Here we go!

I'm going to Manila on Sat and will stay for 9 days. This will be my first trip home this year, which makes it 8 months since I last visited.

When I was a newly expatriated Pinoy, there was no way you could have asked me to stay in SIngapore for 8 months straight without a Manila break in between to refresh me. During those early years, I saw myself as being submerged in water while I was working in Singapore, not breathing, just waiting for the time when I could break through the water's surface to breath again, take in huge lung-fulls of air, which in this case would have to be the very polluted and dusty air of the Philippine capital.

After 7+ years here, I've long stopped romanticising Manila. It has moved on without me, and I too have flourished far away from its bosom. I don't know if I can ever be based there again honestly. Can you blame me, after the sheer efficiency of Singapore? But I will go, again and again, for lightning visits to see my family and dwindling number of Manila-based friends. Until they all decide to move too, that is.

Told of my trip, Pinoy friends in Singapore have had one refrain: Ang init daw dun ngayon! Is it true, Net?

Scorching or not, I look forward to enjoying my short stay. Specifically, I hope to be offered home-cooked meals (hint, hint!); have lots of play-time with the nephews and niece; see the smooth turnover of our small but much-awaited new digs at the Fort; get cheap massages; eat some golden, ripe, sweet mangoes; have lots of catch-up sessions with the mates; and of course try and not add to the rice burden of the country by eating camote instead of rice (hmm, camote with adobo, camote sushi, camote with sinigang, anyone?).