Manila Philippines: Visiting Resorts World

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l-r: Cecilia Brainard, Tillic Lorayes, Guia Lim

I visited Resorts World in Manila with my friends, Tillic Lorayes and Guia Lim.  Resorts World is a casino resort near the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. To get an idea of what the place is like, I have to ask you to imagine Las Vegas.  Resorts World is something like Las Vegas, with gambling, entertainment, shops, restaurants, and a multitude of visitors.  It has the frenetic energy of Las Vegas.

We went there to have a hot stone massage at Island Spa, which I had featured in a blog entry once before.  The manager, Lady Mhaureen Danan, had actually read my blog write-up and thanked me for it (I am always astounded when people tell me they've read my blog! I always feel that I surrender my writing to the Universe, not knowing where the writing ends up, so feedback is always welcome.)

Cecilia with her eyeglasses to view the Bulgari jewelry carefully. No, she did not buy anything there.

The hot stone massage was lovely!

How do I explain this type of massage?

The masseuse uses hot stones instead of her hands to knead your muscles. The heat of the stones is initially shocking but it quickly becomes soothing. Hot stones are positioned on different parts of your body, such as your spine, while the masseuse works on parts of your body. At some point, cold stones are placed on your face (your third eye and cheeks), which is startling but very pleasant. The 90-minute hot stone massage is relaxing (I could say "delicious" and that would be accurate too).

At Resort World, we visited the expensive jewelry shops. We liked the unique jewelry designs of Kristine, and we also admired the golden south sea pearls of Jewelmer. The jewelry of Cartier, Bulgari, and Mikimoto were interesting, but oh, my, prices were in dollars, and we're talking a lot of dollars.  I suppose the high rollers of the casino are the buyers of the $26,000 pearl necklaces and other expensive items.

We ended our visit to Resorts World with dinner at Crisostomo's Restaurant, a place inspired by Philippine National Hero, Jose Rizal's novels (Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo). Crisotomo's describes their food as "turn of the century dining."  To me, the food was good old Filipino food, with some twists. We had salad, vegetables, and some wicked pork, rice of course; and we topped all these with halo-halo (warning: an order of halo-halo is huge, and can be shared by two people).

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Tags: Manila, Metro Manila, Philippines, travel, tourism, casino, Resorts World

This is all for now
Cecilia