TRAVEL MAPS

Since I love maps and find them helpful this map shows the three places that we visited-The Philippines, South Korea and Japan.

So here is a map of the places that we went in Japan.

It began with another unidentifiable airline meal. The item at the top right looked sort of like yogurt and there was a packet with it. I tasted the packet first and it was like soy sauce and then I tried the “yogurt”.  I think it was soft soy. You put the soy sauce on it and eat it. It did really taste OK to me, but it was weird, savory rather than sweet.  Don’t worry, there is more about Japanese food coming.

On our trips north and south in Japan we took the bullet train.  It is amazing. It travels at 200 mph and has no interruptions, so a trip that might take 8 hours by car takes 2 hours!  It is comfortable and just felt like taking a train. It is a good way to see a bit about how the country is. I saw lots of rice paddies. Everything is very green right now.

Filipino Food

If my Mother was reading this she would want to know what I have eaten. This page is dedicated to her and to Shiff the Chef our ancestor from whom some of us in the family (not me) inherited talents with cooking. 

Let's start with breakfast. Every morning at the convent where we were staying they prepared a very nice breakfast for us. Breakfast is a full meal. There was always rice and then three choices. One was some sort of meat, another was some sort of fish or egg and one was vegetable. The vegetable choice was very limited. 



However, the meal started with fruit and there was amazing fruit. Some mornings there were various types of mangos, other mornings there was a huge slice of papaya, and sometimes there were also bananas. In the Philippines there are a lot of different types of bananas. Our Filipino friends feel sorry for us that we have to get those long bland tasting bananas, but they are the only ones that can survive the transportation.

See this Article on banana varieties from the Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eatingwell/cavendish-bananas-tropical-race-four_b_809327.html

It seemed to me like lunch and dinner were both very similar. There is rice, some sort of meat or fish, and vegetables. We did eat out for lunch and there were sandwiches and salads and pancakes. Several lunches eaten with others included some sort of fish soup. There is a pretty clear looking broth and big pieces of fish including bones, clams in their shells or shrimp.

Often meat is adobo. All kinds of meat can be prepared as Adobo. According to Wikipedia Adobo come from the Spanish adobar which means marinade. Meat, seafood or vegetables are marinated in vinegar, soy sauce and garlic. This is then browned in oil and simmered in the marinade. We have had mostly pork adobo.

Some sort of seafood soup has been common with most meals that we have eaten. One lunch we had some sort of fish in broth, at another was a sour soup with another kind of fish. Yesterday we had a soup of clams with the shells and everything in it and later we had soup with shrimp in it.

Here are some things that were new to me:

• Jackfruit-It was served as part of a main dish cooked in coconut sauce and eaten with rice.
  
• Avocado is considered a fruit! Even though I saw them growing on many trees and for sale in markets I don't think I  ever ate any here. In one place that we went at the beach there was an avocado fruit shake. Betty Rae's Ice Cream has an avocado ice cream, so I guess they are on to something.
• A snack is something totally different than I pictured. At one of Steve's talks there was a break and snack for everyone. Below you see a picture of the snack. I am not sure what it is called. It was sort of a rice porridge with half a fried egg, some pork adobo and some pieces of tongue. It came with lumpia, which was described to me as filipino fried spring roll. 
• A Filipino (and probably other locations) delicacy is the head of the prawn. My friends debated about cooking the prawns with the heads on or off and decided to leave the heads on. 

Prawns with heads

Filipino Snack
Lucky for me I was trained well to try everything and did not make a scene, but the food was very different for me.

One breakfast I had in a restaurant I decided to order yogurt and fruit. It was a huge plate of really nice looking fruit cut in bite sized pieces and on the side was a container of yogurt. It was delicious



One evening at dinner I ordered "Asian Fried Rice and Chicken" (or something like that). I pictured that I would be getting a stir fry of sorts with rice and bits of chicken and some vegetables. What I got was a bowl of rice and a plate with a large piece of chicken (bone- in) sliced and dipping sauces. I think what is difficult for me is the number of bones and all of the seafood that I am encountering.

A talk about Filipino food would not be complete without mentioning JollyBee, the Filipino version of McDonalds. Filipinos LOVE JollyBee!  






We had a bacon, egg and cheese between two pancakes instead of muffins. Our friends had sausage, eggs and rice.

At another time we had a rice patty and fried chicken. I hear there is one in San Francisco (and probably in most cities where there are Filipinos). 

What does crossing the International Dateline feel like?

This morning (Saturday) when I woke up I felt like I had just been shot through a long tunnel and popped out in Manila. I think it is the same feeling Captain Kirk had when he was "beamed down" from the starship Enterprise onto a planet. I guess that the feeling is more from the long trip than from crossing the dateline.

Our trip was three legs: Austin to LA (3 hours), LA to Tokyo (11 hours), and then Tokyo to Manila (4.5 hours). With the layovers we were on the road for 24 hours. We left Austin early on Thursday morning and arrived in Manila Friday night. Somewhere in there we crossed the International Dateline and lost a day. I cannot seem to wrap my head around it, but when I look at my iPad it says that it is yesterday.... so I guess I am living in tomorrow. I wish I could explain it better than that. In Tokyo I saw this interesting sign on the wall of the bathroom stall.

At the airport we were met by our friend, Maricel and Sister Ann (a nun), who took us to the retreat center for the Religious Sisters of the Virgin Mary (RVM) in new Manila. We were surprised to find out that we would each have a separate room with a single bed! So, we woke up the next morning on our 39th wedding anniversary in our separate rooms! What an adventure it has been to be married to Steve!!  

Traveling this way is the best!  We are tourists and foreigners, but we have a connection to people who actually live here. We don’t stay in luxury hotels, but we have really interesting experiences where we stay.

Here are some things that happened in the first day:

• Waking up to the crowing of a rooster that lives at the retreat center
• Eating breakfast (an apple, a roll with bacon flavored mayonaise, nescafe) with Sister Ann
• Being greeted with a Welcome song by three young nuns
• Meeting many friends of our friend and being treated so warmly
• Observing all sorts of strange transportation (jeepney, motorcycle with sidecar that holds 3 or 4 people)

Tomorrow’s blog will be about a visit to a part of Manila that most tourists do not visit.