Today I met a waiter at afternoon tea.

I took my parents and uncle out for an early anniversary celebration. The waiter was a pretty jolly fellow and made jokes with my parents about everything. His face wasn't very expressive though, so it was initially pretty hard to see if he was joking. My parents are definitely the kinds of people who will joke about anyone and everything in the vicinity.

So one of the teas had marunggay in it, which is a standard leaf that Filipinos use in their cooking. It also has a high iron content, for all of you who are anemic like me. My parents mentioned this when they ordered the tea from him, and he shared that his wife also likes to cook with it.

Turns out his wife is also Filipino, and they were just in Manila. He also knew all the tricks about packing stuff to take home, and putting it around the baby powder so the dogs can't smell it.

I'm gonna keep that one in my back pocket for the future.