Travelogue around Asia Pacific

San Francisco - Both Young Jin and Lesley are on the same SQ flight to San Francisco.  Upon arrival at SFO, Young Jin decided to go solo and go hunting for some nice handbags for his wife.  Lesley and I headed to our hotel in Walnut Creek via the BART. The Hotel is a very nice with modern fittings in the room - Mariott Sports @ Walnut Creek.  After checking in, we headed back to San Francisco to meet Young Jin.  We did not want to lug our heavy luggage around SF. As we were feeling hungry, we went to Chinatown but could not decide which restaurant to have our dinner.  Sweet and Sour Pork  But it was too sweet for all of us....very different way of cooking from Asia Roast chicken Lesley and Young Jin tucking into the dinner

Manila - The 1st morning meeting was cancel so Lesley and I decided to have a later breakfast @ 9am.  There were new dishes on the breakfast menu and I tried both of them - Crispy Danggit is a breakfast dish in Philippines - the taste is crispy, very salty and pungent. Danggit in English it is called Rabbit fish or spinefoot.  It is abundant in Philippine waters and is caught, split open, dried in the sun with salt and transported to markets to be sold. The otther dish is Sotanghon Guisado - which is saute glass noodles (also called Tang Hoon, Chinese vermicelli or Cellophane noodles).  Late morning, the duty manager escorted me to the Executive club floor for my new room.  Dinner was at a location called commons restaurant located @ 162 Valero Street Salcedo Village Makati Metro Manila Philippines. I tried this soup - Suam na Mais with Prawns.  Suam is Corn soup prepared in a Filipino traditional way.    The Country Style...

Manila - As we had to leave early in the morning for meetings, we met for breakfast downstairs at Paseo.   I had a different variety for breakfast but in fact it was the same as yesterday.   I had 2 eggs fried sunny side up - ate the white only, tried their noddle soup (nice) and also the spread of fruits.  My favourite was the passion fruit - wow, so sweet unlike what I had ever tasted.   The best ever...I need to find some to bring back home. Lunch was at a cafe in Ayala called Momo Cafe . We had 3 plates of food to share amongst the 3 of us dinning there.  A brightly led, fun and friendly atmosphere for dining with a loft.  We had.. Old Fashioned Beer Battered Fish and Chips Sweet and Smoky Hickory BBQ Rib-lets - Pork ribs in Hickory sauce San Francisco styled Seafood Pesto style cream linguine Overall, the food was good with a nice dinning experience. Behind the park are the rows of restaurants & cafe - Momo Cafe is on...

Manila - It was wake up @ 7:30am and then for breakfast at Paseo.  This is Mandarin cafe that offer breakfast buffet - they have a wide selection for breakfast.   Their fried chicken is tasty, scrambled eggs was good.   Their tim sum selection does not taste good - har kow skin was thick and not succulent.  Char Siew Pow was OK.  For the fruits section, I tried the Chiku (which was not sweet), Custard apple (the first fruit I tried was bland, but the 2nd fruit I choose a good one and it tasty very sweet).  Off we went to our customer for training and spent the whole day with them.  We had Pizza ordered in from Yellow Cab Pizza .   Lesley and I walked around Green Belt many restaurants and we finally settled for a Japanese Shabu Shabu restaurant located at the 2nd Floor of Green Belt 3 - Thousand Cranes Resturant.  The food is fresh and reasonably priced.  Worth visiting again.. We walked to our hotel to have so...

Manila - I think once you start to record things you will find that 'humans are in fact creatures of habit'.  Lesley asked me whether I wanted to start at the same hotel again and I decided hmmm, let's change to Mandarin Oriental Hotel.  I thought I have not stay at this hotel before, but I did exactly last year 2010 in July - how strange.... I knew that Mandarin Oriental is part of the KrisFlyer programe so I asked for the room to be credited with 500 miles and was told that my room is below the point crediting status. So, I asked what is the point level to be given the miles and it was 6,000 pesos.  My room  rate was 5,999 pesos - so I made a big fuss that because of 1 peso the hotel is not allowing me to get the 500 miles.  How stupid can they be?  Maybe I should not stay here again...the front desk need to check for 5 pesos whether I can get my 500 miles - what a joke? Of course, I will get it. Dinner, we went to Fely J's Kitchen @ Green Bel...