sight seeing in manila: part 1

I’ve been a little bit AWOL the last couple of weeks, there’s been a lot going on at work, and also I’ve been looking for a new job. Last week I got two really good offers, so now that the initial horror of trying to choose between them is over with, I can relax a little bit for the next few weeks until it starts.

So now we can continue on with our journey.

After spending more than two months on our second visit to Indonesia, we were starting to make plans to head back to Australia, spend a few days in New Zealand, and then head back to the states, when we heard from The Boy’s grandparents that they were going to be in the Philippines for a few weeks.

He has always wanted to visit there, and so had I, plus I heard amazing things about the diving there the whole time we were traveling, so we found a pretty cheap flight, and decided to go check it out.

We spent a few days in Manila and surround area, before heading off to El Nido and Coron.

While we were in Manila we visited a few of the beautiful old churches including the Manila Cathedral. I’m not religious but I love the architecture and history, and the stained glass windows were amazing.

We also visited the Rizal monument, erected in memory of Jose Rizal, a Philippine national hero, who believed that the Philippines should be independent, and encouraged the people of the Philippines to fight for freedom from the government of Spain.

It was in a beautiful green park in metro-manila, and it was nice to relax and just walk around there for awhile.

My favourite thing about Manila was the mangos and also the pan de sol, these delicious little buns that we got fresh from the bakery every morning.

I had been vegetarian for about 3 months by the time we got to Manila, and out of all of the places we visited, it was the only place where it was kind of hard for me to find things to eat that didn’t have meat in them, but I didn’t really care because the mangos were sooooo good I was happy to eat them for every meal.

Manila was very busy, that’s what everyone says but it really is true. It was really interesting to go see it and spend some time there, and parts of it are really beautiful, but when we go back to the Philippines (we will definitely be back!), we will probably just fly straight out to some of the other islands.