First impressions Manila, Philippines
Welcome to Manila, a city where modern life blends with rich history and culture. In this video, we will be exploring the Philippines capital. From its bustling business district to its historic landmarks, here are our first impressions of this amazing city, so let's go.
Our flight from Bali to Manila was full of excitement and arriving in this massive, bustling city was such a rush. For our first morning, we drove straight into the local life by visiting a grocery store to explore all the unique Filipinos snacks. Getting a real taste of Manila from the start.
This is also wild to me. Look what they have here: Baked Porky Popps and it's literally pork skin baked with hot air jets. Like this is wild. This is pork skin. Wow! This is the first time ever in my life that I see Pringles with pizza flavor. Actually so, so interesting.
I might try them later, but I've never seen this in my life before. We're going to the Business District and explore more there. Your name is Ernie, right? - Ernie James.
- Ernie James. - Yeah! Most of my friends call me James. - James. Nice to meet you, James. - Nice to meet you too! - So you worked on a cruise ship, right? - Actually, on different ships. On cargo.
- Cargo ships? - Yeah! - And cruise ships. Luxury liners. - Wow! For how long did you do that? - 30 years. - 30 years. - Yeah! - That's so long. How would you rate your experience? Did you like it? - I like it around 70% because I miss my family.
- Aww, I get that. - I'm onboard a ship for 10 months, 12 months, like that, but I'm only with my family for like 2 months, sometimes 1 month. - Wow! - Then they will call me again to be onboard like that... So it's a good thing I have this Grab. So this is my business. - So now you have Grab business. - Yeah!
- Nice! So I have a question. - Yeah! - The slums, how far are they away from Makati, where we are right now? - Actually, there are some who are just nearby. - Okay! - Like around 5 kilometers like that on the outskirts. - Okay! - Because some are, you know, the bridge...
Some people are living under the bridge; they're using it as their houses. - So actually the biggest slum in Manila is called Tondo, and it is super interesting because what I also just read... is that Manila has the highest homeless population in the whole world.
It is 35% of Manila's population lives in a slum. That's crazy because if you're now driving through the streets, you won't really notice it, but that's definitely good to keep in mind. Okay, Ernie, thank you so much! - Okay, thank you! - Have a great day! Bye! Alright! And we made it to the Business District. There was so much traffic on the way. I think it took us 40 minutes, which is crazy.
But we made it. Look how modern everything is. I am really in love. As you can see here, the beautiful trees, there's lots of greenery going on, and insanely high buildings everywhere. Then here you have a little park area vibe and, of course, a lot of good shops and hopefully good coffee.
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We're in the safest and most modern area of whole Manila, so let's just put our bags somewhere and go and explore. - Take my camera. - Exactly! So that's perfect! I love that.
And it's... It's so modern. Oh my god, I just came back from America, from Chicago; to be honest, it actually reminds me a little bit of it.
- Really? - Yeah, it's crazy! It's so beautiful. So tranquil in here. - So let's eat some fast food. - Let's eat fast food here. - Let's go to Wendy's.
- This is so interesting. I didn't know this, but there's so many similar fast food restaurants here. They also have in America, like Wendy's, Burger King, 7-Eleven, so many things. - Do you have 7-Eleven in America? - Yeah! - Oh... - They do. - I thought it was from Thailand.
I don't know. - Everyone thinks that, but that's not the case. - Yeah! - We have such a fun idea.
We are going to go in a photo booth and I actually love this so, so much. This is a tradition that Janine and I actually always do. We also did this in India. It was such a fun experience. And here you can see it's 200 pesos.
And then we're going to go in there and take some fun pictures together. Here you can see some examples. So we're going to enjoy ourselves in this photo booth right now. So how does it work? - Tap to start. - Two. - How many copies? - Two.
Here we go. Cash. - Money. - I love it.
- The light is so beautiful. - Select the photos you like. We can only do four. - Okay! - Definitely this one. - Yeah!
This series one as well. - Yeah! - Confirm and print. This is like weird kids.
- So cute! Oh my God, they're ready. Look at this. This is so cute! We have this in the pocket. I love it.
Such a good memory. So nice! One thing that is not fun here is that it is insanely humid and hot. Like I'm a walking waterfall at the moment.
I can't help it, but it's just boiling hot. Everything we do, we're both sweating. Janine also put her hair up.
It's crazy how hot it is. So we're going to find some refreshments right now because this heat is no joke. Yeah, drink it. We still haven't found the refreshment yet, but as you see, the sun is slowly setting. It is so, so beautiful and we are now walking into an even more cozier part. There are small lights everywhere, everyone is sitting outside, everyone is enjoying themselves.
We feel so insanely safe, which I really, really love, and it is such a vibe here. This is so nice. Like, I would love to just sit here at night, talk with friends; I guess that's what everyone is doing here as well, but I rate this area 10 out of 10. Oh my god! These buildings are so insanely high and I just see that this one is the Shangri-La. That's such a high-class hotel. Oh my god, and it is so huge and then here you have even a bigger one.
Look at these two buildings. Oh my god, this is wild. So this BGC area that we are in right now is known for its cosmopolitan lifestyle.
So that is why everything here is a bit more fancier and so many people are dressing up and I actually really, really love it. There are also a lot, a lot of malls. We've been now already in two malls just to cool off a little bit, which I think is really nice.
So you can choose which mall you go to and like I said, there are so many shops here and look at the sunset, by the way. This is so gorgeous; the colors are popping off. Look at that, insanely beautiful! Wow, the sunset is still popping off behind us.
So beautiful! So where are we going, Janine? - We're gonna go to a mall, which is called Venice Grand Mall and it's all inspired by Italy, and you can go in a little boat on the river and I think it's really beautiful. - It's so cute because now the sun is setting, we don't want to be outside anymore, so we're like, we're gonna go to a mall and this mall definitely stood out because it is so, so special and I think it's only a 15 minute drive. So let's go there now. While we are waiting for our taxi, we are here at Koi The and I'm maybe going to try it out. I think it's made with Yakult. Here you can see it: peach green tea with Yakult.
Passion fruit green tea with Yakult. That actually looks amazing. Oh, here are the prices. - I'm scared! - Yakult Series.
Oh, I want to try. I really want to try. I'm so excited! Hello! Can I please try the passion fruit with Yakult, the small one? Thank you so much! - Thank you! - Oh, yes! - Let's do.
- Yeah, and let sit somewhere in the AC because, like I said, it's so hot and we're dying. Since we still have to wait for our driver, we're going to pick up some doughnuts as well. I went for the pistachio crunch, so let's see.
Oh my god, this is insanely good! - Really? - This is passion fruit with Yakult. So sweet and so good. So the brand, Koi The, I think this is actually also really healthy and I love this because I love passion fruit so much and Yakult is also probiotic, I guess. It is sweet and the milky flavor... Wow, wow, wow! Our taxi literally showed up in the middle of our eating session, so in the taxi we go.
Your hat is so cool; I also just wanted to say it. - Like cowboy. - Yes! You're a real cowboy.
We found a Filipino cowboy, guys. There he is. But what I wanted to say is I love about Grab that you can see the number plate and the color of the car. So it's so easy to recognize it.
Maybe it's this one? No! We're still waiting. Let's see. This is our car. Thank you so much! - Thank you! - Have a good evening! I can't even open the door; can you? - I'll do it. - Alright, and in the car we go with this crazy traffic.
Hello, good evening! So I still want to try the donut because it's pistachio and I normally never do pistachio. Wow! - Yeah?! - This is so nice and so sweet as well. It has a little bit of a matcha flavor, but I love this. 9 out of 10. I think the drink was better, to be honest.
- Really? - You want to try? Good right? - Oh my God... I love it. It's like white chocolate.
- Exactly! Very, very sweet, but so nice. And then also with the crunchy peanuts on there. Wow! And we have arrived in the mall and what is actually so cool, first of all, we have these living statues here and there are the canals inside of the mall, but the mall is partly outside, I just see, and here you can see it; look at the water, and then you have the boat there.
Oh my god, this is such a vibe, and all the beautiful lights going on everywhere. This is like the perfect date spot. If you live in Manila and you want to take your girl out on a good date, I would definitely come here. This is so cozy and so romantic with all the lights. So I guess now it's time to explore this mall a little bit. Here you can actually see the canal with the boat in it.
This is how it looks like and then all the lights here. It's really cute, I have to say. And it's funny because I just saw this; I just came back from Las Vegas, and here they had almost the same and it's so fun to see it now on the completely other side of the world and it's almost similar, so that is definitely really cool. - Hi! - Hello! The people here are insanely friendly; that is one thing that stands out with head and shoulders, how insanely nice the people are here.
So definitely a big shout out to all the Filipino people. I love you already! Wow, I had so much fun exploring this mall. It is absolutely beautiful. We decided not to do a boat ride anymore because tomorrow we have a full day planned, so we want to go to bed early. So I'm going to see you guys very early tomorrow morning.
Good morning, guys from Fort Santiago. I am really excited to be here. We just had amazing breakfast. Right now it is time to explore this area around Fort Santiago. There is so much going on, so I can't wait.
And we also have a little surprise. We have a special guest here today. - Hi, guys! - How are you today? You want to introduce yourself? - Okay! So hello! My name is Trei.
I mean, I edited some of ma'am's videos on Facebook. - Exactly! - And yeah, we just had breakfast and we ready to go to Fort Santiago? - Exactly, we're going to explore all around this area. He knows this area. He's been here before, so I can't wait. What I just learnt is that the guards here, they're still using the old uniforms. Normally they're wearing white uniforms.
These are more the blue ones and those are like the old school uniforms that they have. So cool! Oh my God! These are the old war uniforms. So people back in the day, if they go to war, they would be wearing this? - Yeah! - Oh my God, very cool! So we're now entering and I guess it is 75 pesos for an adult to enter, which is, we still don't know how much euro that is.
- 1 euro and 10 cents. - Around 1 euro and 10 cents, according to this blonde. - And I know everything.
- She knows it so well. This is so beautiful. There's a couple photo shoot going on and the outfits that they are wearing is from the around 1930s traditional outfits that they used, which is so cool to see these outfits. I had no idea. It is 10 a.m. in the morning and we all are dripping.
Everyone is sweating. - Sweaty, sweaty. - Yes! Sweaty betties for the wind.
We're all so hot. Okay, on to the next one. Everything here is like, for me, I would not fit, like, I have to duck and like, all the Filipinos can just easily go under this. I guess I'm way too tall for this life, but here we are. Wow! And we end up on the riverbank here and we see people on small cardboards that look like old surfing boats and I don't know what they're doing. I think they're getting stuff out of the river; you can see them right here, which is definitely really interesting to see, but I just wonder what they're doing.
Actually, super interesting they're just cleaning the river. Probably someone pays them to do it, but they're taking all of the plastic out and putting it in the bags, which is so good that they do this. What I just learnt, you see the ridge right there... that's where they would put the guns or even the cannons.
So that's... It makes so much sense because right there they would put it and here's the river, so probably people would attack from this way. So much history going on in this place and I love it. We are right now at such an interesting place.
We're going to go into the Dungeons of Fort Santiago, which is really, really cool. And what I just read is that the dungeons served as a prison for dissidents and enemies of the state during the Spanish colonization. So we're going to go down right now and see what we're going to find. Oh my God, it's going to be really small. I see already. Oh my God! Wow, this is wild.
Look here; you can see entrance to the dungeon, early 20th century. Oh my God, we're going to go in right now. This is really small. Oh my God! Wow! I think they made it a scene here; look at this. People dying.
That's actually really scary. And everything is so small. Look how I have to bend to get in here.
Wow! And here you can see, I guess, how life was here. Women and children killed. This is really bad. Wow! I don't know if you guys can see this, but I'm sweating so much and it only means that, like, in here it is so humid. I guess I'm going to go out now as well. It is so hot and I can only imagine if you would be a prisoner here and sitting in a cell, like how hot and this is just inhuman to be here in a cell.
It's insane! So yeah, it was definitely torture to be in here because it's all so small, no daylight and incredibly hot. Look how you go down; it's very scary, but luckily, we made it out again and we are in the fresh daylight. Here you can see how the sunlight goes into the cells.
Look at this. Here you would go down as well. We're now in a gift shop and I just found out about the funniest thing, wait. This looks super normal, right? You think, oh, it's a nice gift. Someone is inside; nothing is less true.
Look at this. This is crazy! And they have it apparently in every gift shop. So it's like a surprise. Let's call it like that. Okay! We are exiting right now and here you can see the hats. Look how cool.
It is very shiny and the beautiful uniforms. Thank you so much! Have a good day! Bye! I love it! It looks very epic, and right now it is ice cream time. Let's go to ice cream first. Here we see the ice cream shop.
Here it is. I'm very excited. - This is the cutest ever. - Tiny. It is small, but I love it. Here you can see how the little stand looks like. We have this cartwheel there and then here's the ice cream and the little umbrella.
It's very cute! And I just heard that they have cheese flavor. Coming from the Netherlands, of course, I have to try it. So here we go. - Can I ring the bell? - Yes! - Can I see how it looks like? So this is mango? - Mango. - How much is it? - 40.
- 40. Can I try all flavors? - Okay, Janine is going to try all flavors. - Which one is this, mango? - So we get this one. - Hello! - It's so cute how this looks like.
We have like all of these small cones or the small bowls. Alright! Thank you so much! Okay, so I'm going to try all the flavors right now. Wait, I'm so confused. I think this first one is cheese, which I didn't expect it. I thought it would be mango. I've never had cheese flavor, but to be honest, I'm not mad about it.
I think I actually like it, but it's very weird. I don't know if you guys ever tried cheese ice cream. It literally tastes like cheese, but then in a cold version and I'm so confused. Oh my God...
The cheese flavor has also a little bit of sweet side on it. I don't really know what to think about it. Did you tried the cheese flavor already? - Yeah! - What do you think about it? - It's so good.
- You like it? - I love sorbetes, it's really good. - What about you? - Yeah, it's really interesting. - It's interesting, right? As a Dutch person, I'm so confused with the cheese flavor. I'm like...
- It doesn't really taste like cheese for me. - Yeah! For me it does. - Really? - Yeah! - Nice! - Ice cream time. I'm going to try the mango right now. The mango is so nice. I'm not the biggest mango lover, but this ice cream with mango is 10 out of 10 because it's sweet as well.
It's so good and I feel like there are little chunks of mango in it. So... Let's see how much I need to pay for three ice creams because I forgot it already.
Can I pay for three? - 120. - How much? - 120. - Maybe I have smaller. What's this? 500... Oh, this is 50. So confused with the money.
Okay, so that was 40 per ice cream. So how much euro is that? - 60 cents. - 60 cents for ice cream, for a big ice cream.
Thank you! Okay, bye! - Let's get the flute. - I'm in my cowboy era and look at this souvenir that they have here. I love this so much. I just came back from the USA and I wish I had this when I was there. What do you think? - Oh, it's cool... with the cowboy shoes.
- Exactly! I feel like a true cowgirl. How much for this one? - 250, ma'am. - 250. - 250 pesos for this cowboy hat. Do you like it or no? Put in the comments if you like it yes or no.
I'm thinking of getting it, actually. - It's 190. - 190 and that's only 10... Okay! Guys, I'm going to get this cowboy hat. Okay, so I'm going to pay 200 pesos for this one.
Okay! Thank you so much! - Thank you so much ma'am! God bless! - God bless! Have an amazing day. - Thank you! - I'm going to have an amazing day with my hat. - Now we have cowgirl, Susan. - Cowgirl, yee-haw! Ice cream. Cowboy hat. I'm a happy lady! So we now arrived at the San Agustin Church, but look here behind me.
These are all old buildings from when the Spanish people were still here. So these are all Spanish inspired buildings and it's so, so beautiful. Here you can see the whole square where the church is located.
It is very serene, very nice and this is also beautifully built. It does remind me of churches in Spain. So this is really, really interesting.
As a European coming here, feels a little bit being home. One thing that we cannot miss in this first impressions of Manila is trying some typical local food. And we are now on a hunt for... - This is Taho.
We have to just wait for the guy. - Okay! We're going to wait for the guy. There's like in the middle of the street, there's taho.
- Is it tofu? - Yeah, it's like tofu with black pearls, tapioca and then sugar. Like melted sugar, caramel. - It's sweet? - Yeah, sweet. - Sweet. - It's sweet.
- Sweet, that's what we want. We want sweet. - But he doesn't want to sell. So let's see who's the seller here. Oh, the seller is eating. It's you? - You want to buy, taho? - Yeah! I want one. Can you give to me now? I think the seller is coming here.
Hello! - So this is 20 for the small one and 50 for the big one. - Okay, 20. I want to try the small one, please. I'm really excited. Taho. Taho.
Taho, it's called. Hello! How are you? - I'm fine. - They have the fans. I still want to get a fan like that. They're so cute.
Okay, so this is how it looks like. Oh, wow! Okay! I didn't expect that. - What's the juice? - Just water.
- Just water. And that's probably the... - Tofu. - Tofu, yeah! - In Indonesia they call tofu tahu and here it's taho. What's it here? - Tokwa. - Tokwa. - Tokwa and tofu.
- Okay, so that's how it gets here. - This is interesting and what's in the other? - Tapioca. - Okay, then we have the balls. - The balls... - Sweet sugar. - And what's that? - And the sugar syrup. - Sugar.
- Sweet sugar. - Oh, sweet and then we mix it. - It's like pudding, actually. - Yeah, that looks really nice. Thank you so much! - Oh, you drink it? - Wow! Oh, and it's hot. I didn't expect this to be hot, actually. That's going to be interesting.
I think I'm going to mix it first. It's very sticky already and it looks a bit like pudding as well. So let's mix it so the sweet stuff goes a bit down as well. It's already falling. Okay, here we go. Oh my god, it's so sweet and so hot.
It's so interesting, but the balls make it also like very chewy. It's literally tofu in a sweet caramel sauce, it feels like. - How do you rate it? - I've never had anything like this in my life before.
I don't know. Wait! It's a bit pudding. Okay, so I'm a little bit confused because tofu is normally like in a savory dish and this is sweet. It's like pudding with sugar. I'm not really sure what I think of it.
You can try it. Let Janine see. Same; I have the same reaction. - No! Oh...
I give it a 2 out of 10. - I give it a 4 out of 10. I'm so sorry! I don't think I like this. - Do you like this? - Yeah, sometimes I drink it. - You want to try?
- You can have. - I drink it from the cup. - We can give you a new straw. - Oh, you drink it from the cup. - No, no, no I drink it from the cup. - Okay! Let's see what you rate this one.
Oh, that's a big sip. - Tastes good. - Yeah? - Yeah! - What do you rate this? - 10 out of 10. - Wow! Oh my God, and here we are 2 and 4 out of 10.
I don't know, I think, I'm not used to the flavor. I don't like the combination. It feels... Tofu needs to be...
- Savory. - Yeah, exactly! - Salty, not sweet. - Yes! Here we go. Wow! - In Dutch we would say... That means it's gone like that. And it's gone.
- I finish it for you guys. - Yes! - Is that okay? - That's okay! Hi! How are you? - Where are you from? - The Netherlands. Are you from here? - Yeah! - You're beautiful! Bye! - Bye! - Oh my god, the people here are so insanely nice. I love the Filipino people here in Manila. I had so much fun already. Right now we're going to do a crazy street food challenge, but this is going to be a whole other video.
So guys, thank you so much for watching! Please do not forget to Like and Subscribe. There are many more Filipino videos coming. I'm so excited for this, so I'll see you in my next one. Bye!
2024-12-03 19:29
