Monthly Archives: December 2025

Cebu: the land of rich culture, delicious food (like lechon!), and beautiful beaches

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Before we came to the Philippines, the only things I knew about Cebu were that a) it was known for its delicious lechon (roasted suckling pig!), b) it has gorgeous beaches and is good for swimming, snorkeling/diving, and c) one of the Filipino nannies in our building is originally from here. When Kaia had a nanny, this nanny and I got acquainted, and so we’re friendly and have small talk when we see each other. When Chris booked this trip, I told her about it, and she immediately got excited that we were going to her homeland.

“There’s such good food in Cebu!” she exclaimed. “You will eat very well there!”

Before I started researching Cebu, I just imagined it being like Boracay, that it was some small island where you’d have water activities and the related to do. But this baseless assumption (that I… just made up in my head for no good reason) was quickly squashed once I looked at it on the map: Boracay is about 3.985 square miles; Cebu is 121.6 square miles. Boracay’s total population is about 38,000 people; Cebu province’s total population is over 5.1 million people, with about 1 million of those residents living in Cebu City, a very urbanized city (and where our hotel for this leg of the trip is). The Cebu metropolitan area or Metro Cebu is the second largest metropolitan area in the Philippines (after Metro Manila). So in Cebu, you could have a mixed holiday with both urban fun and sun, beaches, and water. You could also do nature activities like hikes to see some famous waterfalls. You could easily just spend your entire time here exploring the metro area for all its urban glory, or you could forgo the city completely and hang out at the beaches, maybe even go to Mactan Island to visit some of the most famous beaches in Cebu. The strangest thing, though, that we were not expecting is that Ayala Center Cebu Mall would be listed as the number one place to visit while in Cebu City.

After we got situated at our hotel in Cebu City yesterday, we walked a couple blocks to Ayala Center Cebu to see what the hype was about. It was an interesting experience for us not only because we live in New York City and rarely go to malls, but also because of the types of stores they had. I had no idea Garmin brick and mortar stores existed? I saw a Sperry shoe store (when I always thought they were sold only online or at major department stores?). Individual brands had their own little shops throughout the mall. We also noticed that there were apartments/condos built on top of the malls, so I suppose that’s just very easy shopping access for the residents in this relatively wealthy area? A fun thing we saw for Kaia (that she immediately made a beeline for) was a huge outdoor play area that was covered. It had several large slides, plenty of areas for tactile climbing, plus spinny rides that the kids were getting very feisty over. They also had parents/caregivers in mind when they designed this space, as there was plenty of seating and benches for us to comfortably watch over our kids.

The mall has several floors of individual restaurants, so we randomly picked a spot called Gerry’s Grill yesterday. There, we had a sizzling plate of kang kong (morning glory/water spinach – another thing I learned is that this vegetable is also very popular here!) with shrimpy sambal, pork sisig, inihaw bangus (grilled milkfish), and garlic rice, with a pitcher of sagot gulaman. Sagot gulaman was also new to us: it’s a sweet Filipino beverage made from brown sugar syrup, with tapioca pearls and almond jelly. Everything we had was so delicious and absurdly cheap for the quality of food. Kaia also enjoyed all the food, and she’s been really loving her morning glory while here (another bonus is that we don’t have to worry about her not getting enough vegetables, as in some destinations, it can be challenging to find decent vegetable dishes to regularly order).

Today, we visited Carbon Market, which is considered the main market for all of Cebu and where most of the food and goods comes through. I quickly realized why it wasn’t really listed on most tourist guides – it’s very much a local, locals market. There’s little about it that would scream out to tourists that they should come visit: it’s not pretty or flashy, nor does it have beautiful displays of produce or products. Everything there just has practical value in that it needs to be bought and sold – no frills here whatsoever. I loved seeing the endless piles of teeny tiny calamansis, all priced the same at 80 PHP/kilo ($1.35 USD/2.2 lb). The pineapples are also so small here, just like we saw in Manila Chinatown: the largest of the tiny pineapples were just a tad bigger than my fist!

I usually don’t mind this and enjoy the locals’ markets, but I will be honest and say that of all the markets we’ve visited thus far around the world, Carbon Market was likely the least pleasant. There were many sections of this market we walked through where the smells were a combination of rotting fish to heated rubbish. Kaia, who over the last six months, has become increasingly aware and knowledgable of unpleasant odors, immediately started yelling out, “It smells! It smells!”, indicating that she wanted to leave as soon as possible to be free of said foul odors. Her face looked so distressed. And frankly, I couldn’t really blame her. She yelled this out several times, and at one moment, it was right when Chris identified where the fish market was. This was also when we noticed how wet the floors were in there, and thought the fish market smells would likely not be too fun for any of us. So we decided not to go in and instead to wander around the streets of the market instead.

The one big win of going to the market, other than seeing some nice views of the city through the top floors, was running into some jackfruit vendors along the streets. We’re lucky in that we are visiting during jackfruit season (though it seems we were five months off from peak durian season, unfortunately), so I asked a vendor how much she charged for hers. She said 150 PHP/kilo (that’s about $2.54 USD for 2.2 pounds of fruit!). I chose a pre-cut chunk of jackfruit that was about 250 PHP, and she agreed to slice all the jackfruit pockets out for me (there was no way I was going to do this work on my own!). We ate some right away, and even Kaia got into it and kept asking for more. I love watching her really get into our favorite foods. Unfortunately, she did not have the same reaction to trying the mangosteen I bought in Manila Chinatown. But given that we already had so little flesh in those, it was fine that just Chris and I ate it.

We’re all sleeping early tonight despite it being New Year’s Eve so that we can wake up bright and early for an island hopping and snorkeling adventure tomorrow. Chris said it reminded him of our New Year’s Eve in Indonesia in 2019, when we were in Yogyakarta and had to wake up before sunrise to see Borobudur Temple. I have a feeling this will be even more exciting because this will involve not only a boat, but being in deep water (which will be Pookster’s first time!).

One day eating in Manila

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Manila, the capital of the Philippines and the country’s largest metro area, is one of those places that you rarely hear about international tourists visiting unless they are either originally from there, are visiting family, or simply transiting through to get to more (internationally) popular places like Boracay or Palawan. With a population of over 14 million people, Metro Manila is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. It is also known for its chaotic traffic, which I was quite wary of before we arrived. Manila to the Philippines is kind of like Jakarta to Indonesia from an international traveler’s standpoint: it’s a capital city that people either transit through or manage to avoid entirely because most international travelers prefer more buzzy destinations, like Palawan, Cebu, or Boracay in the Philippines, or for Indonesia, the most obvious destination of Bali.

Manila is a strange city in that its large skyscrapers are not all concentrated in one section of the city. It actually has several very disparate parts of the city that are very spread out, each with their own concrete jungles! I noticed this when we were landing at the airport and thought about how unusual this was. We split our one day in Manila yesterday between the historic neighborhood and its Chinatown, also known as Binondo, which is supposed to be the oldest Chinatown in the world. It was established in 1594 as a permanent settlement for Chinese-Catholic immigrants. One thing I didn’t realize before coming to Manila and reading about it is that there’s actually a distinctive fusion cuisine for Chinese-Filipino food. One of the examples we got to try today was the Binondo-style fresh lumpia. This is not lumpia as in the Filipino fried egg rolls you may be familiar with, but rather a freshly packed spring roll stuffed with various vegetables, minced pork, crushed peanuts, brown sugar, seaweed, and crispy fried vermicelli noodles. To be honest, this was a bit sweet for us, but it did emphasize how Filipinos do like their foods on the sweeter side.

Siomai (or shu mai/shao mai/siu mai) is wildly popular here: you see endless street vendors selling these, and pretty much all the restaurants have different versions of them. They are huge, plump, fat, and brimming with pork. These are far larger than the ones you’d get at the average Chinese spot, whether it was for takeout or at a dim sum/tea house. We got some at a noodle shop we visited, and they were multiple mouthfuls big! The ones I am used to eating in Cantonese restaurants and dim sum houses typically have a mix of pork and shrimp, but these had pork only.

One interesting thing I liked seeing were the Lunar New Year decorations already up and being sold on the streets. The wreath that stood out to me the most was a true fusion of Chinese and Filipino cultures: a round wreath of calamansis all around, framing a teeny tiny fist-sized pineapple, then wrapped with a red bow, with red and gold tassels dangling down. That’s probably the best Lunar New Year decoration I’ve ever seen — ever. I would love to hang that in my house (and have unlimited access to calamansis!).

I also love that little calamansis are served with pretty much all your dishes to add a little sour/tart flair to your food. This came with pretty much everything, whether it was dry noodles, soup noodles, or sizzling meat plates. While I didn’t always add this to my dishes, I did either suck them up myself or have Kaia eat them. Kaia enjoyed chewing them down to pulp! These tiny suckers have so many seeds for how small they are! Kaia did NOT enjoy all the seeds, though.

In just our first day in the Philippines, we already got our ube fix: in the morning, we shared a mango topped ube cheesecake shake; Kaia requested an ube swirl bun from a little bakery in the historical neighborhood. There, I saw a six-pack of ube cheese pandesal for just 120 PHP – that’s about $2 USD. I was tempted to get it, but I thought that my head was getting a bit too ahead of my belly, so I resisted. In the afternoon at Divisoria Mall, we shared a mango smoothie, plus our first halo halo topped with a huge scoop of ube ice cream. I wasn’t sure what Kaia liked more – the ube ice cream or all the colorful jellies mixed into the shaved ice.

We ended the day in Bonifacio Global City (BGC), a neighborhood that seemed a world away from Chinatown and the historical neighborhood, and ate a delicious meal of kare kare beef stew, lechon kawali, and garlic rice, with fresh calamansi and dalandan (a Filipino citrus) juices. If there was one thing to be certain about the Philippines, it is that I was pretty darn sure we would eat well here. And after just a day, I can say I was definitely right in that assumption.

A happy breakfast buffet surprise in Manila: Taho (tofu pudding) station!

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Over the last 13 years, Chris and I have been very lucky and privileged to experience some really phenomenal breakfast buffets at hotels across the world. We’ve seen complex noodle stations, made-to-order hand rolls, dim sum baskets galore, and pooris, dosa, and uttappam made to order. But one thing that I’d actually never seen that I never thought about before breakfast at our Manila hotel today was… a doufu hua or tofu pudding station! Tofu pudding can be served savory or sweet, with lots of toppings or with pretty much none. While I’ve had the savory ones and have enjoyed them, especially while in China or Taiwan, my heart is with the sweet dessert version since it’s what I grew up with. As a child, I was given doufu fa / dou hua as a treat. It was always silky smooth and soft tofu, served with a brown sugar syrup (sometimes with ginger, my favorite!). More elaborate versions now have fresh fruit, different types of tapioca balls, flavored jellies; it can get really colorful and complex!

Taho is what Filipinos call tofu pudding. Like in many Asian countries, it is a popular snack that is made from silken tofu, served with a sweet syrup (in this case, it was a brown syrup). This version is topped with large, chewy, springy tapioca balls. The tapioca balls were almost clear in color, and lightly sweetened. I took several pictures of the taho station and of course, indulged in a bowl this morning. I thought about my mom, who absolutely loves tofu pudding. When she worked in Quy Nhon for the U.S. Army, she occasionally would save money and “splurge” on a cup of tofu pudding from a street vendor. So she used to share this story with me all the time when I was young. And then when she took me to Vietnam in 2007 and we were walking the streets of Quy Nhon together, we got tofu pudding off the street. And the memory became a shared moment for both of us to enjoy the same thing together as she did during her youth — in the same place as back then.

While my mom has passed this love down to me, I have not quite passed this love down to Kaia yet — she’s tried dou hua a number of times, but she doesn’t seem that enthused by it. When I offered her a spoonful of the taho this time, she immediately rejected it. That’s okay — more for me (for now)!

Off to the Philippines

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And just like that, our time in Australia has wrapped up for the year. Chris’s parents dropped us off at Melbourne airport this morning for an early flight to Sydney, where we’d have a layover before boarding our flight to Manila. At the Melbourne Qantas lounge, I got to enjoy my last little bits of Australian goodness before we left, like my last delicious, well-made flat white, as well as my favorite do-it-yourself juicer machine: for myself, I made my usual carrot-apple, and for Kaia, I made her apple juice with both red and green apples at her request. During our layover in Sydney, we hung out for a bit at the international first lounge there, and we got lucky when we entered, as someone had cancelled a 10-minute facial appointment. So Chris added my name to that slot, and within four minutes of entering the lounge, I got an indulgent little facial at the spa. These are all the luxuries that I never even knew existed before the age of 25. Kaia has been exposed to them since before she was even one, flying internationally at age 11 months.

When we arrived in Manila, we took a Grab to our hotel, which is part of a resort that’s directly across from the airport. We got a large suite that overlooked the airport, so Kaia could enjoy watching planes land and take off. This last segment of our trip is already off to a great start.

When Kaia met Modi

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Earlier this year, Chris’s parents got a robot vaccum/mop to relieve them of maintaining their large house. They decided to name the robot vacuum Modi, after Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India. Opinions about the Indian prime minister are usually quite polarizing. So Chris’s parents say they named the robot this because they “want to put Modi to work!” They took Modi out today so that Kaia could see him in action cleaning their house. “Modi has a mind of its own,” Chris’s mom always likes to say. And when I watched it in action, I finally understood what she meant. Modi creates a map of each room it enters, and it shows what it goes over and cleans and what it has yet to clean. It follows no one straight or understandable path, but when it looks like it’s missed a spot, it does eventually go back to it…. on its own time, and with its own method. The robot vacuum connects to an app on your phone, so you can trace its history of cleaning.The vacuum function seems useful, but I actually found the mop function even more handy. Mopping is annoying and painful even if you have all the furniture removed, so to have a machine do this for you would be a huge benefit. Not only would it relieve you of the strenuous effort, but it would also give you back a lot of time. Unfortunately, his parents have not used the mop function, so we have no data points on how good it would actually do in this department.

I loved watching Kaia interact with Modi. She kept following Modi, going behind and in front of it. She loved yelling, “Mo-DEE!” over and over and over again. She got worried when it got close to her scooter, and she yelled, “Don’t crash my scooter!” She talked to it as though it could actually hear her.

As much as his parents ran Modi for Kaia’s entertainment, I actually liked seeing it in action myself. The last time I watched a robot vacuum in action was over ten years ago, when my cousin got my aunt a very early robot vacuum. I found it really underwhelming: it missed spots, and it was agonizingly slow and inefficient… not to mention it cost way more than it should have given what a poor job it did. I guess Modi is an example of technology that has evolved. The first iterations may be crappy, but it can only improve over time.

Kaia loves big spaces and roaming around her “Sumi and Topey’s house” and garden

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Kaia has decided to rename Suma and Topa (her paternal grandparents) to “Sumi and Topey.” I guess “Suma” and “Topa” were not loving enough names, so she had to give these appointed names a slight revision to make it more sweet for herself. Of course, Chris’s parents have lapped this up and love their revised names by their granddaughter. Kaia has enjoyed spending lots of time in Topa’s study “working.” She takes his main big computer desk chair and relegates him to his tiny “guest” seat, and they sit at the desk together “working.” Kaia usually listens to Ms. Rachel or her favorite K-Pop song “Golden,” while Topa does his usual computer activities at her side. Then, when Kaia decides she gets bored, she runs out, puts on her sandals, and runs all around the garden, oftentimes with her Sumi in tow. She throws her big Bluey ball around and starts dancing all along the backyard lawn. She’s been keeping Sumi company while she hangs laundry up to dry on the line. Today, she started collecting all kinds of random tiny shells that lined the outside laundry area and declared she was discovering all kinds of interesting things that Sumi didn’t know existed in her own backyard!

For the last week or so, she keeps announcing how much she loves Sumi and Topey’s house. She says, “SUMI! I LOVE YOUR HOUSE! TOPEY! I LOVE YOUR HOUSE! I LOVE IT! I LOVE THE GARDEN!” And then she lovingly glances at both of them. Today, she looked up at me during breakfast and said, “Mama, I love this house. I don’t like our house.”

Yes, well, it is hard to compare a suburban four-bedroom, four-bath, two-story house with a two-car garage, plus a front and backyard that fully wraps around it, with a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in a large high-rise building in the middle of a concrete jungle, especially for a child as young and small as her. For Pookster, our Manhattan apartment is her benchmark for “normal.” I am sure she runs up and down the stairs at Suma and Topa’s house and all around the large rooms thinking she’s sprinting around some palace, relatively speaking. And then, if it wasn’t enough, she gets access to Chris’s aunt/uncles’ homes that are also large in comparison to our humble abode, and she just thinks she’s in some paradise. Today, I gave her a tour of Chris’s dad’s older brother’s garden, showing her the various trees, having her sniff the star jasmines that were in full bloom, and showing her the apples growing on her second cousin’s tree. I had her tear off a couple curry leaves from their burgeoning curry leaf plant, and she sniffed the familiar and unique scent of citrusy, nutty, anisey, oniony, even piney aroma. She then grabbed a bunch of the curry leaves, ran back into the house, and announced loudly to multiple cousins that she had curry leaves in her hands!

Sumi, Topey, and I reassured her that her house is fun, too, and we all love it. She loves it, and she has all her favorite books, stuffed animals, toys, and other “friends” at home waiting for her there. She also has her own bathroom at home, which she doesn’t have here. She smiled, stopped saying she didn’t like our home, yet still kept repeating over and over how much she loves this house. Well, it’s hard to not love this house given the amount of space and privacy you can have. But I look at it like dessert or treats: it’s something you get once in a while at special times of the year, but you cannot have it all the time, otherwise you would just take it for granted and not appreciate it as much. Both Kaia and I are lucky to be able to share this home when we come back with Sumi, Topey, and their eldest son. I’m always happy every year we come back and we can enjoy this beautiful place together. It will always be one of Kaia’s happy places — how lucky that she gets a nice, warm, loving home in both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere.

Family dynamics and commentary at Christmas

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Today, we spent Christmas day and Chris’s 44th birthday at his dad’s younger sister’s house. This sister has three daughters, all of whom have moved to different parts of the world (Perth, New Zealand, and Canada). From everything I’ve observed about the way this aunt and her husband have raised their kids and the relationship they all have with each other across five people, it’s probably one of the happiest, most healthy and functional family dynamics I’ve ever been exposed to on a semi-regularly basis (okay… semi-regular as in once a year for many, many hours at a time). The kids all keep in touch with their parents. They have a loving sibling relationship with one another and always speak favorably about each other. And they are all supportive of their parents.

As I was chatting with another aunt during lunch today, she was observing how helpful all three daughters (and even one of the daughters’ husbands) were, as they seemed to have something like an assembly line of “getting shit done” going: one daughter was gathering plates and silverware that were no longer being used, another was scraping off food scraps into a bin and arranging them into the dishwasher, and the third was wiping down the kitchen island and rearranging napkins, plates, and desserts into their places. This was all while their parents were consolidating food into smaller containers and organizing other snacks for guests. This aunt, who has two sons, told me that though she was happy her oldest was close and would be here when she hosted all of us over tomorrow on Boxing Day, she was still sad her youngest son in London plus his daughter could not be there). Because not only would that mean she could see both of them, but she’d have an extra set of hands to help since she’s getting older and more tired. I reassured her and told her I’d be happy to help — I don’t really look at it as “work” since it’s easier when more people pitch in.

This aunt kept peering over at her three nieces at work in the kitchen. “It’s just always so nice when all the kids are home. It’s more lively and fun, and they can help out with everything, as well!” She paused for a moment, then glanced over at Chris’s brother, who has infamously been known in the family to not really help out… with much at all, anywhere, and be totally oblivious to this fact (and perhaps even worse, not care). And then she added while continuing to look at him: “Well, it’s happy when most of the kids help out.”

That’s the thing about family: you can love them to bits, but they can truly annoy the fuck out of you regarding how unaware they are of their own deficiencies that negatively impact everyone around them. But I suppose that’s what family is all about: loving your family, blood-related or chosen, despite their imperfections… and maybe even sometimes because of their imperfections. In these cases, at least it provides some comic relief.

When socializing drains you

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In the last couple months, a few different publications have been citing studies regarding what is the optimal amount of time to spend socializing at one time, whether that’s with a single friend, a few friends, or at a large event with friends or colleagues (or even strangers for networking/new relationships). On average, it’s been said that the upper limit of time is about three hours. Of course, some might last longer, and some are shorter, but everyone gets drained eventually, depending on the setting (new people/conflicts are harder), and individual energy levels during that given time. When I catch up with a friend or a group of friends, I usually try to allot about 2-3 hours for it. And usually by the time I’m done, assuming it’s not less than two hours, I usually feel like my cup has been “filled,” and I’ve had enough time to interact with them and get “caught up.” When the time is longer, it’s usually when that friend or I are also including lazy catch-up time, which would include time at someone’s house (so there’s no risk of keeping seats/tables away from others at a cafe/restaurant).

During the Christmas period when we’re in Melbourne, we’re usually at one of Chris’s relatives’ homes or his parents’ house for a family gathering for anywhere from three to four consecutive days. Each gathering lasts anywhere from 4.5-10 hours long. It’s his one time of the year to catch up with the majority of his relatives on his dad’s side. Because he doesn’t have family drama and genuinely likes these relatives, he looks forward to this every year and wants to maximize every single night by staying with everyone for as long as possible. I, on the other hand, get maxed out after several hours (hey, like the study says…) and just want to do my own thing or be away from the crowd and have a 1:1 conversation with someone far away from the screeching and high pitched laughter that prevents me from hearing anything, or just play with Pookster. I get along with everyone; I’ve had 1:1 conversations with every single person in his family, and the majority have been at least somewhat interesting and meaningful. But I don’t feel a need to be with all of them for six to ten hours at a time that many days in a row because I find it tiring. I do it because I am a good spouse and because he says he doesn’t want to be anywhere else for Christmas (which is also his birthday) ever. As they (never say): Happy husband, happy life. 😛

So, I do what almost everyone else other than him does during this period to get through it: I take little breaks and try to get away from everyone every few hours, and it pretty much goes unnoticed by everyone. And since Kaia’s been in the picture, I have an even bigger and better excuse to sneak away. But until the last few years, I didn’t actually realize other people were doing this, too, until I started really watching. His brother will leave a room and go off to another unoccupied room and doom scroll on his phone. Tonight, he asked if Kaia would be interested in taking the scooter out with him in the garden for a little ride (I have no idea if this actually happened, but I doubt it because after he asked me this, he disappeared for at least 30 minutes upstairs). Chris’s dad will disappear with Kaia to go anywhere from his study to his bedroom, where they have sat on his recliner seat and even had a snooze together. His aunts will immerse themselves in cleaning and reorganizing pantries and cupboards that don’t truly require immediate action to avoid active, in-depth conversation that is not small talk. A cousin will go off into the garden on her own and start peering at different trees and flowers. Another cousin will wander into rooms where the others are to look at photos on the walls or in frames for ages.

Chris’s aunt, who turned 71 yesterday, told me that sometimes, she just doesn’t want the big family gathering at their house every year because it’s a lot of work — planning, grocery list making, food prepping, cooking, reorganizing furniture and cleaning. And the older she gets, the more tired she feels even by what used to be the simplest tasks. But she says she does it because she knows how happy it makes all the cousins, and seeing them happy makes her happy. That’s also what this time of year is about — sacrificing for the happiness of others.

We all want togetherness, but in doses. So we find ways to do it, enjoy it, but also preserve ourselves. And at this time of year, there’s a lot of social pressure to socialize (how eloquent) and be with friends, colleagues, and family. Tomorrow, I may just take a break and go downward dog in the next room and see if anyone notices.

Matcha Kobo in Melbourne CBD

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Every time we come back to San Francisco and Melbourne since they are our original homes, it’s always a trade-off on what places we love that we’ll revisit on a given trip versus new, interesting places that have opened that are on our list. Both city lists have hundreds of different food spots bookmarked, and so each outing always feels like a difficult choice. But I told Chris that the one new place I absolutely wanted to visit this trip was Matcha Kobo in Melbourne CBD. It opened around June of this year, and the reason it intrigued me so much was that this cafe is so serious about matcha that they actually grind their matcha leaves in-house. They have four ishu usu (stone mills) in the center of their large cafe. These were all imported from the Aichi Prefecture in Japan and cost $20,000 each; they are the only matcha stone mills in Australia. A small handful of these stone mills exist outside of Japan, so this is a true rarity to experience. The mills grind the tea leaves into matcha powder at a very slow pace, with each mill taking 24 hours to produce one kilogram of freshly ground matcha. One kilogram of match is enough to make about 300 cups of matcha. All the matcha used at the cafe is milled on-site, with fresh batches harvested twice daily.Once the powder runs out – that’s it. Stone-grinding fresh keeps the matcha from oxidizing, which means the flavor is fresher, smoother, and far lower in bitterness. On top of their expertly crafted drinks, they also have the most beautiful pastries that look like works of art, all under the direction of a very talented pastry chef of Asian decent who used to work for Adriana Zumbo Patisserie and Koko Black.

Given how particular and exacting this whole process is, plus the enormous cost of the stone mills, I just assumed the matcha would be quite expensive. But given all these intricacies and business costs, the matcha drinks cost just a tiny bit more than the average matcha or freshly made tea beverage you can order out. And with a stronger U.S. dollar against the Aussie dollar, it worked out to be quite a deal for us. We went to Matcha Kobo as our first stop in CBD today along with Chris’s parents, and for four freshly whisked and made matcha/hojicha drinks, a double scoop of vivid green matcha gelato, and a gorgeous, artfully made hojicha chestnut tart that was almost too pretty to eat, the total cost was $39.30 USD. It felt like such a bargain for such a fresh, delicious, gourmet experience.

The cafe itself is so airy and spacious — it’s supposed to seat 90 people and even has a traditional tatami mat seating area where you sit on the floor and are required to remove your shoes. It would be a very comfortable and relaxing place to have a catch up with a friend, while also enjoying amazing tea drinks and treats. I MUST come back. I want this to be an every-year visit!

20% Azelaic acid in the U.S. vs. Australia

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I learned about azelaic acid for skincare a few years ago, as a low percentage of it was in a face toner I bought meant for helping with hyperpigmentation and fading sun spots. The toner didn’t do anything for my skin, so I stopped buying it. But the ingredient kept coming up in conversation with my esthetician, who highly recommended it for treating and preventing sun spots. Azelaic acid has been heavily researched in recent years and has been demonstrated to diminish skin blemishes and help fade sun spots and post-acne marks, refine skin’s surface, and help to fight inflammation.

In November when I went for a dermatology visit, the dermatologist suggested I use a 20 percent azelaic acid cream that would require a prescription. She warned me ahead of time that my insurance would unlikely cover it given it is for cosmetic reasons. So when I went to CVS just to ask how much it cost, the pharmacist looked up the product and actually laughed out loud as she responded, “A tube for a one month supply would be $648 (USD).” I gasped.

Wow. That was like paying rent. I told her that I’d pass on it, and I immediately started researching other ways to either source this product, or to get a slightly lower dosage. Chris suggested I look it up in Australia, as a quick Google search revealed that this product did not require a prescription there. So we went to Chemist Warehouse today, where I asked the pharmacist. He confirmed to me that it did not require a prescription here, but it was behind the counter. He grabbed a tube for me and said it was just one unit per customer (and then Chris went to request a second tube). The cost for this tube: $18.99 AUD ($12.54 USD). So, $648 vs. $12.54 it was. That is beyond crazy to me! The price wasn’t even remotely in the same ballpark! Well, it’s clear there are massive benefits to having access to behind-the-counter pharmacy items in two different countries — and especially outside of the U.S.