Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Going back home


We landed at Changi Airport Terminal 3

We had the spinach Omelette with Chicken Sausages,Grilled Tomatoes and Sauteed Potatoes

Good thing SQ has a lounge here. I had a stomach upset from eating too much and would not like to use the public loos here. They are definitely not as nice as the toilets in Changi Airport

Security is tight here and we had to queue up to enter the terminal

Ninoy Aquino Airport


We went pass a squatter on the banks of the river

Makati is really quiet at this time of the day

We left the hotel at 6 m in order to catch our flight. The sniffer dogs stationed outside the main doors are already at work

Monday, August 17, 2009

City Tour


I settled down to a fantastic Filipino dinner that nite.Roasted pig is a local delight.The locals eat it with rice and liver sauce.For more pics of local food goto http://singaporefoodfest.blogspot.com/

Legazpi the first spanish governor of the Philippines was buried here too

Prominent members of the community such as Ayala are buried here
San Augustin Church is on the UNESCO heritage site list.
For more on San Augustin Church goto http://heritagesitesoftheworld.blogspot.com/

The Manila Cathedral was first build in 1581 and in the next 400 years was rebuild 6 times due to a series of natural disasters and WWW II
Intramuros is flanked by the Pasig river. We can see Chinatown from here

The Spanish resorted to storing gunpowder above ground
Gunpowder is rendered useless when stored underground due to the humidity

This is all that remain of the cell that housed Jose Rizal before his execution
A close up of the entrance. This part of the wall was destroyed when MacArthur's forces sent a tank thru it after the Japanese soldiers who were holding up in the fort
Our next stop was Fort Santiago which is located in Intramuros which is the oldest district in the city of Manila.In Latin, Intramuros literally meant "Within the walls" During the spanish colonial times it was the capital of Philippines
Rizal park was named in honour of Jose Rizal who was executed there on 30 Dec 1896 by the Spanish on charges of rebellion and treason
Mall of asia is the world's third largest mall with ,600 retail outlets


I booked myself on a city tour which started from Makati.The story of Makati started when the Ayala family bought it from the Spanish for cents as nobody wanted to own a piece of swamp.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Off to Manila

View of Makati from Room 817
Our room
Chaotic traffic on our way to Shangrila Makati
The Shangrila lounge at Ninoy Aquino airport where we waited for our car

About an hour into our flight I looked out from my window and noticed we were flying over some coral atolls

Jo chose the Wok fried chicken and Bamboo Shoots in sesame oil for her inflight meal
Plenty of shipping traffic in the waters around Singapore
We had less than 24 hours rest before we had to fly into manila.We arrived late the next morning and only had 10 minutes for a quick bite at the SATS Premier Lounge at Terminal 2

Back home

Its a full flight
Boarding our flight home
The KL Low Cost Carrier Terminal is really busy
View of KL as we land
Take off from Perth

Friday, August 14, 2009

Back to Perth

Hay Street Shopping area
View of Swan River from our room
We checked into the Hyatt

Freemantle has lots of heritage buildings as it is an old settlement
It stopped raining when we reached Freemantle but Jo was disappointed to find Freemantle market closed

It had been raining all morning in Bunbury

Thursday, August 13, 2009

To Bunbury

The chilled pet food section of the local supermart.Our dogs will get fat if they stay in Australia

Going for a short drive after checking in-Bunbury beach


For A$110 it was the best B&B we checked into
Bunbury is a modern city compared to some of the towns we have been to
This pair of Shit Tzu-Poodle-Maltese cross are on sale for A$350.
We found this pet shop on the outskirts of Bunbury

We bought some apple juice from the Donnybrook apple cider factory. It was the best apple juice we have tasted
As we leave the South West, we enter the Black river region which was named after the river above
They use dogs to hunt for Truffles.But the dogs were not on the property as they were away in Perth for a Truffles food festival