Manila Scenes

A selection of thoughts and pictures from my trip.

Luxe breakfast buffet included danggit, tiny dried, salted, fried fish. You can see their little faces, so it takes a bit of getting used to. And I see that this picture has captured the reading glasses which are my near-constant companion of late. Sigh.

This pavlova, at a Thai / fusion restaurant, was fantastic.

Malls make up a big chunk of life in Manila, and they’re stuffed with Americana. I was sorely tempted to try out the Shakey’s Pizza or this Texas Roadhouse where the claim to fame is the St. Louis style ribs. I know… St. Louis isn’t actually in Texas. I’m just the messenger on that one.

That’s the view from the AWS offices where we held the training. All that sandy soil is landfill… they’re building a whole new city out there in Manila Bay. We saw a big ship spewing a load of sand… construction on a scale that would be difficult to envision in today’s New Zealand.

People waiting in line for a bus after work.

People camped out two whole days to be among the first to get the iPhone 16 (even though it had been out in other countries for a couple of weeks).

Plenty of semi-feral cats in the area. There were food bowls scattered around, so I suppose the cats are kept around as pest control.

In the old days, I could have run home faster. Manila traffic is legendary, but this trip we didn’t encounter anything really horrific.

What I was actually doing over there. It was a fun trip… I’m looking forward to going back a couple of times next year.