Last November, my family and I went back to the Philippines, our motherland for a holiday. My mum and I went back to the Philippines in 2018 but this 2023 trip was the first time since we moved to NZ that we all came back together. So this was a fairly special trip.

Our flight from Auckland was early in the morning and we had a layover in Sydney Airport. Overall our flight was 12 hours in total plus around 3 hours in Sydney where we spent mooching around the shops and eating at Papparich. We haven’t been on a family trip for probably over 10 years and especially not just us 4. It’s been a while since all of us we’re together in this capacity and situation. It was also my sister’s first time going back to the Philippines since we moved. So it’s been 17 years for her and about 5 years for me.

We arrived in Manila around 6pm and our family picked us up. We sorted out our Philippines sim cards at the airport which took a while but it was good to have that done there and then. Afterwards, we checked into our Makati Airbnb and grabbed dinner at an old fave Tokyo Toyko.

I’m the planner in the family so I booked most of our accommodation. We didn’t have a set itinerary except for the different places/cities we were going to be at during our trip. I thought Makati would be a good home base for our first week because it’s easy enough to get to/from the airport, it’s close to shops and for our family to visit us.

Our Makati Airbnb location was pretty good. We stayed at Legazpi Village which is within walking distance to Greenbelt shopping mall. This was ideal for us because we could just walk to Greenbelt which is connected to 3 other malls. I know Makati and this area from when we lived here as we used to go to Glorietta a lot so having this familiarity was good for me especially during our first few days.

Day 1

Our first full day was a Sunday and the park near our Airbnb happened to have a Sunday market. So Joan and I checked out the Legazpi Sunday market and brought back some treats.

Just around the corner of our Airbnb condo building was Coffee Project and we basically had our breakfast there every day before the mall opened. The thing with me is I naturally wake up early and the malls are still closed so at least we had this cafe nearby to have Filipino breakfast. We had coffee there too but it wasn’t great. Our coffee standards are too high since Joan is a trained barista and NZ have amazing coffee. Their food was decent though and it was never busy when we came early morning.

We then got ready and walked through Greenbelt. This trip involves a lot of eating and especially of food that we used to love when we lived in the Philippines. We hunted down Chowking in Glorietta for our first lunch.

Afterwards, we basically checked out the shops. There are 4 malls right beside each other and are interconnected so we had a lot of ground to cover.

We mostly hit Glorietta and SM on our first day and because NZ dollar to Philippine peso is pretty good, we just shopped til we dropped. I knew that I would shop a lot during this trip and I wanted to get mostly local brands too especially Filipino beauty brands like blk, Sunnies Face, Happy Skin etc.

If you love shopping, Philippine malls are amazing. Also this was in December and there were Christmas decorations everywhere already. Once we hit the ‘ber months, the Christmas decor come out. Lol

After hours of shopping, we were snacky so stopped by a cafe and met up with our parents and other family who live in the Philippines. Afterwards, we walked back to our Airbnb to rest.

My parents left to go back to where we used to live in Laguna so Joan and I stayed in Makati and our cousins stayed with us to hang out and bond. We were tired so we ordered Jollibee for dinner then we just chatted and played games. It was fun. The next morning we walked to Pancake House for breakfast.

Day 2

Day 2 was mostly Joan and I shopping again and we had our cousins with us as well. I got some Sunnies Face products, Uniqlo and we stumbled into Rustans, which is a fancy department store in the Philippines. I’ve been wanting this Hermes perfume that I got a mini bottle of at Rome Airport. I finally found the full size bottle in Rustan’s so I bought it. My sister also got one so this was an expensive day for us. Her Wise card actually declined here so I ended up paying for all our Hermes purchases lol. It was a spendy day haha.

We also had Auntie Anne’s pretzel and Cinnabon which we missed. They’re still pretty good!

At night, we met up with our cousin after work to have some Korean bbq. We ate so much.

Day 3

We had breakfast at Coffee Project again. We kept trying all the Filipino breakfast options. Tocilog, Longsilog, etc.

Joan managed to find Primal Brew Coffee which was only a few minutes away from our Airbnb. They had the best coffee we had for our entire Philippines trip. We went back here for coffee for the remainder of our time in Makati. They’re small but they’re good!

They also had a few cats in the streets which was both sad and cute. On this day we were kinda done with shopping so Joan and I went to a nail salon and got a foot spa, mani and pedi instead. At night time, we met up with our parents since they came back after being in Laguna, brought back dinner from this Japanese restaurant in Greenbelt and relaxed. We walked so much the first few days so we were exhausted.

Day 4

This was our last full day in Makati and it was our mum’s birthday.

We had lunch at Manam in Glorietta. I’ve heard good things about this restaurant so I’m glad we got to go. The food did not disappoint. They had buko pandan shake, beef sinigang with watermelon and garlic adobo. We were so full and the we had a great meal there.

We then roamed around the mall, did more shopping and came back to our Airbnb to pack for our next destination.

Day 5

For our last morning in Makati, Joan and I went back down to Coffee Project for breakfast.

We also came back to Primal Brew Coffee to have our last decent coffee. I even got a bag of beans from them to bring back home.

I really enjoyed our first few days in Makati. It was great that we were able to just walk everywhere. We got a lot of shopping done, ate heaps and it was easy to navigate around the area.

Our next destination was Manila, around the Mall of Asia area.

We checked in to TRYP hotel which was near SM Mall of Asia. I chose this hotel because I thought it would be easy to get to the airport and it was another area to explore. We’ve been to Mall of Asia before when we lived here but it has expended so much since 2005/2006.

I initially booked us all in one room. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have done this but I thought it was only for a few days so it would be fine. Thankfully they upgraded us to their family loft room which was 2 storeys. My parents had the big bed at the bottom and Joan and I were upstairs where they had 3 single beds so there was enough space for us 4. The view was fairly nice too.

After check-in, I got hungry so I went down to their hotel restaurant and had food. The TRYP hotel restaurant was great. I had my first mango shake and their crispy binagoongan was delicious.

I also chose this hotel as they had a free shuttle to and from SM Mall of Asia. It’s technically a 10-15min walk but since it’s so hot, no one really walks so we took the shuttle instead and explored MOA.

MOA is huge but Makati malls were bigger and had more options because of the 4 malls clustered next to each other. It was nice exploring though and we even got to check out (and kinda got lost) in IKEA.

Day 6

The next day, we took the shuttle to MOA again. We were kinda done with shopping so Joan and I decided to spend a few hours at the salon instead.

Getting hair and beauty procedures done in the Philippines is so much cheaper than in NZ. I have never professionally dyed my hair so I’ve had black hair my entire life. That day I thought ‘why not’. It was much cheaper there so I dyed my hair lighter. I didn’t opt for bleach and they said my hair wouldn’t go too light but surprisingly it was actually pretty brown afterwards. Joan opted for bleach and she looked like a Kpop idol lol.

Afterwards, we had Shake Shack for lunch and went back to the hotel.

Day 7

I didn’t take many photos on this day but it started with hotel breakfast which was great then it was our day to go back to Laguna where we grew up.

It was a family day. We went to the cemetery to visit our family, especially our lola (grandmother on mum’s side) who passed during covid so we weren’t able to go back for her funeral. We then had a huge, slightly chaotic family lunch before heading back home to our hotel.

Our journey back from San Pedro, Laguna to Mall of Asia took hours. Manila traffic is no joke. We were exhausted so we had dinner at the hotel restaurant before calling it a night.

Day 8

I also didn’t take a lot of photos on this day but it was typical hotel breakfast, shuttle to MOA and we had lunch at Manam in their Mall of Asia branch. The food was also pretty good!

It was our last night at our hotel. TRYP by Mall of Asia was pretty good. Their service was amazing and we didn’t get to enjoy the pool and rooftop but they had nice amenities as well. The food at their hotel restaurant was great. The hotel breakfast especially when they had taho was amazing. If you need to stay within the MOA area or near enough to the airport, this place was good! It is slightly stinky though but it’s not the hotel’s fault, the stench is Manila Bay. Haha

Day 9

This was our last morning in Manila/MOA so we checked out of our hotel and headed to the airport. Our airport experience wasn’t bad during this trip because our parents are classed senior citizens and they have a different line for them.

Our next destination is Davao and I will leave that for my next post. Our first week in Makati and Manila was great. Yes it was tiring but it had a good mix of shopping, eating and spending time with family. I especially enjoyed getting to know my cousins more. I was 16 when we moved to NZ and they were much younger then. Now we’re older, either working or at university so it was great getting to know them and spending time with them.

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I will end this post here and my next one will be all about our time in Davao. Our family in Makati/Manila area is mostly on my mum’s side. Davao is mostly on my dad’s side although one of mum’s brothers also live in Davao. It’s a whole different city and vibe and I’m excited to look back on those memories too!

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Philippines 2023 Trip blog links:

• Makati and Manila
• Davao
• Boracay
• Manila