I was really excited to finally land in Manila, capital of the Philippines on Saturday. My flight was around 3 1/2 hours from Seoul and I moved as fast as I could to get off the plane since it was already evening.
Getting to my hostel proved to be a bit of a challenge. Although I found the taxi stand, getting a taxi was impossible. There was a long wait to get the nice metered taxis and the line wasn't moving. After 2 hours in line (talking to some lovely fellow teachers from Korea), I ended up having a really nice ride to the hostel. The taxi driver was a real pleasure to talk to and was telling me all about Manila.
My hostel, Our Awesome Place, is a budget hostel in Makati. The area is really nice and the hostels really clean. The second I put my stuff down I befriended Niko, a really nice guy from Slovenia, and we went to find dinner. Since it was raining, we ended up at a restaurant really close to the hostel. We ate sisig, a traditional Philippino dish, and ended up chatting with the managers. One was Philippino and the other had grown up in Jamaica and, wouldn't you know, Maryland. We all ended up going out for drinks.
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| Grabbing drinks with new friends my first night in Manila |
The next day Niko and I went to check out the Intramuros, the historical center and the oldest district in Manila. It has buildings and churches from the 1600s. While the buildings were pretty, we got bored really quickly. I found the side streets with people, roosters, dogs and dirt to be more interesting.
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| Walking around Intramuros |
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| Intramuros: flag and catholicism? Thought this represented The Philippines well. |
From there we walked to Luneta Park. It's a historical park with a famous monument of Philippino nationalist Jośe Rizal. It was pretty and that was were we had our first encounter with locals asking to take pictures with us.
After wandering around the area for a bit, we took a taxi to Quezon City with the purpose of meeting Benj, someone I met on Couchsurfing. Benj picked us up and drove us to Wawa Dam, a gravity dam in the city of Rizal. While Benj was disappointed we couldn't swim in the dam (the rain had ruined the swimming area the day before), I had a nice time getting out of the city.
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| Myself, Niko and Benj driving to Wawa Dam. |
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| Wawa dam. |
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| Village before Wawa Dam. Everyone was singing karaoke. |
After Wawa dam, Benj drove us to Greenhills Bargain Center in San Juan. It's a huge shopping center with over 2,000 stores. We wandered around, got lost, and bartered at the many stalls inside (I bought sunglasses and broke them the next day...whoops). After a delicious dinner, I went back to the hostel and went to bed.
Today was a bit of a travel throw-away day. I spent the morning wandering around the richest part of Manila, Makati. It was mind blowing to see how rich, clean and stylish everything was compared to the rest of the city. From there I went to the airport...which is where I'm currently sitting waiting for my flight to Palawan. I had heard horror stories about flight delays in the Philippines and now I get to experience it. My 1:50pm flight has been delayed to 5:00pm because...Philippines. I still have to take a van or bus 6-7hrs from Puerto Princesa to El Nido so I knew today would be long but now it's just extra long.
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| Waiting in the airpot with EVERYONE |
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| Still waiting. That girl behind me doesn't look happy. No one was happy. |
But tomorrow I'm on a beach!
Peace!
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