Manila Day 3-4: Lucky Chinatown, Flight Home & My Reflections

DAY 3

We had breakfast at the Horizon Club Lounge as we enjoyed it the day before.

Different range of pastries compared to the day before!
As usual, I couldn't decide which to eat!

Cheeses and other food from the buffet line

Dim sum and other food from the ala carte menu

We headed to the pool for a swim after breakfast to burn off the calories! 😝

Swimming pool

It was unusually quiet without the kids and therefore we could have long conversations without being interrupted! 😆 Of course we missed them! 😁

After our swim, we hailed a Grab (₱380) to Lucky Chinatown to have lunch at King Chef Seafood Restaurant.

Our Grab passed the famous Binondo Church on our way to Lucky Chinatown

Lucky Chinatown
(Of course they had to have a huge fortune cat at the entrance!)

It's like Chinese New Year every day in this mall! 😂

King Chef

A variety of Chinese dishes

The prawn was so good!

The Hubby ordered their signature Peking duck and frankly it wasn't that bad but once you've had the real deal in Beijing, it's hard to be impressed! 😅

After lunch, we explored the mall and spent most of our time shopping at KKV. Even though I've visited other outlets in Malacca, twice in Batam and even in Singapore (JEM level 3), I was still excited to check this one out as each store sold different products.

KKV in Lucky Chinatown Manila

Found a cute shop called Mumuso, which was like an imitation version of Miniso! 😅

We bought so many things that we filled a huge foldable bag and decided to hail a Grab (₱371) back to our hotel.

It was time for our last evening canapes for this trip!

We love the window seat as we can only get it when it's just us without the kids!!

My choice for our final canapes

We headed to the nearby malls, Landmark and Glorietta, for our final shopping for this trip!

AquaFlask is really affordable here!

Huge SM Store that we didn't even have time to visit as the malls were so big

SM Supermarket at B1

We definitely could not finish exploring all the malls in the area and would have to return to Manila again! 

DAY 4

We checked out of our hotel after we had breakfast at the Horizon Club Lounge.

My yummy breakfast 😋

Ordered creme brulee French toast again because I liked it so much previously!

Requested for mangoes and they were amazing!!

Interestingly, Shangri-la was selling very delicious mooncakes and we decided to buy some back for the family!

Mooncakes tasting

Four days really flew by and it was time for us to head home! 😔 

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Photo at our hotel's lobby

We hailed a Grab (₱225) to Ninoy Aquino International Airport to catch our flight home.

Checking in our luggage at the counters

Headed to the SilverKris Lounge after dropping off our luggage

Less variety than in Singapore

Lounge wasn't as big as the one in Singapore of course

Food was reasonable

The staff would update us on the flight details so that we can enjoy the lounge for as long as possible before heading to the gate. 

Our plane was expected to depart at 2.15pm

Super excited for my spacious seat in Business Class 🥳

We preordered our main courses via Book the Cook but the selection was limited to the menu that they were already serving onboard, unlike for our previous flight

I chose beef for my main course

One of the crew noticed that I loved TWG tea and gave me extra bags! (left);
Cake and fruit for dessert (right)

Photo taken by a cabin crew

Enjoying our drinks and seat, though this one doesn't recline all the way

Our flight home was only 2 hours and 50 minutes, which was too short for us to fully enjoy our business class seat! 😅 We arrived in Singapore at 5.45pm.

SG60 at Changi Airport

It's good to be home! 🥰

My Reflections

As a first time visitor to Manila, we were impressed by the variety of food that was available. No matter your culinary preference, you're sure to find something suitable (at least that was my experience)! The shopping malls were also larger than I had expected and we ended up spending more time shopping than I had anticipated! 😅 

I love that the museums were free and I learnt a lot more about Philippines besides the sandy beaches of Cebu, which was the only other Filipino destination I've visited. It's too bad that we couldn't visit the outdoor attractions due to the rainy weather.

Potential places to visit on our next trip:

• Intramuros: Fort Santiago
• Ruins of American Barracks
• The Manila Cathedral
• SM Mall of Asia

It was a good break away just the two of us! Can't wait to return to Manila with the rest of the family! 😊

<< Back to Manila Day 2: National Museum of Anthropology & Natural History

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Manila Day 2: National Museum of Anthropology & Natural History

We had our breakfast at the Horizon Club Lounge and could order ala carte items from their menu or help ourselves with the food at the buffet line.

Buffet area

As someone who is loves bread and pastries, I really love the wide selection of pastries! 😍 I would have eaten everything if I could that would kill my diet!! 😭
I only allowed myself to have 2 and it was so hard to choose!! 😅

Bread station

DIY breakfast wrap station

I ordered the creme brulee french toast (left) and customised omelette (right)

The Hubby ordered the dim sum (left) and noodles (top right) from the menu.

My favourite was the french toast while the Hubby liked the dim sum! Food was super good and we were so full by the time we were done! 😅

After breakfast, we hailed a Grab (₱472) to the National Museum of Anthropology, but the driver dropped us erroneously at the National Museum of Fine Arts, which was just next door!

National Museum of Fine Arts

We would only have enough energy for two museums and decided to give the fine arts a miss! 😅 Thankfully, most of the national museums were within walking distance from each other and FREE for all visitors! 🥳 You'd just need to produce personal identification for registration at the entrance.

National Museum of Anthropology

Very impressive main entrance!

One of the many galleries within the museum

Watching a video to learn about the people and culture

Traditional art of textile-making

Beautiful costumes (left) and traditional tattoo methods (right)

Small dinosaur fossils

We headed next door to the National Museum of Natural History. We've visited many natural history museums around the world, such as Singapore's Natural History Museum, London's Natural History Museum and Melbourne Museum.

National Museum of Natural History

Interesting architecture that captivates the eye!

We went to the basement to take the glass elevator up to the top floor
(this is the only way to ride the elevator)

Large crocodile found in the waters of the Philippines

Various galleries on each floor; we found an exhibit of the reef stonefish that we saw while snorkeling in Shangri-la Cebu (bottom right)!

Other wildlife found in the Philippines

The Marine Realm

Philippines is made up of multiple islands which means the health of marine life and the seas is vital!

We enjoyed the galleries and managed to clock a lot of steps in both museums! I'd recommend visiting since it's free and you get to learn more about Philippines.

We hailed a Grab (₱84) to nearby Harbor View Restaurant (just 10 minutes away) for lunch.

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A part of the dining area of the restaurant was on the water so we could feel the strong sea breeze! 💨

We ordered quite a lot of food for the 2 of us and half-wished our kids were with us to finish it hehe 😅
Love the prawn and squid were super good! 👍🏻 

Fresh fish

This is one of the best mango dessert I've ever eaten! Highly recommend it! 😋
I hope to bring my mango-loving daughter to try this one day! 😬

While we were dining, it started to rain very heavily! However, the dining area was still comfortable and we could continue to finish our meal.

The food is not that cheap but we loved the taste and quality so it was worth it to us! We probably ordered too much but no regrets! 🤭😄

The rain did not stop when we were leaving the restaurant so we had a bit of difficulty hailing a Grab. Thankfully our Grab (₱493) arrived after waiting for about 20-30 minutes and we were on our way back to our hotel. I rested in the room for a bit before heading for evening canapes at the Horizon Lounge.

My choice of food this time

We walked to the nearby The Landmark and Glorietta malls for shopping. The whole Makati shopping district is made up of many malls that were interconnected. It took us thousands of steps to walk through the malls and even then, we decided to turn back before we reached the end!

Bought fried chicken and bubble tea from this stall at The Landmark basement food court

Realised that there was Jollibee in the mall next door and bought those as well!
(The Hubby is a big fan of fried chicken!)

We were super tired after a long day of walking and went to bed early because we can! 😄🤭

Continue to >> Manila Day 3-4: Lucky Chinatown, Flight Home & My Reflections
<< Back to Manila Day 1: Makati Shangri-la Horizon Club

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Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on Manila, Philippines 

as well as other travel itineraries!

Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!