My poor stomach's had quite alot to go through this week...frogs legs, snails, ostrich, pig knuckles, pig stomach, pig intestine, chicken intestine, balut, and even bacon flavoured ice cream! No one can say that the filipinos aren't an adventurous bunch! Let me tell you in a bit more detail how these culinary delights found their way into my week.... On Sunday, me and 5 of my collegues and some of their family members went to a water park about an hours drive away. Given that its rainy season here (ie. about equivalent weather to that summer the UK had back in April plus a few degrees) the place was practically deserted despite it being 30 odd degrees and not a rain cloud in sight! Had this been Scotland I have no doubt that the place would have been overflowing with an army of pasty white figures armed with their tanning oils and face mirrors. As for me, I went armed with some super UVA, UVB, water resitant, mossy repellant, factor 50 (and still managed to burn!). It was in between the river rapids ride and the wave pool that I tried my first taste of pork knuckles. It looked remarkably similar to a treat that you might give a dog. Depsite trying to eat meat off a bone with a fork and a spoon (as they dont use knives here) it actually went down pretty well. The delicious green mango smoothie may have helped. Mid week, one of our bosses, robert milanzo, very kindly took his team (plus me and tom) up to the 'top of the citi' restaurant as a welcoming to one of our new collegues and a pre birthday celebration for me, tom and 2 others. It seems like there's a birthday every other day in the office but yet everyone still celebrates just as much for each person, and everyone gets a cake! So we all enjoyed a nice get to know you business lunch where I tried some escargots and ostrich as well as some delicious desserts :) Come friday and mami burns had a surprise in store for me.... balut! In case your wondering, balut is a fertislised egg which before it is allowed to hatch, is boiled and eaten. There's apparently a knack to eating it, a knack that I could not seem to get. As our entire team watched on (including my bosses- in horror) I eventually managed to stomach the gloopy baby chick. (I won't post photos as they're not for the faint hearted) Luckily the midnight market that night provided some much tastier morsels! I really dont understand why ben and jerry's havent brought out cheese or bacon flavoured ice cream yet....Next time a work related blog- I promise! With a visit planned from our Global Scot, project number 2 due- meaning lots of presentations, and visitors from various Citi branches around the globe all in town (especially for my birthday karaoke night obviously!) I'm sure I'm going to have a lot to fill you in on!
My poor stomach's had quite alot to go through this week...frogs legs, snails, ostrich, pig knuckles, pig stomach, pig intestine, chicken intestine, balut, and even bacon flavoured ice cream! No one can say that the filipinos aren't an adventurous bunch! Let me tell you in a bit more detail how these culinary delights found their way into my week....
On Sunday, me and 5 of my collegues and some of their family members went to a water park about an hours drive away. Given that its rainy season here (ie. about equivalent weather to that summer the UK had back in April plus a few degrees) the place was practically deserted despite it being 30 odd degrees and not a rain cloud in sight! Had this been Scotland I have no doubt that the place would have been overflowing with an army of pasty white figures armed with their tanning oils and face mirrors. As for me, I went armed with some super UVA, UVB, water resitant, mossy repellant, factor 50 (and still managed to burn!). It was in between the river rapids ride and the wave pool that I tried my first taste of pork knuckles. It looked remarkably similar to a treat that you might give a dog. Depsite trying to eat meat off a bone with a fork and a spoon (as they dont use knives here) it actually went down pretty well. The delicious green mango smoothie may have helped.
Mid week, one of our bosses, robert milanzo, very kindly took his team (plus me and tom) up to the 'top of the citi' restaurant as a welcoming to one of our new collegues and a pre birthday celebration for me, tom and 2 others. It seems like there's a birthday every other day in the office but yet everyone still celebrates just as much for each person, and everyone gets a cake! So we all enjoyed a nice get to know you business lunch where I tried some escargots and ostrich as well as some delicious desserts :)
Come friday and mami burns had a surprise in store for me.... balut! In case your wondering, balut is a fertislised egg which before it is allowed to hatch, is boiled and eaten. There's apparently a knack to eating it, a knack that I could not seem to get. As our entire team watched on (including my bosses- in horror) I eventually managed to stomach the gloopy baby chick. (I won't post photos as they're not for the faint hearted) Luckily the midnight market that night provided some much tastier morsels! I really dont understand why ben and jerry's havent brought out cheese or bacon flavoured ice cream yet....Next time a work related blog- I promise! With a visit planned from our Global Scot, project number 2 due- meaning lots of presentations, and visitors from various Citi branches around the globe all in town (especially for my birthday karaoke night obviously!) I'm sure I'm going to have a lot to fill you in on!