Check out the new hood....

....which I'm happy to say is not a hood whatsoever.  We'll be living in the Salcedo neighborhood which, best I can tell, is a community within a community within a community.  Manila is HUGE but strangely enough, it's only the second largest city in the Philippines.  First is Quezon which is slightly larger by area and population but if the whole dang region is called the Northern Capital Region aka Metro Manila then let's just keep it simple and I'll reiterate that this place is HUGE.  So it's basically got what you'd consider counties and towns and suburbs and I guess Salcedo is basically a suburb of Makati and kinda similar to Shirlington where we lived before and which was I guess a suburb of Arlington.  Confused much?  Me too.

Point is, it's a cute little area that's close to a lot of fun things to explore and every weekend there are TWO community markets within walking distance.  The closest one to us (as in 10 feet from our lobby door) is the Salcedo Community Market.  We won't actually be moving into our place until probably July but Salcedo is within walking distance of our current hotel so we decided to check out our new "hood" this past Saturday.

So the sign must have lied, they DO allow dogs....

There are a lot of things to love about living in a tropical climate.  We have access to fruits people in the States will never see (because they're too delicate to ship), there's NO need for coats or any fabric heavier than cotton (woot!), and flowers....lots and lots of beautiful flowers.  I can't wait until we're moved into our permanent place so we can have them ALL OVER the apartment. 

Bessie has seen better days....

But not to worry, she was put to good use.  :)  Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I am still weary of the food here.  Something about this market though, made me feel more at ease.  Perhaps it's because it's in a "clean" area of town or maybe it's the fact that I could literally see the food being prepared.  It was too early for lunch so we didn't try any of the food the vendors were selling but maybe next weekend.  All I know is that every time I've tried something that looked "normal" (read, American), it has been awful.  I am a pretty adventurous eater but I've been taking it slow here.  Maybe the real trick though is to dive right into local fare?  I dunno.....I'm torn.  Canned chicken is gonna remain a staple for a while me thinks.  :)


Definitely buying some of this honey when we move in our place.  Doesn't get any fresher than that!

I know - the picture taking gods will be horrified.  Lighting is awful, husbear looks like a ghost.  Can I claim I did that on purpose and get a pass?  Truth is, I didn't really want this to turn out that great because then you might have noticed how far our place is from being ready.  The floors were super dusty and when they said they were renovating the bathrooms and kitchen, they weren't kidding.  I thought maybe that meant, a fresh coat of pain or some new appliances but no...whole walls were missing and concrete was everywhere.  Need I say how worried I am that our early July move in date was just some far fetched quote and nowhere near reaching reality?  Sigh.  At any rate, the place is huge, the view is great, and it's situated in just the sweetest part of town so I'm not complaining (too much). 

All in all, it was a very nice introduction to the neighborhood.  I sorta wish that we had waited a couple more weeks before trying to get a sneak peak.  Now I'll just sit around and KNOW what I'm missing.  On second though, maybe I should go pack and take more pics so I can get super anal about pre-planning furniture arrangement and wall painting......