Wednesday, December 20, 2006

I have returned, very much alive, from the Philippines.

The dental/medical outreach was quite popularly received; we worked 3 full days giving dental and medical services to the people of the village. We were at Quezon City, somewhere in Manila. It's actually an urban village, not those rural villages with cows and chickens and no electricity. That I shall blog about more at a later date.

Of the local food, I won't say I love it, but I did enjoy it. There was this local snack I tried. It's called balot. They sell for 10 peso each. That's about S$0.30.


To the clueless, balots are boiled duck eggs. Except that there's a duckling inside, a few days short of hatching. At the insistence of my Filipino friends, I decided to try it. It took much mustering of courage before I could bring myself to even hold the egg.


This, was how it looked like after the shell is peeled away. The yellow bag it's hugging is the yolk sac. It's disgusting, just the thought of eating this poor little thing which could (and would) have developed into a cute little duckling. But food is food is food. Since it has already sacrificed it's little life, I must do justice to it's death by eating it.


It was, surprisingly, quite edible, and unexpectedly tasty! So I finished the entire egg. I was told it was very nutritious and good for the body, especially the knees(?). It's not so bad actually, it tasted like chicken. :) Just that the feathers get stuck to your teeth after, and when you rinse your mouth you see all the feather remains.

Yum yum.

writing at 3:52 PM

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