The Day-to-Day

Before we get into this post, just wanted to remind you that on the right hand side if you enter your email our blog will send you an email whenever we make a new post so you know when to check back with us.  Also, we found that if you click the photos you can enlarge them and do a sort of slideshow of all the photos in the blog.

I've been here over a week now and am settling in to our life here and wanted to share some of the quirks of our day to day with you all.  These are things Robby has become well accustomed to by now, but I'm finding interesting and at times pretty delightful.  To start: food.  Our apartment has a grocery store on the bottom floor, and two more within a 5 minute walk in either direction.  Additionally, there is no shortage of street vendors along the way selling all sorts of fried foods and kebabs of meat as well as women under umbrellas waving down cars to buy their ears of corn. There are a bunch of kids who play outside our apartment building who ask us for money every time we pass.  They often ask our names as well.  Evidently one of the other Fulbrighters fell for this ploy and is now greeted by name every time he passes.

This is the entrance to our apartment, with the SaveMore grocery store and Robby carrying our clean laundry (it's in a bag, don't be too impressed).  The apartment door is manned by someone who always greets us with a "M'am/Sir" as we approach.  The people here are extremely polite.  At the end of any interaction, you will almost always hear "salamat po" or "thank you po".  The term "Po" is a courtesy or way of being polite (at least in the local dialect).  Sort of like "thank you kindly".

Close quarters on Katipunan Ave.

When walking anywhere from our apartment we have to walk along Katipunan Avenue.  There is sidewalk in places, but mostly you're walking through "parking lots".  These are areas just large enough for a car to fit in, though often with its back bumper only a foot or so from the edge of the highway. 

Each parking lot has a security officer (or 3) who has the unenviable job of trying to stop traffic with nothing but a whistle so that cars can get into and out of parking spaces from Katipunan.

Walking along Katipunan, cars moving in and out of parking spaces are not the only obstacle we face. People on motorbikes will often drive right up on the sidewalk as they weave through traffic.  Tricycles (motor bikes with little side-cars attached) also park along the sidewalks. Something to note about the tricycles, they have Loyola Heights written on them.  Loyola Heights is our barangay.

Think (essentially):

Province = State

Municipality = County

Barangay = Town/Neighborhood

So we live in: 

Province: Manila

Municipality: Quezon City

Barangay: Loyola Heights

 
The tricycles generally don't leave their barangay, even to go to the one right next door.  It would be like one not driving from Reston to Herndon. It may not be the most convenient, but they just stick to their own little neighborhoods

Back to the food.  The grocery stores have everything we've needed, but good luck finding it.  Things are often not in the same place from one visit to the next, and you may find the same product in two different aisles on opposite ends of the store so you end up having to shop around within the store to find the best deal.  It can take awhile, but while you're shopping the music selection is the best!!  Well, it's driving Robby a little crazy, but I'm loving it.  On my last grocery trip I was shopping to all 90's music, every boy band you could imagine and the employees singing right along with them, completely unabashed.  I turned down one aisle and the guy stocking shelves was singing "I want it that way..." saw me, smiled, and kept going.  Amazing.  Filipinos are some of the happiest, free spirited people I've ever encountered. Easily the most fun I've ever had grocery shopping.

While they have everything we need, it often takes a different size/shape than we're accustomed to (tiny little onions!)

Cooking has been a bit of a challenge.  We don't have an oven, just this wonderful two burner plug-in "stove".  

Our typical breakfast: eggs, hash browns and what Robby calls sausage (I call it a hot dog).  

Two nights ago one of the burners decided to stop working so now we are down to one.  We may try to buy a new stove today, or just give up on the kitchen and eat out.  There are tons of restaurants nearby and you can get a meal for $5 a person (or less), so not a bad option.  The first time we went out Robby pointed out the table settings; evidently, Filipino's use their spoons as knives to cut through their food so the settings consist of a fork and spoon, no knife.

According to Robby it's more of a pulling than slicing action

Unbeknownst to us there was construction happening the floor above this restaurant so I ate with my noise canceling headphones in while Robby decided to get artsy with his photography (below)

Perfecting the "macro" setting on the camera

A few days ago we ventured down to Cubao to visit the farmers market there.  The farmers market is in a town center-esque area which has no less than two giant malls situated a block apart.  The mall culture here is insane.  Robby has stepped foot into 3 of the worlds top 10 largest malls, all without leaving Manila.  The farmers market itself was a big building that housed the fish market Robby made the video of (see our last blog), as well as stalls where vendors were selling fruits, vegetables, meat and rice. 

At first, I was hesitant to take photos, but Robby assured me it was fine as long as I asked before taking them.  Well, it turns out that Filipinos LOVE Americans.  Everyone was more than happy to allow us to take photos, often posing for them with their merchandise and a few even wanted photos of us with them.
  

Filleting station

Couple of catfish

Some catfish were still alive, slithering around in a few inches of water (in metal tray above)

Little squid

Cutting up crabs

"Self-fillet and save!" 

Tray full of salmon heads

Robby's best guess = ribbonfish

So many squid!

Filleted for your inspection

Across from the fish were the meats, which were definitely a departure from what you would find in your neighborhood grocery store.  Just a warning: the displays can be a bit gruesome if you're not accustomed to seeing just how your favorite cuts of meat are prepared.

Whole goats

Actual sausages

Short ribs, with a side of pigs feet or head if you so choose (look closely)

Set of lungs and a liver

Freshly killed chickens

We knew they were fresh because these guys were still alive in the back

Though we passed on the surf and turf options we couldn't resist buying some of the fruits and veggies.  The stalls had piles of everything you could imagine, some of which we couldn't identify.  We shopped around and were quoted anywhere from 150 pesos to 350 pesos for the same vegetable ($3.33-$7.77/kilo), some vendors definitely tried to take advantage of our obvious non-local status.  We bought four mangoes and found that they were nowhere near as tasty as the ones at our local grocery store.  They tasted so different I'm convinced they were imported.  I saw stickers on the lemons there that said USA so it is hard to say what was and wasn't local here.

Piles of veggies

By far our favorite food here is mango.  I've never had a fruit so delicious and juicy, it's like eating candy!  We've each eaten a whole mango almost every day since I've been here.

All the fruit you could want

Some other things worth mentioning about our day-to-day.  To do laundry we have to take it down the street to a laundry mat where they wash and fold our clothes.
  

Our laundromat and "Mr. Quickie". Yes. Mr. Quickie. 

They charge you by weight so you put all your cloths in a bin and pay per kilogram (minimum of 5kg/wash).  

I also wanted to mention that from our balcony, beyond the highway, there are also mountains that can be seen on days when the smog isn't hiding them.
  

Mountains!

You can also see the University of the Philippines, Diliman (UP).
  

Starting about where you see the big patch of green is UP.  It stretches all the way to the church you can see in the back center/right of the photo.  Everywhere you see trees and greenery essentially is the campus.  It's massive, I explored the campus for two hours the other day and still have plenty left to check out. The area just before the campus begins is, for lack of a better term, a "slum".  In Robby's experience, it is not uncommon for impoverished areas to be interspersed within those with higher incomes.  The stark juxtaposition between the two really hits home the wealth disparity in the country.

In other news, some of you may have heard the Pope is in Manila.  They are expecting millions to turn up for his prayer today in Rizal Park (where we went in the first blog).  We were considering going until we read an article where the government was recommending all security officers and persons attending the mass to wear adult diapers due to the lack of port-o-potties to accommodate the volume of people expected to turn up.  Between that and the hours of traffic it would take to get there and back we opted to pass.  The Pope is also meeting families at the Mall of Asia, as I said malls are big here.

The area right next to the UP campus is called Teacher's Village (or UP Village). It's a bunch of small streets that you sort of wind through while passing shops and, more importantly, many many restaurants.
  

Typical street

Teachers Village trikes

We ended up in this "food truck" like spot that is open seating with the perimeter housing little stands selling anything from pizza to bbq to dimsum to shwarma to mexican pita (whatever that is).  We settled on a chicken shwarma sandwich and hummus and relaxed for awhile.
  

There were stands underneath as well as to my right and behind me, around 10 different options

San Miguel (the local beer and our blog title) is only P40-50 (~$1.00)! 

Yum.

On the way back we passed several basketball courts with boys playing in flip-flops, pivoting as if in sneakers (extremely impressive to watch).

 I don't know if this qualifies as a fun fact I'm leaving you with today, but it's fact none the less. Well, 2 facts actually.  Fact 1: Mangoes have the same oil - urushiol - that causes the rash you get when you touch poison ivy.  Fact 2: I am highly allergic to urishiol.  So, those delicious mangoes I mentioned earlier have left me with oozing bumps lining the sides of my mouth.  Good times.  On the up side, the flesh of the fruit is safe, so now Robby has to cut them up and serve them to me whenever we eat them. Service at its finest!

Of course you get a visual, this was just the beginning.