La Cocina de Tita Moning

A couple of weeks ago, we went on a walking tour of Intramuros, the historical heart of Manila. At the end of the tour, the guide told us about a special restaurant that served delicious home made Spanish food in an old historic mansion. We were told that they don't take walk-ins, you have to make a special booking - unless of course, we wanted to go that night. We thought it sounded interesting, so along with two other girls, we followed the lady dressed in a black & white maid's uniform to a van that would take us to the restaurant.

We figured, after doing the Intramuros tour, that the restaurant would also be in Intramuros, probably just around the corner. After driving for about ten minutes it became clear that we were leaving the walled city and headed across town. This was about the point we all started to question whether it was a good idea to get in a strange van without any idea of where it was going...

The streets started to get quieter and quieter until we ended up driving past a lot of big walls and gates with mansions behind. We even passed the Presidential Palace. We eventually pulled into a long driveway and drove behind the house to a beautiful outdoor dining area.

This wasn't even the actual restaurant - we were served drinks and hors d'ouvres and told to order our meal from the menu while they prepared the house for us - every group dining at La Cocina de Tita Moning gets a tour of the house!

The house was built in 1937 for the Legarda family.

Dr. Legarda's library

I loved all the old furniture in the house and it has been preserved very well by the later generations of the family, who still own the house.

Dr. Legarda's home clinic. The big black thing is an antique x-ray machine, and the skeleton is real, from the cadaver used by Dr. Legarda in medical school. Apparently in the old days, cadavers weren't provided to medical students by the university, students had to 'find their own'. I hate to think how that worked!

My favourite room was the girls' dressing room. Dr. Legarda's daughters were ballerinas and this room has been set up to display some of their costumes. I fell in love with this beautiful dressing table!

I love this lamp base decoupaged with old liquor bottle labels

This photo was taken looking from the living room to the dining room. We were asked to wait in the living room until our dinner was ready, and entertained ourselves looking at the family photo albums on the coffee table. I didn't take any photos during dinner because I never think to do that - the food was too good and we were loving the experience of being served delicious food in a formal dining room on family heirloom china and silverware. It was all so fancy!

It was a very surreal night. Not at all what we had expected to do for dinner that night, but everything was... delightful. Not a word I use often, but I think it perfectly describes our evening at La Cocina de Tita Moning. Delightful.

The pink storm

The other night, as the sun was going down, I glanced outside the window and noticed that the sky was a vibrant shade of pink. When I got up to go to the balcony, I realised that it wasn't the whole sky - there was just one giant pink cloud sitting over the city...

...with a lightning storm inside it!

It lasted about 20 minutes, then the pink went away (the sun had gone completely down) and the lightning died down. We didn't get a drop of rain. It was truly surreal to watch!

Pete Townshend

 

I have mentioned plenty of times on this blog that I love The Who. They've been my favourite band for a long time, and they've been around for even longer! I was introduced to The Who by my year 11 English teacher who used to give us Who lyrics to analyse in class. Then he'd show us videos of them performing to give us a bit of context (and I suspect partly because he just wanted to show us videos of his favourite band). 

I was hooked straight away and I've been a fan ever since. In 2009, they finally came to Australia (yes, with only half the original members still alive, they still tour in their sixties!) and my Dad and I saw them play. It was amazing! 

Now, my favourite member has always been the lead singer, Roger Daltrey... but, like a fickle teenage fangirl, I'm mad at him for cancelling his Australian solo tour last year. As for Pete Townshend - the guitarist, the songwriter, the grumpy old artsy guy - I always thought he was really arrogant. However, I've been reading his book lately and found he's always been just as insecure and crazy as the rest of us. 

So this post is dedicated to Pete, in all his weirdness, and to Mr Jenson, who passed away a few years ago but we'll always remember him for introducing us to The Who, David Bowie, and postmodernism.

I've had this picture on my wall for a really long time. I just love the union flag jacket!

I don't know the story behind this picture, and I don't really want to. All I see is Pete dressed as a Pearly King, performing a banjo concert for his cocker spaniel and some toys. That's good enough for me.

The time I drove an old broken-down car around Berlin

When we first arrived in Berlin, we saw a convoy of little old cars puttering around the city. It was Trabi Safari - a tour where you rent an old East German car and drive around following a guide, who gives you a tour through the radio. The Trabi or Trabant is an East German icon - a (relatively) affordable, compact car to rival West Germany's VW Beetle.

At first I thought it sounded all too scary - I haven't driven a manual car (or stick shift) in years, I've never driven in another country and Berlin's streets are pretty busy! But, as we spent more time in Berlin, I started to feel more relaxed, more like a local, and I felt like we needed an adventure.



So we turned up, chose our car (giraffe print, please!) and got a little introduction to the guide, the tour and the cars. Then we were told to get in. I figured this was the part where we'd do a bit of training - practice starting the car, drive around the carpark a bit, you know - no-one had even looked at my licence so surely they'd have to at least see if we could drive!

 

I got in the car and girl from Trabi Safari leaned in my window. "There's the gear shift. That diagram shows where the gears are. Do you want to practice?" I managed to move the stick through the gears, struggling a bit with reverse. "It's ok, you'll get used to it. Turn that key to start" I turned the key. The noisy engine spluttered to life, sounding like a lawnmower - which makes sense, because the Trabi uses a two-cylinder engine almost identical to that of a lawnmower. "Ok, have fun!" She grinned and moved on to the next car.

I sat there with James doing that nervous laugh that says 'isn't-this-fun-i'm-actually-terrified'. It's okay, I told myself. We'll start out on quiet streets so everyone can get the hang of it. The British and Australians are used to driving on the other side of the road, so they'll have to give us a bit of time to get used to that. The cheery voice of our Brazilian guide crackled through the radio.

"Okay everybody! Let's go! Follow me, we're turning right onto Friedrichstrasse... this is one of the most famous streets in Berlin..."
Yep, also one of the busiest. After stalling three times before I got out of the carpark (when was the last time I drove a manual?), I was out and in the traffic. Thankfully it was moving slowly and I made the decision to only use second gear, because changing from second to third was too scary for me. Yes, really...

Once we got to some quieter roads (I'd intentionally booked a Sunday morning tour so that there wouldn't be much traffic), I bravely attempted the second-to-third shift and didn't completely crash the gear box (except once) and started moving at an almost-decent pace.

I even got to see some sights!

This is my "I think I'm having fun but I can't tell because I'm too scared to think about anything else but driving this stupid car" face.

Had a little bit of roadwork to negotiate...

...and a little bit more...

At one point, the last car in the tour got lost. We pulled into a side street to wait while the guide car drove around looking for them. We took the opportunity to take some photos. I was in a great mood! I'd finally mastered the gears and all I could think was "I'm SO glad it's not me that's holding up everyone else... how embarrassing!"

I may have spoken too soon. When we set off again, I noticed my car was going slower and slower. Even in fourth gear (yep! I got brave enough to use ALL FOUR gears!) with my foot to the floor, it was struggling. As the second car in the convoy, I kept holding people up at every traffic light because it was so hard to get going.

This bridge is about the steepest 'hill' we encountered (Berlin is a city settled on a swamp so it's very flat). Our little giraffe car almost didn't make it - I kept picturing us rolling backwards and causing a Trabi pile-up at the bottom of the bridge!

Almost... there...

I was getting increasingly stressed and, very wisely, James decided it would be a good idea to stop taking photos and concentrate on calming me down. It eventually got to a point where we were pretty sure we were actually just rolling around Berlin, not driving. We waved madly at the guide car and everyone pulled over while he looked at our car.

Turns out one of the two cylinders in the engine had failed (is that the right word?) and I had been driving around the city with a mighty 13 horsepower. I don't know how much horsepower normal, modern cars use, but I think it's more than that. The guide offered to swap cars with us and led everyone back to the lot very, very, slowly. I'm sure I was really popular with everyone by this point.

So this is the little beige hero car that saved the day and got us home. It was much easier to drive than the giraffe car, so here's the lesson folks: never choose a car based on its paint job alone.

My drawings from that day's travel diary entry.

 

Relieved to have survived the adventure. My legs and hands were shaking!

James knows me well, and when he saw a waffle place across the street, he knew where to take me to recover. That's my souvenir DDR driver's licence next to my plate.

Once I'd got over the stress and decided that the experience was kind of fun in the end (I had said we needed an adventure!), I got a souvenir Trabi as a sort of trophy to remember the time I managed to drive an old broken-down car around Berlin.

I'm engaged!

While out for breakfast at our new favourite cafe last weekend, my boyfriend (now fiancé!) asked me if I wanted to go shopping for an engagement ring (YES PLEASE I WOULD LIKE THAT VERY MUCH). We had a wonderful day and found this beautiful 1920s art deco ring at an antique jeweller in the city, and he proposed when we got home in the afternoon.  Best day ever!

Actually, it turned into the best weekend ever because I was able to live out a childhood dream and go to a Hanson concert the next night! Tease me all you want but they were AWESOME and I am proudly wearing my brand new Hanson t-shirt right now.

So I haven't posted much because I've been a BIT distracted by fun wedding things - with us going overseas so soon, we need to plan the whole thing now or face trying to plan a Sydney wedding from the Philippines. Luckily I was one of those tragic creepy PRACTICAL girls who had already planned the whole wedding in their head before they got engaged. Makes things a lot easier!

This is a photo of the train platform after I opened my mail while waiting for the train (as I often do). Should've known better when I saw my mum's handwriting on the envelope, she'd stuffed it with confetti that exploded all over the platform once I opened it! Oh well, hope it made some bored commuters happy!