FEASTING in The Philippines & Getting Scammed by Taxi Driver

Good morning! My first day in the Philippines. So we got in, like I mentioned, 6 last night. No food since. My first bite of food today will be some traditional Filipino fare. I'm so excited. First of all, check this out. This is the biggest, biggest jug of water I've ever seen in my life. Also, there's like no hot water here. I think you gotta boil water and like scoop it over your, I don't know. So I took a cold shower last night. But I'm starving. I'm really excited to go eat food. You hungry Ben? Yeah, really, really hungry. Exciting first day in a brand new city. Brand new country. Look at this. That's a really interesting cab. I'm at Softel. I'm so excited because I've been hearing about this buffet. This massive buffet called the Spiral Buffet in the Philippines for no less than 4 years. And I'm finally here. I'm 2 hours early and then I'm waiting for them to open. And I'm gonna eat the heck out of that buffet. This hotel is nice. Beautiful swimming pool. That is pretty beautiful. Great buffet. Officially Khao Mai. Let's take a picture. You want to take a picture? Yeah, absolutely. You want to be in my vlog too? Anyway, great buffet. Like people are so nice. Finally, another item off my bucket list. And you guys should actually put this on your bucket list and let me know what you think when you try it. Okay, now back to the hotel. For an Airbnb with no hot water. It's bedtime. I'll see you guys tomorrow. To take a shower with warm water, I literally have to boil my own water and then mix it with cold water and then scoop it onto myself. I haven't done this since I was back in China. Luckily I have experience. Today we're traveling to the town of Taguite and we're gonna eat some Bulago. It's a soup. Traditional Filipino soup. Don't know what to expect. I've never had it before. Have you had it before? No. I'm hungry. I'll eat anything right now. It's not as heavy as the other things we've eaten. I don't care. It was perfect for me. I like what we ate yesterday. It almost killed me a little bit. This is the special Bulago. It's sauce is so thick. The key also to this dish is the huge bone marrow that comes in every single serving. This thing, huge is an understatement. Weighing at least 4 pounds. And look at the marrow that's all inside of that. I cannot wait to dig into that. Well, here we are. My first time visiting a Chinatown in another country. And this is the oldest Chinatown in the world right here in Manila. It started in 1590s. It's over 400 years old. And of course, I'm here for food. And throughout that time, a lot of Chinese cuisine obviously has been transformed. And it's now more of a Chinese slash Filipino. We're going to start the day right here at Carvalho Alley. Tons of street vendors, tons of food, vegetables. There are some places that we're going to go to today. But otherwise, we're just going to see whatever looks good. And we're just going to take a bite. We just had just the most wonderful meal. Ali here cooked everything so great. This is sweet. I'll just take one. I don't want to get too much. These guys are just the friendliest guys. Wow. That was just awesome. We never, you know, met random strangers at a fish market and came home with them before. But we should do it more often. Look at these things. All covered in dried garlic. Dried to perfection. And look at the jumbo prawn. The size of this monster. I mean, it's seriously kind of heavy to lift this. Look at everything that's swimming with the fish. Cabbage, green peppers, red chilies, garlic. And all that is surrounding this beautifully fried fish. This crab is beautiful and it knows it. Well, this is the day before I leave Manila. I'm going to Cebu tomorrow and just wanted to meet some of the people here. I feel bad because it's kind of a Friday. It's 1 o'clock. I don't expect a lot of people to show up because people got work and school. But this is really the only time I could do it. So let's see if anyone's here. Just having some nice quality food time with my friends I just met today. Yeah. Food party. That's it. We are leaving Manila. It's been a really fun experience. My first experience in Philippines was the city. I love it. Met some really great people here. Ate a lot of great food, obviously. And now, on to Cebu. This is the first time it's rained really heavily since we've been here. Luckily, it's the day we're leaving. Wow, this airport. The line to check in starts from the outside. Alright, so I knew this was going to happen. We went to Terminal 3 for some reason by mistake. And we're going to Terminal 4. And they're charging us 2,300 pesos to go to one terminal. Going to any hotel in Metro Manila is only 2,300. So this guy is ripping us off here. Definitely. Our Uber from our hotel, which took like an hour, was only 4,000 pesos. So don't ever take this company if you're in the airport. This is like crazy. This is a robbery right here. Yeah, so don't. Do not fall for that. Oh my goodness. I knew it was going to be a scam as soon as I asked him for how much it was going to cost to get us from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4 when he said get in the car first. I knew it was going to be a scam. I knew it. But I didn't know how much a scam. I thought maybe like, you know, they'll charge us like, they'll charge us a little extra. You know, it won't be that much. But to give us a little rate card asking for 2,300 pesos. That's $50 to drive from one terminal to the next when our Uber that took an hour to get to the airport costs only $10. This is the most crazy scam. So make sure you get the right terminal. Don't be like me. We got the wrong terminal. Got in that guy's taxi. That's on me. But jeez. Watch out for this. We're actually reporting the cab driver to the police right now because they said it was only should have been 200. Yeah. So other people don't get scammed like I got scammed. Yeah. I would like to avoid if we can, you know, get this guy, stop what he's doing. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. So we reported the cab driver to the police and they told me usually like a fare from one terminal to the other is 150, 200, 250 at the most. So it's good. They're going to hopefully find this guy and discipline him and hopefully this won't happen to anybody else. Also, what the police said we should have done was when he demanded the money just to say no and just call the police. So if you guys are ever in that situation, I guess try that. Like we actually felt because he took us to a gas station. I mean, Jasmina thought we're going to get kidnapped. Also I just want to say the officers were beyond courteous. So that was just, you know, it was a not a great situation, but they were so nice and friendly. It's pretty awesome. This is the domestic terminal for Manila airport. And it looks like there's, there's one place to eat here that very Filipino, Din Din's Cafe. That is why the line is like, as you can see, food looks like there's a lot of pork. I'm good with that. Two of these boxes of food. One is, because look, it's kind of tiny. This one is pork. Oh, what's that broccoli doing there? It's like Taylor Swift as a relationship counselor. It just doesn't fit. Oh, but that's fatty pork over rice. And then this is chicken and pork over rice. They gave me three spoons because I think they think Korean people are eating this. After about a two hour delay, finally we're ready to board. Whoa. It's the first time I've ever went on a plane. It has like steam coming out the top or mist. I like it. It's pretty cool. Like refreshing. My first time flying here in Asia. Besides the whole mist thing, there's music when you get on board. It's kind of a misty, clubby atmosphere. I smell food. The flight was really delayed, so we just got in around 7. It takes about an hour to get to our Airbnb. And it's not relaxing because I've got to go to the first night market tonight. It's supposed to be an awesome one. I'm very excited. I wish I was more hungry though. Does it mean it's hotter in here? I think it's hotter. It's hotter here, right? Alright, we're going to go to our Airbnb. Hopefully this one has hot water. That would be nice. This is it. Nice place. Welcome! Thank you, thank you. Nice place. The place looks good. It's nice and spacious. It's got a huge balcony. No, it just looks huge. But the view is nice. So far, so good. Really liking this place.