Hotel, we rested for awhile, bathed and off we went to the family house. Ed’s uncle came in his jeep. Cool!!!! We had to crawl in and sit behind…dunno how to describe, so look at the picture.

The red jeep

Me behind the jeep legs stretched out. Had to crawl in from the window

Lunch we had home cooked food. Actually the whole stay at Zamboanga we had home cooked food, Real Philippine food. Lunch was simple, BBQ fish, left over lechon which they make it into a stew like Bak Kut The (lechon paksiur) (Even better), pork soup, squid cooked with the Ink (dish was all black..didn’t quite like it), Vegi mixed with seaweed jelly (unusual dish, had a pinch of sourness…I liked it) and two deserts (Cream Caramel- too sweet and another one which I didn’t try).

Lunch food. Spot the white plate with black stuffs in it. That's the squid cooked with the ink.

In the afternoon, followed the cousins to town, but I didn’t bring the camera as it was abit unsafe. Sat on a tricycle!!!!! Yahooo……what an experience. Town was like those cowboy movies you see with a lot of people walking by and vehicles everywhere packed on the small narrow road. Whole area all dusty and hot. There was only one main shopping mall here in this town where we were. Shops were simple shops, the only brand I saw was Giordano. But Ed and me didn’t go in the mall as we were here to pick the cousins up. Headed back to the family house and rested for while before heading to an aunties house. Sat in the Jeep again and drove around the area sightseeing before reaching the aunties house. At the aunties place, we were offered mango with vinegar. The mango is unripe (sour as ever) which you dip it either in vinegar mixed with soya sauce and sugar or vinegar mixed with Chinchalok (didn’t like this sauce). After eating we left the aunties house and headed back to the hotel for a quick change to get ready for the Christmas eve dinner.

The unripe mango. purple dish is the vinegar with chinchalok, right bowl is vinergar, soya sauce and sugar

shops along the main road

A lepak place to have a drink by the road side

This is actually a market just beside the main road

Heading to town

This is the tricyles which is everywhere here. Main transportation. It can carry up to 4-5 people sitting everywhere, front and back with hands holding tightly for support.

Just cruising around the area

Some monument of wood carvings of famous people in Philippines

Residential area for middle class people. Area was very quite and cosy. Houses were somewhat cottage feeling.

Philippines Trip Day 1, Manilla (Makati Area)

Yes I have finally reached this topic to talk about our Philippines trip. There’s plenty to talk about, and I shall try to cover every part of it. This is about Day 1 Part 1.

We left Penang on the 21^st. Flew with Air Asia and Cebu Pacific. Both were budget airlines. Talk about delays, we were delayed twice with these two airlines. First flight with Cebu Pacific, we had a culture shock as the seats were so freaking small and straight up. The trip from KL to Manila was a real torture. But we survived.

Arrived at Manila early in the morning (22nd) and headed straight to the hotel, rooms were not ready so we had our breakfast at the restaurant. Food was ok. Nothing interesting to brag about. Then slept for a while.

First stop was to this huge shopping mall called Mall of Asia. It’s really huge, bigger than Midvalley. We started there at around 11 am and left the place around 10pm….but we didn’t manage to cover the whole area.

Mall of Asia

Inside Mall of Asia

Huge Christmas tree in the mall

Lunch was interesting. We ate at the food court. Now this is what we should call a food court…..it had so much food, you've got to trust me, REALLY ALOT….and the crowd was crazy. It took us about 10minutes to finally find a table. Madness!!

See the crowd in the food court

What we ordered, well Ed for one thing went straight to the Lechon stall to order his pork. Lechon is one of Philippines famous pork dish. It's the whole pig marinated with spices and herbs and roasted over the fire. Texture something like the chinese piglets with the crispy skin. But taste totally different. You eat it with Vinegar. Here in Philippines, Pork here is a main meat, which you can find it at every food stall. It was abit of a 'culture shock' for me as it was weird to find all shops or rather 90% of Philippine dishes sure to have pork. Compared to Malaysia, you only find pork in Chinese Restaurants which are non halal. Here you get all sorts of Pork meat. Unbelievable.

The Pork shop selling lechon

The variety of food each stall sells. These are dishes which you eat with rice.

Beside having pork, pork and more pork we also had some squid and chicken. Those were cooked BBQ style way. Different from how we cook it here.

After lunch, we went hunting for more food around the mall. This is what we found. It's a bit scary how much we pigged out.

The fried Pork fat shop (Checharon)

Different areas of the pork fat. Some even looked like deep fried worms

One bite of this sure to get you feeling like heaven, not forgetting the vinegar which you dip into

Checharon- This is pork fat deep fried as a keropok/cracker like which you dip it in vinegar. It was so good that I whacked two packets of it. Hahaha talk about controlling Ed with his pork fat, there I was uncontrollably eating away. Ed even had to repeat it twice to me to get it sunk into my head what I was actually eating “Cher it’s pork fat you know”

Brownies for sale!

Then I found a stall selling so many different brownies. I went crazy again and ordered a whole box to eat. It was cheap. RM 10 for 12 slices, but don't get worried for me...I shared the 12 pieces with Ed and his cousin.

Then we tried a stall selling this food called “empanada”. It was something different. First the aunty rolls the batter (texture like curry puff pastry). Then she puts in the pickled vege and minced pork. Then she breaks an egg and wraps it up. Then off it goes to the frying pan. Once cooked you eat it together with vinegar. MMMMmmmmmm lovely. See below for pics.

See the pig eating!

After that nothing could still stop us from eating, we decided to enter a donut shop called Mister Donut. When we saw this shop it reminded us of our Jap friend telling us that Mister Donut is a famous shop back in Japan. So okla…we went in to try. To our disappointment, it wasn’t that wonderful after all. Too me it had that weird donut smell which I don’t like. Smell of staleness.

After the donut, next door we saw a hot dog stall. Hotdogs were pork sausages wrapped with bacon…Ooh something you don’t find in Malaysia, so we ordered one…PIGS!!! Hotdog was huge, I guess their sign “Don’t ever call me a weenie” does have a meaning....hahhaha

See how huge the hot dog was. It's wrapped with bacon.

Then we did some walking. Went in to a few clothes shops but it didn’t attract me as the clothes there we can find in Penang. Branded goods also can be found in Penang. Was looking out more on local Philippines goods, but could only find one shop. Bummer…the shop had some interesting slippers (which didn’t have my size), crafted hadbags which were unique but pricey and the Marong Tagalog (National Costume) which was $$$$$. So decided to stick with food hunting.

So we continued our journey exploring the mall. Then as we walked, we suddenly came across a shop called Bayview Bingo. We both got excited and went in. I guess we were so excited that we didn’t realize how much the game was. The guy came up to us and gave us our bingo cards and next thing we knew it cost us RM 50!!!!!!Madness…..we were scammed!!!! Hahha well we found out how they make money here. Your given 3 sheets which has 9 bingo cards. These cost you RM 50. In between every two games they stop to play the special card which you have to pay extra if you want to play. These special cards are cheaper so most people would opt to participant. So from there that’s how they collect money. The game was pretty confusing in the beginning. I could only remember one winning style which I used to play with my Aunty last time. Didn’t know that there were so many other winning styles….ahh confusing…Ed on the other hand was faster to colour the numbers compared to slow poor me. We were given a special “pen” to dot the numbers. I shouldn’t exactly say pen as it was in a shape of a glue but had colour ink coming out. We spent our time at the Bingo place for a near 30 mintues….we couldn’t leave after what we spent….so we continued hoping that we could win back our money. Winning polls were as high as RM 2000. Unlucky us, we walked out RM 50 poorer.

The Bingo cards

Then we went to this restaurant called Chow King and ordered the Halo Halo…recommended by Ed’s uncle. It was good…so much better than our Ice Kacang here. What was inside, ice shaves, jelly, Yam Ice Cream, Vanilla Ice cream, Thick concentrated caramel cut, thick concentrated yam paste, beans, corn, coconut slices, santan and some other ingredients which I can’t tell what it was. Your suppose to mix all the ingredients before eating. Fantastic!!!!

Halo halo when served

Halo halo after mixing everything up

The came dinner, we went to the food court again and ordered a few dishes to eat with rice. What I liked the most was the stuffed BBQ squid which you eat with vinegar. Squid was stuffed with cabbage, onions and tomato…but I guess there’s a secret ingredient as I made this dish last two weeks ago and it was so very far away from the taste, disappointing.

The stuffed squid

Desert dishes

This was my favourite desert dishes. Left, is called ginataan or binignit. This is something similiar to Penang's Pengat or Bo Bo Cha Cha. Right, fruit salad. The best I tell you cos it's mixed with pure nestle cream. I fell in love with this immediately. I so miss this now.

The amount of dishes we had for dinner for just 5 people

Apart from the food, I mustn’t forget about my encounter with the body check, armed security and a K9 dog……When you stepped into this mall, at the entrance, everybody will have to go through the security for a body check to see if anyone’s carrying weapons. There will be a guy on the right and a lady on the left to carry out the body checks.

Then while walking in the mall I saw this German Shepard dog wandering around with a security guard. Silly me, I went “Hey Ed, look can bring dogs to the shopping mall. So cool” Then Ed went “it’s a K9”, huh?????? Yea very tight security here in Philippines after the recent bombing of a shopping mall. Security guards here are armed with pistols and M16. And they are found at every shop in the mall. Pretty scary though, but it does give you a sense of security. The dog’s duty was to sniff for any bombs.

The dogs duty is to sniff for bombs. See behind, that's the body check areas.

Apart from all the eating, I did pamper myself for awhile. I went for a medicure and pedicure in one of the saloon/beauty shops. You wouldn't guess how much it was......... freaking RM 10 ONLY!!!!!!! While I was doing this, Ed on the other hand was enjoying his head shave and a body massage provided by the chair he was sitting on. Somekind of massaging chairs. he enjoyed it and he actually fell into lala land (sleep).

Pampering myself


My toes after the pedicure. Loved the colour

After a long day at the mall,with limited sleep, by the time it was 10pm, we were all exhausted and decided to head back to the hotel for sleep. Day 2 is the trip to Zamboanga