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From tinikling to adobo: Vanessa Hudgens talks about 'eye-opening' PH visit

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Karen Flores Layno, ABS-CBN News

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="Hollywood actress Vanessa Hudgens at her press conference in Taguig on Friday. Charles Villaruz, Publicity Asia" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2023/life/03/31/03312023-cv_vanessahudgens-16.jpg"/><figcaption>Hollywood actress Vanessa Hudgens at her press conference in Taguig on Friday. Charles Villaruz, Publicity Asia</figcaption></figure></div><p>MANILA -- It took more than three decades for Filipino-American star Vanessa Hudgens to finally visit the Philippines, and she wouldn&#x27;t have it any other way.</p><p>The &quot;eye-opening&quot; experience, as described by the Hollywood actress, came at a good time. Now older and wiser, she is able to focus on returning to her roots as she prepares to start her own family.</p><p>&quot;I&#x27;m in my 30s now [and] I&#x27;m thinking about raising a family,&quot; she said in a press conference on Friday when asked what moved her to come to the Philippines. &quot;And I want to be able to know my heritage so I can bring that forth, so that my kids can know their background [and] they can know more about their own blood.&quot;</p><p>&quot;[The Philippines] has always been on my list, of course, but it never happened,&quot; she acknowledged. &quot;I feel like everything happens when it&#x27;s meant to, and I wouldn&#x27;t have it any other way. [Now] I get to come here with my mom and my sister.&quot;</p><p>Hudgens arrived in Manila last March 25, primarily for the filming of a travel documentary about her Filipino roots. The actress, who rose to fame for portraying Gabriella Montez in the &quot;High School Musical&quot; film series, was born to a Filipina mother and an American father.</p><p>A day before meeting members of the media, she was formally named a global tourism ambassador for the Philippines.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/life/03/30/23/vanessa-hudgens-named-global-tourism-ambassador-for-ph">Vanessa Hudgens named global tourism ambassador for PH</a></li></ul><p>While she admitted that she was for the most part raised &quot;very American,&quot; Hudgens said her trip to the Philippines made her tap into other aspects of herself that turned out to be &quot;very Filipino&quot; all along. </p><p>&quot;It&#x27;s been really interesting coming here, it&#x27;s beautiful and eye-opening... All these things that have just been innately stuck within me, I realize come from my heritage,&quot; she said. </p><p>&quot;I&#x27;m so obsessed with the use of natural elements, the rattan, the mother of pearl. It&#x27;s all just so beautiful to me, and something that I&#x27;ve always loved,&quot; Hudgens cited as an example. </p><p>&quot;And I&#x27;m like yeah, it makes sense because it&#x27;s Filipino,&quot; added the actress, who wants to go to Cebu and Mindanao in the future.</p><div><strong>&#x27;A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING&#x27;</strong></div><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=2560367" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar"><strong>Video by Karen Flores Layno, <em>ABS-CBN News</em></strong></div><p>Hudgens has so far visited Manila and the tropical paradise of Palawan for her documentary which has the working title &quot;The Awakening,&quot; as shared by host Boy Abunda.</p><p>She sees the Philippines as a country that has &quot;a little bit of everything,&quot; and described it as a &quot;really magical place.&quot;</p><p>&quot;It&#x27;s got paradise, it&#x27;s got a metropolitan city,&quot; the actress said. &quot;It&#x27;s got kindness, everybody is so warm, so friendly... I feel like I haven&#x27;t met anyone who seems like they&#x27;re having a bad day. The hospitality is unmatched.&quot;</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/03/28/23/look-vanessa-hudgens-takes-morning-hike-in-palawan">LOOK: Vanessa Hudgens takes morning hike in Palawan</a></li></ul><p>During her trip, Hudgens found herself falling in love with tinikling, a Filipino folk dance that involves moving between bamboo poles tapped on the ground.</p><p>She also could not resist the urge to have a plate of chicken adobo despite being pescatarian. </p><p>&quot;I&#x27;m pescatarian but in Palawan I was sitting there and there was a plate of chicken adobo that was staring at me. And I said, you know, this is my first trip to the Philippines [and] this is as authentic as it&#x27;s gonna get. I&#x27;m eating chicken adobo,&quot; she said. </p><p>&quot;And I did, and it was so worth it, [but] I&#x27;m not eating chicken again anytime soon,&quot; added Hudgens, who was only willing to break the rules for the Filipino dish. </p><p>Hudgens hopes that audiences will enjoy watching her documentary, which she said is &quot;a really intimate look&quot; at her journey of discovering the Philippines. </p><p>The Fil-Am star said she is open to the idea of producing another project that focuses on Filipino culture. </p><p>&quot;I love things from the past and things that are untouched by the current world that we live in, by technology, and everyone&#x27;s fight to get ahead,&quot; she said. &quot;I feel like I would do a thing on the tribes because I feel there&#x27;s not a lot of light on that. It would be nice to be able to preserve that.&quot; </p><div><strong>Related video:</strong></div><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rQekw3HdVLU?enablejsapi=1" width="560"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more News on <a href="https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/browse/Genres/News/tag_id_genres/id_news" target="_blank">iWantTFC</a></div>

It took more than three decades for Filipino-American star Vanessa Hudgens to finally visit the Philippines, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

From tinikling to adobo: Vanessa Hudgens talks about 'eye-opening' PH visit

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From tinikling to adobo: Vanessa Hudgens talks about 'eye-opening' PH visit

Karen Flores Layno,

ABS-CBN News

Published March 31, 2023 05:41 PM PHT

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Updated March 31, 2023 06:05 PM PHT

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Vanessa Hudgens

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