The Philippines totally blew my mind when it comes to food. Sorry for being so clueless, but you know those tiny super-hot peppers that are impossible to touch with your tongue? I always wondered how people actually eat them. I went out to dinner with some locals and they showed me you just need to make a small slit in the pepper and drop it into a little dish with soy sauce. It's absolutely amazing. I mean, I already knew you're supposed to mix wasabi into sauce and it works great. But I never thought to do the same thing with peppers.

The local McDonald's actually serves spaghetti! I didn't want to try it (not a fan of eating there), but I'm pretty sure you won't find that in McDonald's anywhere else in the world.

The food here is really tasty and super cheap. Lots of Japanese and Korean restaurants. And the Filipino places are great too. In bigger cities you can find places to eat even at 2 in the morning. After Belgrade, I'd kind of forgotten places like that existed. If you eat on the street, you'll be actually ahead financially spending next to nothing.

I also tried the local balut (it's a duck egg with an already-formed embryo inside). When I read the description, I thought there'd be like a whole little duckling in there with basically no egg white or yolk left. In reality, the embryo doesn't take up that much space, it's really hard, and honestly people just leave it. You eat everything else, generously seasoned with hot soy sauce and vinegar. It's definitely an acquired taste. But hey, you can try it sometime.