Oops, another month gone by where the blog got neglected, try again...
I'll start with 'Kung Hei Fat Choy', though probably it's inappropriate to say it a month and a half late. Nonetheless we had a very enjoyable Chinese New Year.
Since the weather was pretty much perfect for walking (blue skies and not too hot) we got ourselves out of bed very early for a public holiday and set off up Mount Parker Road to Jardines Lookout.
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| The bottom of the trail is just down the road from our flat. |
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| Halfway there.... |
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| Made it! |
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| Pretty awesome views, obligatory panorama shot over the city. |
We got home about 11am, not a bad effort considering we'd walked about 6 miles and climbed over 500m, that's normally about the time I'd surface on a day off!
Then it was time to head to the airport for we were Manila bound! Flights over CNY are always $$$ but luckily we'd booked these some time ago. The Philippines is really close and flights there often come up cheapest on Skyscanner, however on closer inspection they're usually with some local budget airline not permitted to fly in european airspace.... Luckily for us we managed to book early enough before prices went crazy and were flying Cathay Pacific (i.e. 'proper' airline). As Stephen travels all over for work he's now got enough tier points to be a Oneworld Silver member... this means airport lounge access for me :-)
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| Might as well take advantage of the benefits right ;-) Enjoyed a few complimentary cocktails before we boarded! |
On arrival at Manila airport we quickly established it was a crazy mayhem place. Fortunately for us we'd booked a fancy hotel and planned to do very little but eat, drink and chill. (Though I was slightly concerned the super bargain rate I'd booked on some dodge hotel website may not come off... luckily it did. In fact I should really write them a review on TrustPilot to try combat some of the negative ones that gave me cause for concern!).
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| We stayed in the Peninsula - the lobby didn't disappoint. |
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| First stop - the bar, obviously! This was incredible, I think we paid £15 each for all you can drink - not your average 5* hotel bar prices! They also kept replenishing the snacks, dangerous. |
We spent an enjoyable evening working our way through the bar menu and generally just chilling having escaped the HK mayhem. The next day was spent lazing / reading / knitting by the pool before heading out across town to an epic buffet. (Oh yeh we also went to the gym on holiday to attempt to offset this buffet... madness....).
The restaurant is called Spirals, I was too busy eating to take many pictures so I'll just have to refer you to this guys blog
here - hopefully you get the idea!! All the food really was amazing and they just had everything, I've never seen anything like it - awesome night out :-)
Unfortunately it possibly wasn't all that awesome because the next day I really wasn't very well! I'm not sure what I ate, or whether it was too much, or maybe just a bacon overdose at breakfast but the following day was less than fun! We went out to a massive shopping mall nearby and I had to head back to bed because I felt so bad. Stephen realised I definitely was ill when I turned down shopping (including a wool shop). Thankfully by the evening I was feeling a lot better and we were able to go have dinner in the lobby and enjoy the atmosphere.
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| Evening drink by the pool. |
The next day we thought we best try do something remotely cultural rather than just eat and drink our weekend away so went to the Ayala Museum. Allegedly it's really good but turns out it's shut on Mondays - never mind, we tried.
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| Instead we found a cafe to sit in and people watched for a bit. |
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| Snap of the hotel on the way back. |
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| And before we knew it it was time to head to the airport. |
And that was that, a weekend in Manila! I don't think we'll head back to the Philippines but well, we've been now at least and had a great time relaxing and recharging the batteries :-)
