l-r: Tillic Lorayes, Cecilia Brainard, Guia Lim
It’s become a tradition that when I’m in
Manila, my friend, Tillic Lorayes, and I go to the Island Spa at the New World
Hotel to have a massage, followed by dinner with our other friend, Guia Lim.
Friday, we did just that: one-hour foot massage, followed by a one hour Swedish
massage – very relaxing. (In the past we had enjoyed Island’s Stone Massage and
a Mixed Massage.)
The Island Spa in New World is
well-appointed. Some rooms have bathrooms with showers, other with bathtubs.
There is television if you wish, otherwise there is calm piped-in music. The
rooms are nicely dim. You start off with ginger tea (or water), if you wish;
and you are offered ginger tea or water after the massage. The masseuses always
check if the pressure they’re applying is fine. You can ask them to apply more
or less pressure.
After our massage, we showered and
changed to return to Makati to have dinner with Guia Lim at Sala, an elegant
restaurant on Ayala Avenue, near the Ayala Museum. Sala is thankfully not a
large restaurant. It maintains a kind of intimacy with its roughly 100 seating
capacity. It is not loud and noisy. It’s the kind of place that makes you feel
you are “dining out” to a special place for a special meal.
Like Blackbird Restaurant, where I had
dinner a few nights ago, Sala is a high-end restaurant. Sala’s dishes were not
a hodgepodge like Blackbird’s. Sala’s menu had few choices, but excellent ones.
I had a very nice duck; Guia enjoyed her pork chop; Tillic had a lovely fish.
We enjoyed pudding and meringue with ice cream and mango. The ambiance and
service were excellent; the three of us were quite happy at Sala’s.
As far as the three of us are concerned,
our history goes all the way back to high school days. We were friends then and
remain friends now, and consequently we never ever run out of topics to
discuss, from politics, to world events, to climate change, to news about our
families and careers, to remembrances of our past travels together.
Tillic and I have been to Vigan, Bohol,
and Cebu together. Guia and I have been to Canada and Burma. Tillic
and Guia have gone to China and Macau together.
Be sure and read about some of those trips.
Read also
Tags: Makati, Manila, Philippines,
travel, holiday, vacation, spa, massage, restaurant, food, drink, gourmet
This is all for now,
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