SHOCKED to See This in MANILA, Feels Like We’re In UK!

Guys, Lucy was just playing the saddest Christmas songs ever. It's cheered up a little bit in there now. What was that? What? It was so like sad and minor tones. Oh, I didn't really notice. It was playing like Christmas jazz or something, which I do like. This was very, it was like sad piano music. Anyway, welcome to a brand new vlog. We have, this is like coming up to, it's coming up as fast as Christmas now. I don't know why I'm looking at my watch as if it's like there's Christmas day on my watch. There is not. But it is coming up very, very fast. Today, we are off to see some friends this morning for some brunch. Actually, old neighbours of ours. You've seen Chow Yiu Ma on the vlogs before, but he's actually flying back to Ireland for Christmas, meaning this is a little goodbye for us today until the new year. I'm wearing the most festive outfit I could possibly think of, this brown T-shirt. Kind of blending with the Christmas tree, I don't know. We were just having this chat because we were kind of speaking with our family back home and they were saying that they'd just gone into another, what is it, another tier? Or Boris Johnson just changed the Christmas rules again or something, so they're only being able to see family on Christmas day, which is still good that they can do that. But people have made a lot of plans around Christmas day. For example, my youngest sister's birthday is on the 27th and I know a lot of families and people like to meet on the 24th, especially here in the Philippines because that's like the main celebration. Hello. What have you got there? For you. For me? No, for our friends. Oh, is that for them? Yeah. Why do you think I bought it? Oh, we'll show that in a second. You don't get anything. I don't know what you get up to. So guys, comment below, what is your favourite day around Christmas? I want you to pause the video or I'll give you some time while I'm talking. Do you think I can write on plastic with a marker pen? Yeah, try, why not? If you're watching this video, if you're hearing my voice, if you're listening to me right now, comment below on the video right now, what is your favourite day around Christmas? Is it the 24th? Is it Christmas day? Is it the 29th, New Year's Eve? That's not always New Year's Eve, is it? Also let us know if you have a birthday on Christmas, like 24th or 25th. I can't personally imagine what that would be like because my birthday's in May, but I bet there's people watching there that have a Christmas birthday. So comment below if that's you. That is so nice. I'm just done graffiti all over the- What is it, red wine? Yeah, and a candle. Oh. I didn't pick Christmas, so I've had to put Christ. Look, how unsatisfying, Christmas. Oh, loose. So annoying, but it's Mark Hentz, so I don't have a take two. Oh, you can't rub it out. Oh, well. They'll probably throw it in the bin anyway, the box, so it's all right. I'd keep that box, it's okay. It was nice until I ruined it. It's only paper. All right. Let's go. Oh. Wow, all this is closed off. Cool, bonsai trees. That's epic. Look at these. Always something new going on here, isn't there? I did not expect to see, like, a bonsai tree display this morning. I was just taking a picture. Can you move, please? Just met the sweetest subscribers as well. Christine and Marie, I think. Met them just there, and apparently, they were literally just talking about us before we walked up to them. How weird is that? Hope you guys have a great Christmas. So these are the new restrictions in the high street. We've had this all the way up. Morning. Can we go this way for a minute? Yeah, we can go this way. They've still got all the plant market on. Lots going on here, but way more checkpoints. Probably the wrong word. It's all closed off, isn't it? Yeah, it's all closed off now. Morning. Oh, they're here already. Hello. Good morning. Morning. So George has gone for the breakfast crepe. Looks good. Enjoy. And I have the vegan green bowl. And I'm not vegan, but I really like the look of the ingredients. Loads of veggies. We're here with Chowi and Mao. We're all gonna tuck in. Yeah, there's an ongoing joke about Mao doesn't wake up before like midday, one. So we never see him for breakfast. Those are very rare occasions. This is literally a miracle. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye. For a grocery haul. Kale, washed and trimmed. Eggs. Thymes. Can't show you that, because it's a gift for someone. French beans. Onions. Pomelo. Avocados. Avocados, I'm joking. Squash. Mustard. Strong and bitey cheese. Oh, we've got some other bits, but I also can't show you them, because they're gifts as well. We've got some bits in Hamleys for our friend. We also bought peanut Christmas presents. We also bought... Oh, I can actually show you what Chowi and Mao got us. We did a little gift exchange at brunch. We both laughed, because we both gave each other a present in the same bag from Boozy. George. Yes. I haven't... I love them a lot. Oh, I love them so much. I haven't had these in years. They're so good. These are so nice. Wow. Careful with your gifts. Oh, that's so sweet. So nice. These are for George. I think there's some more for me in here. Baked Tesco baked beans and pork sausages. We always joke with them about finding British things in the Philippines, because obviously Mao's from Ireland, so it's always like an ongoing joke. We've got a little card in here. Happy holidays. Listen to this, George. Dear George and Lucy, happy, happy holidays. Here's a little something to make your first Christmas in Manila smell and taste a little bit like back home. Love, Chowi. Oh, that's so thoughtful. So nice. Thank you, guys. And then, the star of the show, which they already told us what this is. So excited for this. We've never been able to find English-style sausages in Manila. Ah, yes. Tesco pork sausages. Oh, I'm so excited for these. So cool. Oh, guys, absolutely nightmare. We were just putting our eggs away, and it cracked, and it's gone everywhere. All this stuff is covered in egg. I'm sorry, since when is there this much inside one egg? Yeah, true. I swear it's expanded and gone. It's covered everything. What a nightmare. Just before Christmas. Christmas is over. Cancel Christmas. Sorry, Christmas is canceled. We also received a little Christmas gift from BMW in the post yesterday. Here we are. Look at that handwriting. So nice. And it is, actually, I'm pretending like we've just had it. You can see that we've already had some. It's so good. I'm like, oh, what is it? We've eaten some already. It's a bundt cake, B-U-N-D-T, which is actually the name of the tin style, like the shape of it. And it's like, it tastes like there's alcohol in it. It's like very moist. The most moist cake we've ever eaten. If you don't like the word moist, click off now because this cake is moist. Huge thank you to the team at BMW. Yeah, so nice. And there's a little message on the back and a little Christmas message and a little Christmas card in here, which is cute. So, aw. Actually, can I have some of that now, please? I'm editing a vlog right now and that'd be the perfect little snack. So cool. You want some of that? Yes, please. Naughty George. Do you not want some pomelo instead? Nope. By the way, I've had an idea later. I could potentially make us alcoholic. Yeah. Like candy cane hot chocolate. Oh, sounds good. Yeah. I've had an idea. For like Starbucks or something. Who am I? Starbucks. Take a guess at who last cut this bread. Take a wild guess. Look at that line. Lucy's just made us some. Oh, this is so festive, man. So Christmassy. It's not as big as my usual ones. Just a small cheese board, little bit of the sourdough from Toyo, which we always get now. It's our favourite sourdough. We do have to drive over to Makati to get it. Worth the trip. And it's pretty expensive. It's like 380 a loaf, but trust me, if you're looking to treat yourself over festive period and you live in Makati, go and get yourself a loaf of sourdough from Toyo because it is the best. But I have Lucy's homemade chutney, homemade hummus, some bread crackers and some cheese. We're trying a new cheese. And this is the life we're living right now. Might not seem the most interesting to some of you, but we're going to sit here and we're going to eat some cheese and eat some bread and eat some crackers. And to be honest with you, on a Sunday afternoon, I can't think of anything else that would be more perfect than that. We might watch a Christmas movie. We've got some vlogs we want to catch up on from some of our friends. Little Sunday afternoon chill. Hope you guys are doing the same. Hope you find time in your week to rest and reset and relax because that is just as important as working hard. We always preach the hard work and the grind life and all that kind of stuff, which also is important, but it's all about balance, guys. It is all about balance. And then later this evening, we're actually going to, we're actually adding a very special decoration to our apartment, aren't we? Something that a friend of ours- We've actually already added it. Which is there already, but you guys may not have seen it in the vlogs yet. And we wanted to, because we're spending Christmas in the Philippines this year, we wanted to try and adopt as many of the traditions and culture, the Christmas culture in the Philippines as possible. And this is one thing that you guys told us that is very important and essential and everyone has it. Kids make them, people make them, people put them up. Kids don't make them, everyone makes them. I thought it was like kids making them. Or you make them, I heard someone say like kids make them in schools here. We'll show you after. Eat some cheese. So we're currently watching him and Tom's video where they're doing gargling water in a tune. And they're both really laughing at it. And we've just sent a voice note to Tom and he said he wants us to try it. So basically you gargle water and have to guess a Christmas tune that the other person's doing. George said it makes him all sick. Yeah, I can't do it. I'll guess yours. You guess mine, so just film it. Christmas in the Philippines, our own song. Yeah, but my neck's cramping. Oh no, cut, cancel. Okay, another one, your turn. You do one, try one. We're actually doing this with coconut water. I don't want to spill it. Went in my nose. I can't do it. I can't make any noise. You just went in. I had to swallow it. Try it. No, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. Here comes Santa Claus. Thanks for that challenge, guys. Oh, it makes me feel sick listening to it. Stop. Oh, Jingle Bell Rock. No, that's enough. What are you doing? It's just one tune. Oh my God. I think we need to take a break from this whole YouTube channel, the whole vlog. We've peaked. Guess it. We've peaked for the year. Guess it. I don't know what that is. I can't say that. I'll do it again. Silent Night. All right, enough. So there is something in the Philippines here that is like George said, like a real staple. And I would go as far as saying just as popular as Christmas trees. And it's something called perol, which is like a lantern. They're often lit up inside and they're traditionally constructed using bamboo and Japanese paper illuminated with candles, oil lamps, or candles, oil, or lamps. I'm trying to find the meaning behind it. Okay, it came from the Spanish word for lantern and a couple of weeks ago, our friends Kai and Sai were at a market. They sent me a message on Instagram and said, would you guys like me to pick you up some perol? If so, what colour do you like? What size would you like? And they kindly sent it over as a little Christmas gift for us. And we've hung it. I'm looking at it right now. It's so nice. It's bright yellow. I wanted to go for yellow because it's like the most star-like, I'd say. It's like a real star. And I'm gonna show you now. So it's just up here. It's huge. And it's made of like, this one feels kind of, I don't know what it is. It's almost plasticky. And then there's this really cool, like, tassel on two of the corners of the star, but it's so nice. I'm gonna stand back a bit so you can really see it. But look at that. We've also got our light set, one of green over here and one's a kind of like warm yellowy colour here. I thought I'd show you guys our new little Christmas decoration. I think the first real time we came across perol, I mean, obviously we've seen like stars and stuff around the Philippines, for all three Christmases we've been here for, but I never really knew that it was different to like a normal decoration, just like a star or a lantern. I didn't know the meaning behind it and how like important it was as part of like the culture here. And the time when we really kind of learnt about it was when we watched on our reaction channel, we reacted to the Disney ad, the Disney UK ad, which is cool, because we're obviously from England and there was a Disney advert that was kind of based in Manila in the Philippines and also in Britain. And it was all about this grandmother who would always make parole each year with her granddaughter, I think. And it was like the meaning behind it and spending Christmas with family. It's a really nice video that we watched on the reaction channel and they had like loads of parole up in the room they were in in their lounge and it looked so nice. So we just wanted to have a little tribute to that and our own little parole up in here. I mean, one day it'd be cool to have like a whole ceiling full, but for now we'll stick with the one. My hair is getting incredibly long. Look at this. I just feel like it's become extra long in the last week. Anyways, I think we're gonna end this video off now and see you guys tomorrow in a brand new video. We hope you enjoyed today's vlog. What are we doing today's vlog? Anyways, we hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please give it a big thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel if you're new. Merry Christmas from George and I to you and your friends and family. Thank you for spending the day with us. Thank you for spending a little bit of time with us today. We appreciate you watching as always and we'll see you very soon in another video. Bye.