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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