Manila - Day 1

Hello blog-reading friends! It's been a long time since my last post, but honestly, September was busy and not terribly exciting. We did make a day trip over to Pulau Ubin, a small island off Singapore, and that will have to count for our 'leaving Singapore' in September.

But we can live with that because we managed to schedule two trips in October! A week and a half ago we headed off to Manila, the capital of the Philippines, for a 4 day getaway.

We nervously watched the weather as our trip approached, as it turned out that a typhoon was also making a visit to Luzon (the largest island, on which you find Manila) the same weekend. We decided that if our flight was going, we'd go - and then we registered with the embassy, checked with some contacts there, and packed our rain jackets and extra plastic bags in anticipation of a wet weekend.

And our expectations of poor weather made it that much more awesome when the weather was fine! The first day had some rain, but we zipped up our rain jackets, secured our make-shift backpack cover and carried on. The other two days were just lovely, a resulted in considerable sunburn despite our best sun-screening efforts.

We arrived in Manila on Friday night and took an (expensive/rip-off) taxi ride to the Baqacionista Traveler's Hotel - run by a nice lady who rents out two of the room in an apartment building. Great location in Makati (one of the main business districts), and conveniently close to both McDonald's and 7/11. Have I praised 7/11 before on this blog? I'm not sure I've even been to a 7/11 in the States, but they're our go-to store when we travel. Water, sim cards, snacks, and they'll break the big bills you just got from the ATMs. Oh, and aircon. I'm a fan.

I should also mention that when we arrived, we switched on the TV and saw the second half of a terrible kid movie called Cop Dog. Spoiler: the ghost dog helps the kids solve the mystery of the boy's cop dad's death in a well. Ugh. And when we woke up and turned on the TV, it was on again at the exact same place in the movie! I'm ashamed to say, we kept watching again. 

Ok, on to Manila!

Meeting Manila

We started our day with McBreakfast (!) and then walked/bused/LRT'ed it up to Rizal Park in the 'old city.' We stumbled into a tourist office where two women were soon sweetly falling all over themselves to give us maps and point out the sites to see in Intramuros. So kind! We walked from Rizal to Intramuros ("Within the Walls") which was the old original city of Manila. Immediately, we noticed a major difference between this country and others we've visited in SE Asia - due to the long Spanish influence, Christianity (specifically Catholicism) is the most visible religion. Jacob said that it reminded him more of South America than Asia. However, Spanish language has been almost completely replaced by English, Tagalog and 'Taglish.'
We strolled through Intramuros, stopping into St. Agustin Chapel of the Adoration, and admiring the St. Agustin church from the outside (closed for a private service).

Catholic Saint, Chinese Dragon -
wasn't that a movie?

Adoration Chapel
The center of the sunburst contained the sacred wafer...
the Manila Wafer, shall we say? (#YouJustGotPunned)

Along the way we also passed the Manila Cathedral - beautiful from the outside, though undergoing renovation - and a monument to all the unknown soldiers and civilians who were killed during WWII and the Philippine's struggle against the Japanese occupation (and, to a slightly lesser degree, their struggle for independence from the U.S. as well).

 

We flagged down a ice cream cart vendor (with his push cart) and bought one cone each of the two flavors he had: jackfruit and cheese. CHEESE ICE CREAM!? I've had some weird ice creams (sweet corn, yam, durian, black sesame, mystery) but never before have I had ice cream flavored by yet another dairy product. It tasted like sweetened Velveeta and contained small chunks of feta-like cheese. I'd eat it again.

And as the cheesy ice cream passed his lips, he suddenly
saw into the future and knew that someday he would create
the ultimate dairy-flavored ice cream - BUTTER ICE CREAM.

Fueled by this double dose of dairy, we moved on to Fort Santiago, the stronghold of the Spanish colonial government. Jose Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines, was imprisoned here before he was executed for his anti-colonial writings. Although he did not really support revolution, his death sparked uprisings that eventually led to the expulsion of the Spanish.
In more recent times, it was the scene of the Battle of Manila, with American and Filipino forces fighting the occupying Japanese. It was possibly the worst (urban) bloodbath of the Asia-Pacific theatre during WWII.

Check out the artillery damage on the wall...

Not exactly sure who the priests are, but the clergy had a lot of power through much of the history of the Philippines.

Entrance to Fort Santiago

More ruins

Across the river from the Fort - some rather ominous clouds.

We stopped off at a small street vendor for lunch - not going to lie, as I sat down to eat, I acknowledged the fact the food poisoning was definitely a possibility. It was disconcerting afterwards when the nice lady vendor said 'thank you for giving our food a chance' - a chance?! BUT it was pretty good - noodles and barbecued pork, coke, and coffee.

Shortly after lunch, wouldn't you know it, we passed a place called Chocolate Churros!
So then this happened:

Our walk brought us to the National Museum, where our wet shoes squeaked down the halls as we passed through lots of different exhibits. Some really neat ones, some rather strange. A few disturbing.

Ancient clay vessels used to hold the bones of the deceased.

Take me to your leader.

Wow, what a beautiful, noble bir-
AHHH IT'S KILLING A MONKEY!

Another beautiful church.

We finished our walk in Rizal Park, passing the monument to Jose Rizal (on the spot where he was executed by firing squad). We then - and this was a mistake - hailed a horse carriage to take us several blocks to a bar called the Hobbit House. Perhaps I'll describe this experience in another blog entitled 'Scammed.' Basically, we got ripped off, felt more than slightly threatened, and were taken far beyond our destination! Alas. We went to the water front to calm down a bit and found ourselves at the Aristocrats restaurant, which came highly recommended by our friend Yap Ling (we've learned to trust his advice on all things food). Good food and cold beer helped us to relax a bit.

Along the waterfront.

Feeling a bit worn out and not wanting to walk back to the Hobbit House, we called it a night and hopped a (very cheap) cab back to the apartment. A quick stop at 7/11 to stock up on snacks and water, then early to bed because our itinerary for the next day began at 1:30am!

Tune in next time to hear about how we (didn't) climb Mt. Pinatubo (better than it sounds)!