Souvenir from Manila: Balut

If you ever heard one of the Fear Factor challenge is to eat duck egg with embrios in it. OK, don't be surprised but this food is a delicacy of the Phillipines. Its names is Balut.

Rhita and I were very excited to taste it on our last trip to Manila. We had been questioning the committee of the conference we attended about how we could find Balut.

Surprisingly, one of our fellow committe, Ralph, brought us the international delegates some Baluts on our last seminar.So there we were challenging our guts to taste the Balut.

Eating Balut has a kind of art.
First: crack the top part of the egg
Second: sip the soup of the egg (first surprise !!!! hahhaha)

Third: peel of the egg, and take out the white-hard part. Now you are able to see the embrio. (second surprise !!! start questioning why it is considered to be a delicacy.hahhhaha)

Four: put some salt, and eat it at once (the last surprise: IT'S GOOD !!!!!!!!!!!!)

so, i think, fear is not my factor after all. hahahha

Souvenir from Manila : Manila Bay Sunset

During the short stay of attending the 7th Young Economists’ Convention and the First International Conference of Young Economists’ Convention in Manila last week, I spared a day to meet one of Ninit’s (one of the most gorgeous bestfriends I have in AFS Indonesia year 2004) bestfriend, who is a Filipino and lives in Manila, named Cels.

I had such a great day cruising Manila with Cels and her brother Jello and her sister Burn (I hope I don’t misspell the names). Cels is surprisingly very much alike Ninit, her style, her perspectives, her interests. I said to Ninit, “Now I know why you both can get a long so well. You are just like twins separated in two different worlds!! Hahhaha”

One of the places I visit in Manila with this warm Esguerra Family is the Manila Bay. We were quite worried because it had just rained there and the sky was still cloudy. But we still decided to take a trip by a boat so that we could see the Sunset of Manila Bay. Cels stated that Manila Bay Sunset is the best sunset in the world. And it is !!!!!!!!

Altough the sky was gloomy and cloudy, I got the luck that I can still see the sunset. It was perfectly round, and its colour is the most special thing the sunset has. Unlike in Jakarta or other places I had visited, Manila Bay Sunset’s colour is a shade of orange-pink-red-magenta colour. BEAUTIFUL !!!!!!

It sets quite fast, I just tried to record it and breathed the whole scenery.
I didn’t bring my camera (too bad, the battery was broken). But my handphone worked quite good and was able to catch the perfect round shape of it.

Most surprising fact I got after the nice trip is that the family said that the reason of the colour of the sunset is pollution. It is ironic !!!
I said, “OK, it was extremely beautiful, but I think I prefer for more unpolluted beautiful sunset, hehhee”.

However, if you go to Manila, you have to see the sunset !!!!!! then you can embrace more how the beauty of our nature has the right to be respected (one the mean is not to pollute it) and that this bridge of day and night –the sunset- has always been reminding humankind of the limited time we have in our life. Just like the sun, human sets too…. ;P