Kites. All the time.
Barbed wire gates, a tangle of electrical lines, and hard working people.
Election posters everywhere, everywhere, and everywhere.
And campaign events happening right outside our apartment gate.
Jeepneys and stuff.
The view from where I’m sitting right now. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: those kites.
This is my neighborhood.
I’m Lindsay and I ♡ FOOD. I used to be a teacher, and now making food and writing about it online is my full-time job. I love talking with people about food, and I'm so glad you're here.
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Beautiful, I bet it is bittersweet to leave! As always, I love your posts! 🙂
So cool to get to see a whole new way of living! I love these post. I bet you are sad to be leaving!
I just love these posts Lindsay – the way you’re capturing this season of y’alls life there is beautiful!
Thanks Heather! So nice when people take time to read them and appreciate this part of the world with us. 🙂
These are gorgeous!
Great photos Lindsay! I enjoy seeing the Philippines and can’t wait to get back there so my kids can take a ride on a Jeepney.
Such an experience! 🙂
Beautiful photos Lindsay! What an amazing year you’ve had. I agree that it must be bittersweet to leave the Phillipines, thanks for sharing your experience with us.
It’s great to see how people live in other places through the eyes of someone else. These are gorgeous photos. I really enjoyed the simplicity of this post
You really captured some amazing pictures. Looks like you have an amazing neighborhood rich with culture.
It’s truly incredible to see real life in the Philippines. They certainly do not lead lives of luxury but they seem to find happiness in the simple things, which is inspiring. I can’t imagine the mix of feelings you must have as you prepare to come home soon. I’m sure they will miss you terribly!
I may have to thank you again and again for taking me (back) to places even I have never been in my own birth country. Beautiful images!
Lovely photos. I’m going to miss your posts from the Philippines. But you’ve inspired me to visit there one of these days!
I do hope you’ll visit our country. There are a lot of beautiful things to see here. 🙂
Wow that looks so amazing! It is so kind of you to go there and it looks absolutely beautiful.
You’ve done such a great job of sharing your reality as you experience it. Thank you for your beautiful pictures and reflections!!
Ditto: I’ts been a great journey.
So amazing and beautiful. I am curious as to what your next steps are. I know you are planning on returning to Minnesota and being from Wisconsin…I feel ya! Once we lived in China for a year, we couldn’t go back to normal. I wonder your feelings on the matter.
Love the pictures and what you did this year. I spent some (very little) time in China at an orphanage and it changed my life.
Love your neighborhood. Would love pictures of the local street food too. Those are always my favorite. 🙂
Thanks Paz! I wish I had more street food pics to share – but we actually don’t eat street food because we’ve been advised by everyone not to because the preparation, ingredients, etc. are likely to make our weak bodies sick. 🙂 But we do eat bibingka occasionally from street vendors! I think I have a picture of that on one of my older living abroad posts. And I would love to at least get some photos of other street foods before we go even if we can’t eat it!
We are feeling pretty confident in our decision to move back home right now, but I know that things won’t be “normal” and we are definitely expecting some reverse culture shock. As far as our next steps, we will move slowly back into our jobs at home. I’m lucky that I’m a teacher so my hope is to take some time off this summer to get settled and reconnected and then find something for this fall.
THanks for the comment! Are you still living in China or are you back in Wisconsin?
Beautiful photos. All those kites remind me of a story my dad told me about growing up in the Philippines. They’d have these “kite wars,” where they’d try to knock over the other kids’ kites and be the last ones in the air. My uncle apparently thought it would be a good idea to use wire for his kite so it was stronger than the rest. But it got caught on electrical wire and he got electrocuted and sent to the hospital. I’m not sure if my dad was just making this story up, but whether it’s truth or fiction, I love it all the same.
Are you leaving the Philippines soon? Wish I had discovered your blog earlier so I could have followed along in your adventure. I’ll be digging through your archives all day. 🙂
Oh my gosh! Considering the mess that is power lines in the Philippines, I can believe it! We will be leaving to go back home in about a month.
I was just re-reading my comment and realized it sounds horrible that I love a story about my uncle getting hurt. Let me just add that he was always getting into that kind of trouble (such as riding a water buffalo and breaking his arm and having to go to the witch doctor to heal it) and he was never seriously injured.
No worries – I understood what you meant. 😉
I just found your site! I’m traveling to Manila in June for two weeks with my daughter. We adopted her from the Philippines 16 years ago!..going back for a visit!
I’m going to troll your site for sure!
I absolutely love the photos that you share of your life right now! They are beautiful and moving!
Reading your abroad posts brought back great childhood memories. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Rod! Always fun to hear from people who have personal connections to the Philippines.
Beautiful photos! My son is 1/4 Filipino (my mother in law is from Tarlac), so we are hoping to be able to take him to the Philippines someday.
Gorgeous photos, Lindsay. I love the glimpse at what your neighborhood looks like, and I am always impressed by the kite flying from the rooftops. As a pathetic kite flyer myself, I can appreciate the skill it takes for those kids to learn and become so skilled at maneuvering them.
Thanks Shaina! 🙂
Hi Lindsay,
I am from Cebu, Philippines. I stumbled upon your blog looking for recipes from home because I just got here in the States to work two months ago. You have me missing my country more. Reading from your experiences I feel really proud to be a Filipino.
I’d like to thank you for your generous heart in taking the journey to look and see what a beautiful place and people we have there. You went ahead and capture the things that really matter and heartwarming, more so of the delicious recipes from home. They represent us, I think. Simple, easy and just plain awesome.
Thank you Agatha! XO
I found your blog searching for cookie dough brownies (awesome by the way). We lived in Cebu in 2012 too. Such a wonderful place. I was profoundly affected by how these people, who live in a poverty that those who have never left the US could not even fathom, are so happy. They love their family and their friends so fully and it fills them in every way. I fell in love with these people. It really made me appreciate the important things even more.