2018: Calbiga

After 3 years in Oz, I was able to finally visit my family in the Philippines. And when it’s that kind of trip, food is never out of the picture. I had a looong list of food I wanted to eat.

This was before all the breast cancer hullabaloo and this vacation was for my sister’s 18th and our marriage blessing in church.

Let me tell you my trip in pictures 🙂

I was packed as early as 3 weeks before my trip lol! Yes, I was that excited.

Day of the trip came and I was literally skipping as I was walking to the check-in kiosk. There were long lines at the counter but it didn’t matter. I was going to see my family again!!

Check-in done….

We arrived in Manila close to midnight and my younger brother, Gio picked us up. We checked in at Red Planet Hotel in Ortigas. It was very affordable for the location since we wanted to be close to Megamall. We needed to go clothes hunting for our marriage blessing. I was sooo hungry so after dropping our bags in the room, we looked for a 24hr fast food close by and being in Ortigas, we found Jollibee just a few blocks away!

Of course I got Jollibee spaghetti and crispy chicken…who wouldn’t?

Next day was spent hunting for a Barong Tagalog for Richard and a Barong Dress for me. Then by dinner time, we met cousins and friends and had buffet at a restaurant called Dad’s.

Yep, more food. Did I mention that this trip is mostly going to be food?

We woke up early for our flight to Tacloban City which has the major airport close to my hometown.

As soon as we got home, I had these…

Tinolang Manok (Native chicken cooked in a ginger-based soup with lemongrass and another native herb called “Dulaw”)

Hinatukan na Masag (Crabs cooked in coconut milk with ginger, capsicum, onion, garlic and lemongrass)

And every morning, you need to have this freshly baked bread called Presko for breakfast.

It goes really well with tea or coffee. My husband loved it and would wake me up at 5am everyday so we could go to the baker’s house and buy it fresh as always.

Sundays also mean that you have Caldereta or Nilagang Baboy or Lumo. But in this case, I only remembered to take a picture of the Nilagang Baboy as we already ate all of the Lumo.

When dusk arrives, people selling barbecue would start setting up their barbecue stations. I had my husband taste barbecued chicken intestines 😀

Going home in November means it’s my youngest sister’s birthday and my maternal grandmother’s. This was my sister’s 18th and Lola’s 89th. We also timed it with our marriage blessing in church since I am Catholic. That means lots of food!!!!

And my favourite, Lechon!!!!

And my vacation won’t be complete without a side of Filipino flavoured beer that I love:

It was a very special day as my parents-in-law made the effort to come to the Philippines and meet my family and they had gotten to know a bit of the town that I love.

Our church…

Our auditorium…

We had little side trip to Bohol which I let my husband experience land travel or the 2nd time (1st was when he visited me in he Philippines in 2015 and I took him to Vigan). I will have a separate blog post about that trip. Then we went back to Manila and stayed there for 3 days before going back to Oz.