Friday, September 21, 2012

We’ve made it to our fourth Friday night in the Philippines.  I booked a few trips this week while Fritz emailed off a draft of a chapter from a conference last spring.  Fritz’s friend Hui is flying down to Cebu City (referred to in our guidebooks as an “entrée-sized Manila”) for a long weekend at the end of October.  We're looking into staying near the Olango Island Wildlife Sanctuary -- or maybe even on the island itself -- a short 30 minute boat ride from Cebu.  We are meeting with a friend of a friend of Fritz’s in Hong Kong the third week of November and then returning to Manila for a day before we head off on a three day trip for a talk at the National University of Singapore.  Fritz is presenting at conference in Jakarta in early January and we are stretching that trip to Indonesia into a 12 day visit of Jakarta, Yogyakarta, and Bali. 

We’ve made eating in the IPC office at Ateneo part of our daily lunch routine and really enjoy this time.  A few of the other Filipino students and researchers eating there have shared many great food and travel tips during our lunch chats.  One of the students had just returned today from Bicol and brought several coconut treats to share.  Our favorite was the puto (sweet cake made from rice flour) covered in a shmear of coconut jam with pili nuts.  Pili nuts grow on palm trees and are sold next to peanuts in the grocery stores here.  We came across a fun video of a food tour in Manila.  We haven’t tried anything in the video yet, though…