It’s that time of year again when I make my annual Thanksgiving trip with my travel group (my friends from college) to yet another destination abroad. The group met up in Bangkok and then continued on to Phuket but since I had a little extra time to spare I decided to stop over in Manila to see some old friends.

My first stop after being picked up from the airport was my favorite fish market on Macapagal. My friends surprised me with homemade cupcakes as a welcome back.

The reason I LOVE this place is because you literally pick out all of your fresh seafood from the market and then walk next door to the restaurant and they prepare it to your hearts desire. When I lived in Manila I used to go to this place at least once a week, every week, for 2 years.

Here is some Lapu Lapa, steamed with some fresh sliced veggies.

Chili crab. For anyone who has been to South East Asia you know Chili crab can be found almost anywhere and it is epic. All of the time.

My friends getting ready to devour all the food we had.

I travelled halfway across the world for these babies. Chili Garlic Prawns!!!!! Living in Sweden I am deprived of enjoying huge delicious shrimp like this so I may or may not have binged a bit while I was in Manila.

Have you ever seen tempura this big??

This is probably the best Calamari in the Philippines and trust me, I have been around.

The lovely ladies that picked me up from the airport. In all honestly I had no idea they were coming but it was definitely a pleasant surprise.I miss waking up to a view like this. A friend of mine gave me the keys to her place for the couple weeks that I was there. This is what I saw every morning when I got out of bed. 

Before… (Fried Chicken and Waffles)

After… You would think I hadn’t been fed in weeks! 🙂Acting silly in elevators. Best place to snap some pictures.

One of my last nights was finished on the rooftop of Gramercy, 71 floors up. Man I missed Manila…