No Wang-Wang in the Airport

The Philippines continues to surprise me daily. This sign at the airport was a nice reminder that I probably only understand about 45% of what is going on around me. According to this article, "wang-wang" is a term for sirens used by rich people to get through traffic. At the airport, it basically means that no one is too important to wait in line. The website, "The Guide to Sleeping in Airports" rated Manila's  Terminal 1 as the worst airport in the world in 2011, and the worst airport in Asia in 2012. Honestly, I was so excited to go home that I didn't think it was that bad. Maybe in the past it was worse with all that wang-wang.

Holiday Baking

The main reason I run is so that I can eat what I want. Not preservative-filled, chemical-laden, dyed and processed crap, but good, wholesome, and often a little too fatty foods. Like most people, my memories of holidays revolve around food (or maybe that's just me?). While I am the first one to dig into some mashed potatoes and stuffing, I prefer to do the baking. Peanut butter kiss cookies and snowball cookies are two of my favorites, and pumpkin pie is a must. 

I used this recipe for the kiss cookies, however, I recommend using an all-natural flour like Bob's Red Mill or King Arthur because your average flour is bleached with potassium bromate (according to the interwebs, potassium bromate has been linked to thyroid dysfunction.) I couldn't find an all-natural Hershey Kiss, so we ate some soya lecithin, vanilin, and artificial flavoring - note to self to order some real chocolate next year. For the snowball or Russian teacake cookies, I followed this recipe. Next time, I would add a little more flour to make the cookies more dense. For the pumpkin pies, I followed the recipe I have been using for years and used my brother-in-law's famous pie crust recipe. Sorry, can't reveal the family secret here. 

The Shark's brother made the famous kolachi. This Czech dessert has been a staple in The Shark's family for as long as he can remember, and it is so delicious with coffee. I also love sugar cookies, but since we had already made them in Manila I couldn't muster the energy for all that work.

A New Perspective

Oh, hi. We are in California. And it is awesome. Because you can do things like yoga on a paddleboard. And go to Target. Surprisingly, it is not as hard as it sounds to keep your balance on a paddleboard. Most poses kept you pretty steady, but I could not manage to do the headstand on open water - more fear than capability. The coolest part was staring at the sky during shavasana and the shore during down dog. 

BTW - Toto was amazing on the plane. We were nervous based on her previous flight from CA to Manila when she was 7 weeks old and literally cried for 10 hours straight. This time from MNL to NRT, she kept herself busy playing in the bulk head area with a series of new, small toys purchased to keep her quiet. Fortunately there was a children's play area in the Narita airport to keep her occupied for the 2-hour layover. Then came the big one - 10 hours from Narita to LAX. She kept her cool during the dinner service, and once they dimmed the lights we changed her into pj's and put her to sleep on a million airline pillows on the floor. Knowing that the friendly Delta stewardesses might have a problem with that, we made a blanket tent to hide her. That little girl slept for 6 hours. And when they came around in the morning with her breakfast, Yaya pretended the toddler meal was for her so they wouldn't get suspicious - which after 10 hours on the plane managed to slip by the stewardess. Oh, I didn't mention Yaya was with us? Well, we wanted a real vacation. And we are having one. 

Kid Recipe: Cheesy Broccoli

Adapted this one from here. I cut the pieces much smaller, and didn't add salt or garlic. Toto loves it, like she loves most food. I have trouble finding good green veggies for here, so end up supplementing with this combo of spinach/peas/brown rice/barley or mixing turkey into this spinach/pea/pear combo. Luckily, she will still eat these "baby" foods, because I have friends who toddlers have rejected anything pureed. These are so convenient for the park, airplane, hotel, etc. But she definitely prefers whole foods like pasta, bagels, rice, cheese, pancake...hmm, that's a long list of carbohydrates, but at least we stick to whole-wheat, organic options.

Any ideas for green veggies for toddlers that you can find in Manila?

Counting Down

Toto will be 15 months this Christmas, and appears to have a bit more of a clue what's going on than she did at 3 months last year. Everyday she advances the Christmas calendar, gets super excited at every Christmas decoration she sees, and has no problem wolfing down an entire cookie.

Now is probably a good time to mention Filipinos start celebrating Christmas in September, as Christmas is celebrated in all the "ber" months - September, October, November, and December. At work I attended 3 parties, where we played games like pass the lifesaver ("Polo") to each other on sticks in our mouth and dressed each other in recycled paper for a "trashion show." You know, for the birth of Christ. As an American, I refuse to acknowledge Christmas until after Thanksgiving, then it's on.

A homage to our "homes."

Sewing Their Way Out of Poverty

The Shark and I, together with some colleagues, wrote a grant to purchase sewing machines and other supplies for a women's group living about 2 hours south of Manila. The families were relocated to this neighborhood after a development project forced them to move from their previous homes. The group had a couple sewing machines that they used to make school uniforms and other items, but it wasn't enough for all the women. Our grant added 8 new machines, an edger, and some other sewing supplies that the group plans to use to make various goods to sell. The mayor graciously assisted in having the building renovated to include electricity. One woman was so excited that she wouldn't have to use the old-school foot pedal machines anymore! It was a good reminder for us to get out of our expat bubble, get out in the community, and do some good.

Taking marching band very seriously.

Ready for the ribbon cutting.

Fancy-schmancy.

Get your wedding needs made here!

Swimming in an Active Volcano

The Shark and I love hiking. We have hiked in New Mexico, Colorado, Michigan, Virginia, Rwanda, Uganda, Ghana, Mali, Uganda, Indonesia, pretty much everywhere we have lived and traveled. But the introduction of Toto has put a halt on hiking since she prefers to be carried in our arms to being carried in a carrier. Although, she was a trooper during some hikes in Michigan and Indonesia.  So on another Philippine holiday (how I love all these holidays), we headed out to hike Mt. Pinatubo.  

We used the Filipino Travel Center, and for about $75/person, we had a car, driver, 4x4 jeep, and local guide. The van arrived at 4am, which was sadly way before Starbucks opened and even more sad was that there were no Starbucks anywhere near the start of the hike. At the registration "center" we hopped on a 4x4 jeep for a 1-hour bumpy, at times terrifying, ride across Crow Canyon. The 7km hike through the desolate, dusty wasteland created by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo was rewarded when we got to the crater lake.

Luckily they sold cold water and gatorade at the top, despite the fact that it was double the normal price. Kind of like a beer at a baseball game, but I digress. We got in our swimsuits behind a bush and jumped into the surprisingly frigid water.  Even though the sun was out, the breeze was cold and dry. We could see smoke rising off a hot area of the volcano and that freaked me out a bit. 

The hike back and subsequent jeep ride seemed to take an eternity and my calves got burned, but overall it was a great experience. I recommend you bring lots of snacks, a big lunch, change of clothes and socks, a towel, lots of sunscreen, and a big hat.

Want to know more about the devastating eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991?  Great wikipedia article here. Yaya told us that she thought "the world was ending" that day and rushed her 5-month old baby to the capitol city to stay with her father for 3 months. She said it was pitch black for over 24 hours after the eruption. 

This jeep was 40 years old. I am not kidding. The driver was about 14.

Ended up belonging to the senior citizens.

Made it.

Is that smoke rising from the sand? I'm hot, let's swim.

Praying we made it back.

Vegetarian Challenges

Being vegetarian, or mostly vegetarian, can be difficult. In Ghana, I was offered a chicken head with the feet coming out the beak, in Rwanda I saw every part of the cow hanging in market stalls, and in the Philippines, a half formed egg is a bar snack. Fortunately, Manila is home to many great restaurants, including an outstanding vegetarian/vegan place called Corner Tree Cafe. And I just heard of another called Pipino. Most restaurants have a vegetable section, but I've noticed they often contain fish, and sometimes even pork or beef! I had to laugh when we passed this sign on the way to Tagaytay - "vegetarian meat" - I really don't even want to know. But I do. Actually, the traffic was so bad, I probably could have gotten out and bought some. Next time.

Giving Boca Burgers a run for their money.

Kid Recipe: Roasted Carrots

For locals, if you don't already know, Healthy Options has expanded their frozen section (turkey burgers, frozen blueberries) and also added locally-sourced, organic produce and meats.  We roasted an entire chicken and it was delicious.  I am not a big meat-eater and I certainly do not like touching raw meat, but I felt good about getting this organic source of protein into Toto's diet - and she loved it.  In the produce section they carry lettuce, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, herbs, and carrots, and other things I may be forgetting.  I checked out a bunch of recipes online, but settled for this one from one of my favorite recipe blogs.  Pretty simple, just tossed the carrots in olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary and baked at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.  Toto scarfed them down with some turkey sausage (also from the frozen section), veggie noodles and cheese.

I ate about half of these while Toto was napping.

Manila Thanksgiving

Good friends hosted us for Thanksgiving. Although we have had fantastic Thanksgiving dinners in Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda, this one came the closest to being authentic. S&R carried big ol' turkeys, Healthy Options had whole cranberries, and camote was subbed for a delicious sweet potato casserole. The Filipinos at the dinner liked everything, which was surprising after being in other countries where people thought the Americanized food we served - sandwiches, stir fry, pasta - was disgusting. Everyone left happy and full, even Toto who ate an entire bread roll by herself.

Dig in,

Urban Recreation: La Mesa Eco-Park

I had been planning all week to take Toto to the Sta Elena Fun Farm in Laguna on Sunday, but Saturday night I checked their website and realized they require a reservation! I texted and they were booked in the morning. Being that it is ungodly hot in the afternoons and I have a 3pm Jivamukti class, we decided to go to the La Mesa Ecopark in Quezon City.  It only took about 20 minutes to get there at 8am on a Sunday morning.  There weren't many people when we arrived, but when we left at 10am it was starting to get packed and loud. The entrance fee was P50 ($1.25) and an additional P80 ($2) for the Butterfly House. Let's chat about the butterfly house, shall we? 

Great sign lured us in and the caretaker took us to the glass breeding tanks where we saw the stages from egg to butterfly. While he was talking he threw a couple of dead caterpillars out and told us that they died from the stress of too many people holding and squeezing them yesterday. Um, what? Maybe you shouldn't let people do that, caretaker of the butterflies. Onto the butterfly tank where the new guys were emerging from cocoons. Before we went to the next area, the caretaker had to sponge the blood off the bottom of the cage. So gross. Who knew butterflies bled as they emerged from the cocoon. Never saw that in any cute kid's book. Toto was not thrilled with all the butterflies swarming near her face, but they were pretty. And we saw two species--"the black one and the white one."

We strolled through the flower terraces, pet the horses baking in the sun, watched a "pre-nup" photo shoot in the amphitheater, saw some fish, and then headed home. We'll probably go back to see the orchids and organic garden.  Despite the growing crowd, humidity, and stall after stall of hot dogs, the huge trees and relatively clean air will bring us back.

My advice - go early.

Don't squeeze the caterpillars.

Some dead, some bloody, but still educational.

View from the La Mesa Dam.

Bangkok: The Marathon

After months of training, I felt ready to finally run this marathon. At 5pm on Saturday, we ordered pasta to the room and I went to bed at 7pm. I set the alarm for 1am so I could make some instant coffee and grab a taxi. I seriously would have walked to the start line if there had been an open Starbucks on the way. During the 20 minute taxi ride I saw tons of people shopping for fruits and vegetables at night markets, and several people on their way home after a night at the bars. I managed to eat a boiled egg, Clif bar, and banana, and drink a water bottle. I decided to carry the Nathan waist pack with two water bottles (small), 5 hammer gels, and my iPhone for texting/pictures/music. There weren't many people at the start line at 2am, so I was able to stretch and use the bathroom - on a bus! - in peace. At 2:45am they started herding us towards the start line. The announcers said lots of stuff in Thai, and there was a lot of arm waving, and then we started.

The first 16 miles or so were on a desolate highway, which didn't bother me because I am not the type to look around while running. Every 2km there was a water stop, so I walked for 20 seconds or so and doused my head in ice water. Yes, it was hot and humid in the middle of the night.  Not as bad as I had imagined, but still hot. Every couple stops they had gatorade and only about three times they had bananas. I was so happy I had my gels.

Sunrise on bridge

Mini marathon??

I stopped to take pictures once the sun came out and I got off the highway. We passed some pretty buildings, none of which I recognized. But I did see a scary lizard dragon animal come out of the water.  I did my cockroach jump squeal that I do at least two times during any run in Manila.

Swimming mutant dragon

Official-looking building

At 32km I still felt great, at 35km I felt ok, but at 38km I was sure my legs were broken.  It took lots of self encouragement to keep going. When I finally saw the finish line I got a 17th wind and sprinted to the end. Granted, it took me 5 hrs 18 mins to finish, but I have never been so happy to stop running.  The Shark had already run the half and was waiting for me at the end. The first 20 minutes after the race I felt terrible, but by the time we got back to the hotel I felt a lot better. Oh, and here's a tip: don't wear hot pink underwear during a marathon, apparently they run dye down your legs and also pool in the seat of the taxi - sorry Thai taxi driver, hope we tipped you well!

Dragon arch

Old fort

We spent the afternoon riding the train and going to the park. It was only around 1 million degrees out and Toto insisted on me carrying her most of the way.

My ankles, knees and hips were sore, but a 90 minute Thai hot herbal massage and a tall beer(s) took care of that. Will I run another marathon? Not sure. I enjoyed the discipline of having a training schedule, but disliked running in humid polluted Manila.  I'll probably stick to shorter distances and hope to get some big hikes in next year. Any marathons in your future?

Bangkok: Part 1

The weekend of the marathon finally arrived. The marathon I had signed up for months before, that seemed so far away, with so many weekends for long runs, was finally here. We took a 3 hour flight on Philippine Air on Friday and arrived in Bangkok around 1pm.  Right away I noticed the air smelled cleaner--in the middle of downtown.  We checked into the Sivatel where we got a great rate on a suite - 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a living room.  Toto was thrilled and spent many hours running between the three rooms.  After she passed out, The Shark and I headed out to pick up our race packets.  Stay tuned for Part 2.

Signing "airplane"

Welcome drink and cold towel

View from our hotel

Too many power lines

Culturally sensitive Ronald

Kid Recipe: Apple Sauce

Apple sauce is so easy to make and tastes so much better than the jarred stuff.  Not to mention it is a lot cheaper to make it yourself.  I just peeled and chopped 4 big Fuji apples, added 1 cup of water, some lemon peel, the juice of 1 lemon, 1 cinnamon stick and a little brown sugar (next time I will probably go sugar free), brought it to a boil, then simmered for 30 minutes.  Afterwards, I used a potato masher to, well, mash it.  Delicious with vanilla ice cream (for me) or on pancakes (for Toto).

The best baby food storage method I have found is to cook big batches on the weekend - chop mangoes, bake squash, roast carrots, pan fry turkey, boil noodles - then cool and freeze in these 6.5 ounce Libbey bowls I get from Amazon.  According to the Libbey website the lids are BPA-free (god knows what other chemicals are there, but the food rarely even touches the lid).

My other great food storage method is a second fridge.  I had to beg my employer a bit for this one, but it was SO worth it.  Now I can store (hoard) tortillas, bread, baby food, berries, spinach, and all the other stuff that we would have to run to the store weekly to replenish.

Clean Water

One of my first questions I ask in a new country is "Can you brush your teeth with tap water?"  In Rwanda, I brushed my teeth at the faucet  although I had serious doubts about the country's water treatment systems, mainly because the kitchen was soooo far away from our bedroom and involved several locked doors to get there. Of course when I got pregnant, the protective instincts kicked in and I would have The Shark get my water for me.  Duh.  I haven't had our tap water tested in Manila and probably wouldn't want to know the results, so all our drinking water is delivered weekly in five gallon jugs and we usually go through two or three per week.

Hot and Cold!

Naturally I freaked out about what might be seeping into Toto's skin from the bath water so I ordered this bath filter from Amazon.  Honestly, I am not sure if it removes all the chemicals it says it does on the very weird box, but it makes me feel better.  We also use Weleda bath and skin baby products, mainly because the woman at the natural store in my parents' town told me the company was "clean" and was the only brand she carried for babies.  What I really want is an antique water pitcher that we can fill daily with fresh water for the bathroom--and surprisingly there are tons of antique shops in Manila.  Now how to convince The Shark to go antique-ing...

Upon closer inspection, this resembles what I imagine a prison shower would look like.

Marathon Countdown

Seven days until the Bangkok Marathon!  

Highlights from my training in 2012

Longest run: 20 miles

Best week: 36.2 miles, Week of October 22

Worst week: 3.1 miles, Week of January 2

Yoga classes taken: 39 

Tai Chi classes taken: 1

Best running aid: Hammer Gel (Expresso flavor)

Races: 2

Best recovery aid: 1 hour at home foot/leg massage for $6

Total miles run this year (so far): 726.65  

I initially thought a marathon 14.5 months post-partum was a stretch, but then I read multiple accounts of pregnant women running marathons and shut the hell up.

Yeah, that 3.1-mile week was right after Christmas, family in town, and a STILL colicky baby to deal with. Best week included my 20-mile training run---I probably should have had some weeks at 40 miles, but just doing this to do it, not to set any records. Yoga has been my savior in all this.  I take all my classes at Bliss Yoga, but was fortunate enough to have an amazing private class in Bali that I will never forget. Oh, and I know, only two races (soon to be three) in 2012?! While Manila hosts tons of races and is home to thousands of runners, it just isn't a great place to run.  I ran the World Vision half marathon and the Men's Health Urbanathalon, but that might be it for Manila races.  It would have been cool to run 1,000 miles this year, but I a guessing I will get closer to 800.

Oh, and you might want to think about moving here if you haven't already.  The best foot masseuse I have ever had comes to my house.  And I can drink wine and blog.  I usually end up tipping her 75% because, folks, it is a $6 massage at my house. You can bet that is a weekly occurrence. But no, I am not getting my feet massaged as I type this, but I should be.

And one more thing, should you be wondering. I am indeed Type A and keep meticulous records of all my workouts and have been doing so since college.  So what?

Seven more days!

DIY Friday: Vanilla

During a recent trip to Tagaytay, we stopped for lunch at adorable Sonya's Garden.  Not only was the setting gorgeous, but there was a crafty type shop.  Much to The Shark's chagrin, I cannot keep myself away from stores of the following genre: country, thrift, general, craft, corner, basically anything with a cute sign.  A friend bought a vanilla bean to make her own vanilla, so I did too.  So easy.  Mix 4 oz. (cheap) vodka with a slit open bean.  Store in a dark, cool place (that doesn't really exist here, but anywho) and wait a couple months.  Plentiful, cheap vanilla.

Boil glass jar

Slit open bean lengthwise

Submerge bean in vodka