Emmerson and Ada's Saturday

The girls have been somewhat delinquent in providing their descriptive captions - busy but in a good way. I guess accommodating their dad's blog related whims are not on the top of their priority list. Will try and carve out a time blok in the next day or so to make more sense of the photos. 

All right, Emmerson's very succinct notes below.

Start of the day[in the parking ....Emmerson not very happy.

Another picture of the start of the day.

House that looks like mansion! [On the road to our day]

Ghost cars! [also on the way to our day]

Just a picture of belair.

House in belair.

On the fly over 

[highway]

more fly over

bungalows

JOLLIBEE!!! Fast food restaurant

Statue

S and R....kids do not like it at all

Parking lot at S and R

S and R food bar

Fish

NUTELLA!!

PRINGLES!

S and R

Gas for the way back home

Crazy cars! and one jeepney

3 empty jeepneys

Taxi or jeepney?

Want a ride?

Yikes!

 

View

Fishing for.....?

Awwwlll Kitties!!!

Swimming in the pasig river

Photographers:Daddy,Ada and Emmerson

Merry Christmas!

It's the Christmas season here in Manila - every month ending with ber (buurrrr) - get it? Pretty slick. I like it, especially since the closest to burrr it ever gets here is in the movie theater due to an overzealous air-con unit.

The girls getting into the holiday spirit outside the display at Ace Hardware.

Brekkie O' Champions #2: Salted Egg, Crab Omelette, Skewer of Pork and Greens in Coconut Milk

Beautiful morning - a result of the rainy season weather patterns. After a long night or day of rain it often clears up but is quite cool as the humidity is low until the convection cells off the coast develop again and bring more humidity and rains.

This mornings breakfast was a bit eclectic as I opted for bits from different vendors. First purchase was a "Chinese salted hard boiled egg" of which I have seen many but never tried one so this was an easy decision. Then I made my way to the vegetable vendor and bought some items I will use during the week. Very nice produce and a bit cheaper than my over priced super market which is in the upscale area where we live. After that I made a complete tour of the market mentally noting things I would like to try. Then on the second round made my purchases.

I forgot my camera so no photos this time around. - except this one from another day showing NOT what the market is like: S and R, Manila's Costco

The salted egg was good; simply a hard boiled egg with the salt built in. The crab omelet was actually an egg and crab and other stuff mixed up and grilled in the shell of the crab. It looked really cool and tasted fine. The skewered pork was nice - hard to go wrong with pork in the Philippines - they are really good at doing pork. The Indo style greens were lovely - simply greens of some sort, kind of spinachish, stewed in coconut milk. Coconut milk adds a subtle sweet flavor to whatever is cooked in it. I also bought an Indo ceviche type dish - the lady was not satisfied that I had just bought the greens and talked me into the fish dish, but have not tried it yet.

Brekkie O' Champions #1: Fish Head Curry and Sugar Cane Juice

I have finally made a bit of a commitment to try and get out to the Saturday morning market in Salcedo on a more regular basis. It is a pleasant bike ride away thru the less frenetic, weekend traffic, of Makati. By the time I get there, my food clock has kicked in as I regularly don't eat until around 10:30 during the week - a simple byproduct of a teachers schedule and a life schedule where I do not eat breakfast - at least in my adult life. All the way thru high school I was forced to eat hot or cold cereal for breakfast and basically chugged it like a dose of medicine as I had no desire whatsoever to eat that early in the day.

The poultry stall.

The black chicken is simply a different breed of chicken that has black skin. This was not the most interesting of vendors but my camera battery died right after I took these photos. 

So I have decided to try something different for breakfast at the market each Saturday morning.

Breakfast #1 was a fishead curry plate from a Malay/Singaporean vendor and a bottle of fresh squished sugar cane juice. I had just returned from Singapore and was not able to get my favorite Singaporean dish, fish head curry, so when I saw this vendor and the dish, breakfast was decided. The fishead is from a yellow fin tuna and the meat and accompanying curry is quite nice. The sugar cane juice is sweet but not overpoweringly so and has an earthy, bit of a grassy component. I find it quite refreshing - and I am sure the purveyors of this juice include this as an invigorator along with the likes of raw oysters, and ginseng root and such that are of the  "good for you, make you strong, have many children" food group.

Anyway, it was good and I bought a bunch of jumbo shrimp with head and shell on and made a nice red curry with baguettes for dinner.

Singapore Adventure #2: Sentosa Island

Sentosa island is Singapore's destination for theme park type of stuff and includes quite a lovely tropical beach for tropical beach type of activities (minus surfing - no waves). We opted to focus our energy and time on the water park. It was interesting taking the train as it went by the container ship harbour, one of the busiest in the world as Singapore is a transfer port for stuff coming to and from Asia to Europe, the Mideast and beyond.

 Container ship cranes playing their part in intermodal transportation of goods from Asia to parts beyond and vice versa.

Emmerson giving a thumbs up to the movement of goods through the port of Singapore.

Serious cranes creating a unique land/sea scape.

Emmerson curious to know the travel itinerary of this cruise ship taking a port of call in Singapore.

Wow, sure would like to wander in and about this area to see the curious machinations that make this port so dominant.

The Merlion (mermaid - for the water, lion for the symbol of Singapore) welcoming visitors to this part of Sentosa Island where the water park, among other entertainment venues, exist.

Two super excited girls dutifully posing before hitting the water park.

Why I hate Chelsea, Let Me Count the Ways

Mourinho, what a tool.

Terry, tool.

And now the latest tool in the chelsea toolbox, Diego Costa, Brazilian, Spaniard all around tool.

Great player, undoubtedly but that does not make him any less of a tool. I have played against plenty of quality players and some of those were tools and received attention on the field for being so. It is not difficult to NOT be a tool on the field, play well, deal with hard play, be the less of a tool when dealing with a battle on the field as Costa was with Coleman, just beat his ass on the pitch and leave it at that, no need to taunt.

And then Mourinho after the game saying that Costa was being targeted unfairly ... he taunted a guy for an own goal. That is grounds for some serious treatment on the pitch.

At least Lampard is out of the picture.

Man I hate Chelsea.