Odds and Ends from the Philippines
August 13, 2009 Posted by Tyler CruzThis will be my penultimate (I’ve always wanted to use that word) post from my trip to the Philippines. It’s basically a mix of various photos and videos from my trip that didn’t fit or make it into my previous posts.
In the video below you will see me walking through an ordinary indoor market, a one-man-band entertaining us while we ate lunch, shots from Vigan, the flooded highway, and Mall of Asia.
It’s funny. I just came back from the Philippines a month ago, but am already wanting to go on another trip. While I hate the actual travelling (mainly the time-consuming flights), I do enjoy experiencing new things. I wasn’t planning on going to BlogWorld this year in October, but I might reconsider. I do love Vegas. I’m also considering visiting Florida to see MarketLeverage and then to Disneyworld and Universal Studios.
Ah, isn’t making money online great?
A shot from Vigan where horse-drawn carriages almost outnumber tricycles.
Lunch, buffet style. I was instructed not to eat the muscles in the dish because of the Red Tide. Man, I miss the glass pop bottles there.
Here’s my National Geographic shot:
I took the following two photos in downtown Vigan because I thought the textures were really cool with the exposed brick.
On our way back from the northernmost tip of the Philippines, we ran into a stretch on the highway where it was flooded. This is only from a couple days of rain too!
A storeowner peeking outside to see how high the water has gotten.
It was quite high in some areas, about 2 feet. I can only imagine how high the water would be after a real rainfall.
A peanut vendor peddles his stand through the highway in the flooded streets.
Mall of Asia. I should have taken photos of the actual front of the mall but forgot. The truth is that the mall is so big that I didn’t know where to start. The Mall of Asia is the third largest mall in the world. The Philippines also hosts the world’s 2nd largest mall. Who would have thought?
You’ll have no problem getting a taxi to take you to Mall of Asia. It’d be like being in Anaheim, California and saying you want to go to Disneyland.
A random shot from inside.
Transformers is HUGE in the Philippines. Every young person I spoke to there was obsessed with it. There are posters everywhere, people are wearing transformers shirts, and I saw transformer decals on cars.
I was walking around Mall of Asia for a long time, and had gotten incredibly hungry. I was also sweating up a storm. I had been walking for about an hour-and-a-half because I was looking for a place to eat.
The ironic thing is that there is shortage of places to eat there (or anywhere in the Philippines for that matter). In fact, I had literally seen at least 75 different restaurants, and I was only walking on the outside area of the mall!
I finally settled for Church’s Chicken of all places. It was my first non-Filipino meal there, but I had always wanted to try Church’s Chicken as I saw a few commercials before and the chicken always looked so good, and we don’t have that in Canada.
In the Philippines, chicken and rice is one of the most common meals, especially in fast food restaurants. It was quite good… I forget the price but I got a large iced coke (which was very refreshing), 2 pieces of chicken, gravy, and rice, and an ice cream cone for desert for only about $2.50 or so. That’s not bad for being in such a commercialized area in Manila.
On my last night in the Philippines, I was alone in my hotel room in Manila when a relative I had never met came to meet me. She wanted to take me out but I was hesitant as I had to leave for my flight at 4am and it was already the evening. But she was very persistent.
I’m glad she made me go though, because she drove me around Manila and gave me a night tour of it. She also then took me to a big mall there and we had a snack.
I’ll have my last Philippines post up in about 4 days or so. I saved the best for last and I can’t wait to show it!
41 Responses to “Odds and Ends from the Philippines”
Cool man, without the make money online biz, you probabaly couldn’t do this 🙂 Keep it up! Hope I am on the same way as you
Tyler, please don’t patronise us with dictionary links. Do you really think even the 12 year olds reading your blog don’t know what penultimate means?
Hell I only learned the word like a year ago.
That’s because you’re not very well educated.
We’re still waiting to hear about the level of education you attained.
Just hi skuul sir. puleze have mercy on my sole. eye m not worzy.
You have done just high school! seriously? Nothing after that?
That’s because your stupid, though.
He said that after clicking the dictionary link and saying “Oh….” lol.
Jerk-off.
Got to love anon.
When you’re calling somebody stupid you should be very careful about how you punctuate your slight.
Shit for brains.
so you love travelling? I only travelled the whole Philippines though.
Those pictures look awesome. Thanks for sharing. Greg Ellison
I’m planning on Blogworld too! 🙂 Are you ready to meet ol’ Grandma?
I’ll bring the Ovaltine, you bring the Depends!
just like my country , indonesia .haahhaha.. flood everywhere . nice food , etc
This seems like one crazy trip. I bet you are having a blast!
Again, looks like a lot of FUN! Looking forward to that next post 🙂
Gosh makes me jealous kinda. I like traveling to but with the recession I can’t so I am stuck here reading your blog trying to figure out ways to get started affiliate marketing :(. Next time offer a free trip to Philippines contest or something jk lol!
Tyler – looks like you had a great trip. Crazy how the culture and way of life quickly flip flopped going from the market and flood clips to the mall of Asia clips!
Definitely – I started out in the poorer regions of the Philippines and finished in the richer areas (Manila).
YES Orlando and YES Blogworld. See you at both. You should come to Orlando during IZEAFest (Oct 1-4). I’m sure the IZEA crew would love to have you visit, too!
Yes maybe I could work IZEAFest into it. Get Ted to pay for my airfare 🙂
Chat with Ashley- you’d be a great speaker!
Just wondering why you still use Viddler? It looks like they really compress your videos and make the quality suffer. Have you ever given Vimeo HD a shot?
Banned from YouTube, banned from Vimeo. See https://www.tylercruz.com/the-3-little-web-entrepreneurs/
That’s not right man… doesn’t make sense either.
John Chow for example, uses Vimeo and they seem to let him get away with the same stuff you were doing, if not more.
Very weird.
Please ban humorless morons from this blog like Jon & Nikos. That said, that is one BigAss Mall! I dont remember going to that when I wuz there! the fancy elevators look just like the ones in HongKong. Whuts the food wid the muscles? Do you mean chickun? That Coke looks delish, now I feel like getting me a bucket. If there wuz a fast food place that sold only fried chickun breading, I’d be there everyday. Willclick videoo … NOW!
I was just in San Diego 2 weeks ago and I thought that Horton Mall was huge…lol. 🙂
E-mail me when you come down to LA again!
-Mike
Nice pics. Getting rice at a fast food place seems a bit strange to me. Rice has gotta be too healthy to be served there 🙂
Sean
Very cool Tyler! I wonder… how did you guys get threw the water?
Till then,
Jena
Can’t wait for the next post. That mall looks really nice!
Tyler, my wife would fly all the way back to the Philippines if she saw that picture of Chicken, her favorite was Chicken Joy from Jollibee though. I myself miss the fast food there also, even pizza hut is better there.
– Robert
The Philippines looks a beautiful city in the pictures but tyler is that city hi-tech too?
Excellent post. Beautiful photos. I have this year will celebrate the New Year at the Philippines, and looking at your photos, and all this beauty (of course not counting the picture of flooded streets) with a sinking heart I wait for when I see all this with your own eyes ..
wow, how the culture of life quickly flip flopped going from the market and flood clips to the mall of Asia clips! my friends will fly all the way back to the Philippines if she see that beautiful pictures…
I’ve been following your photo in Philiphines these few days and seems that you really enjoy your trip over there Tyler. Philiphines is a nice place for vocation and I would go with my gf in the coming few days too.
Between, what was the unforgotten incident that you had there Tyler?
Regards,
Lee
Wow it looks like you had a great time, thats good. I never new transformers was so big there. It was a great movie.
Cool photos. I’ve been to those places. Love the Spanish style houses in Vigan. And the tiled street there is cool. XD
I also hate the floods in the Philippines. But it’s inevitable specially if there’s a typhoon.
Aww, I can’t wait to see the changes in Mall of Asia. lol.
Ok, I’m liking this blog now. lol.
Feiyie
Very cool Tyler! I wonder… how did you guys get threw the water? many thanks
cool pics from philippines. Excellent post. Beautiful photos. i would like to recommend in mindanao philippines its cool in there many foreign spot you may see!
Great stuff man – Have you visited much of Asia?
I have been to Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong multiple times – I would love to visit mainland China next!
Would love to go to the phillipines, but wouldnt have a clue about anything when I got there..?