Manila sucks a bit even though it has the 3rd largest shopping mall (Mall of Asia) in the world. (The two biggest are in China. It seems Edmonton Mall in Canada is a very old story.) I felt unsafe walking in the streets after dark, even with Annis and Math by my side. There are a lot of families literally living on the streets with cardboxes and hamacs. The worst scene was when we were strolling next to a golf course. People dressed in expensive clothing were hitting balls while on the other side of the fence, a family was trying to cool off in the shade of a row of trees. Poverty is omnipresent in a large part of the city. Mothers with their pack of children often beg for money.

However, it's a great city for its food. After several months spent in SEA, it was awesome to get freshly baked bread, a whole roasted chicken (3$), Tropicana juice (1.25$ for 1 liter), yummy yogourt (2$ for 500g), etc. It's a bit weird that there are almost no food stalls in the streets. But the huge Robinson's supermarket filled with Western food helped a lot with our cravings.