Manila - The Philippines!

I had the pleasure of exploring a brand new country (yay.. tick it off my list of countries visited!) which was Manila, Philippines!  We were there to attend a seminar.. so this was not a leisure trip.  We took off on Labour Day at 10.40am to KL and then arriving in Manila at 5.20pm (yes, it took a whole day).. one thing that struck me about Manila airport is that it is very similar to Ho Chi Minh.. whereby people couldn't wait inside the building for friends and family.. they had to wait in a designated area OUTSIDE the building.

This is the view of Manila from my hotel room.. unfortunately, as most of the time we were stuck in the conference room, I wasn't able to take picture of Manila in the day time.. and since I had so stupidly forgotten my Camera.. I had to rely on my Blackberry, which couldn't do justice at night.

What stuck me about Manila is the cleanliness of the place.. for a underdeveloped country, it's really clean.  Roads were made from concrete and there were just no rubbish thrown on the side of the road!!!

And what reminded me of Ho Chi Minh again.. was the fact that drivers here.. were.. CRAZY!  Oh my gosh.. I was better off riding with my eyes closed!  What's the point of having lines on the road when no one follows it?  Drivers in Philippines have to be very confident on the size of the car, because they come INCHES away from the other car.

The seminar/workshop I attended was based on successes of a business... from execution to hiring to retaining.  I thought it was really useful.

 I had my very own name placard! hahaha.. I always get really 'sakai' with those things!

It was organized by the EO (Entrepreneur's Organization) group and there was a pretty good turnout.  Unfortunately.. waking up everyday at 7am.. meant that I had quite a bit of trouble staying awake at the 'dry' bits!

I never went hungry in Philippines.. we had 5 meals a day!  Ideally.. that's what the doctor prescribe for healthy eating.. but that's eating 5 SMALL meals a day :P.. we were full on eating all the time!  (No wonder I had a heart attack when I came home and stepped on the scale!)

On the last day, before they closed the seminar/workshop.. they had a surprise for us!

BALUT!!!!  Now I had this before in Vietnam, and I thought it wasn't too bad.. actually liked the 'soup' in the boiled egg.. tasted just like chicken essence.  The difference between Vietnam and Philippines.. Vietnam was Chicken egg.. Philippines was Duck egg.

Anyway, I was brazen enough to try it.. I mean.. I liked the Vietnam version.. how bad can this be?  Until they showed us this picture.... 

AHHHHHHHHHHHH... how on earth am I going to enjoy it now that I've seen that?!?!?  That is totally disgusting.  Anyway, still brazen.. I took an egg and cracked it open.. drank the 'soup'.. which was horribly tasteless.. peeled open my hard boiled egg.. to find... FEATHERS!!!!!!!!!!! Continued to peel the egg.. only to find something mushy.. which had me squealing and dropping the egg.. lastly.. as I moved in to bite the yolk area.. something squirted out.  My experience with the balut?  It ended up inside the tissue paper...

Okay.. special request.. not for the faint hearted.....