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  • Day 116

    Day 116: Exploring Manila

    October 9, 2016 on the Philippines ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    Time to have a day out and about, exploring the city and seeing what it has to offer. After a hotel breakfast we decided to spend most of the day in the Intramuros district, which is basically the Old City - where all the ruins and colonial buildings etc are. Thankfully it was only a 15 minute walk away, so off we went.

    First stop was San Augustine Church, the oldest in the Philippines and UNESCO World Heritage listed. Originally built by Augustine monks in the 1580s, it had been variously damaged and repaired several times, and is now in pretty good condition. The last damage to it was during the Battle of Manila in 1945, when the Americans bombed it quite heavily. So the interiors are fairly new, but the exterior is fairly old.

    Attached to the church is a large convent for the Augustine monks which is now a museum, and a very good one at that. We spent a couple of hours here browsing around the artefacts, walkways and relics. Though a lot of stuff is missing as well - apparently the British had plundered it quite heavily during their brief occupation in the 1760s.

    Since we'd spent quite a while in the museum, it was now lunchtime! So we hit up another fast food place that we'd seen a lot of - Chow King. This one mostly served Chinese food, so I had a wonton noodle soup and Shandos had a pork & fried rice dish. Decent food, though nowhere near the quality that we're used to for Chinese food.

    Our restaurant was opposite Manila Cathedral, so we had to head over and check that out afterwards. Again it had been heavily damaged over the years due to earthquakes and wars, so the current building was actually quite new - from the 1960s. It had been ratified as a minor basilica (whatever that means) by Pope JP2, and it's a very large and impressive building. It was also packed with people wearing identical t-shirts, pilgrims of some kind from I guess some far-flung part of the Philippines.

    Next stop was a few blocks over - Fort Santiago on the riverfront. It was built by the Spanish conquistadores when they arrived, and had been variously used, built on and modified by all the occupying powers in the meantime (Spanish, British, Japanese, American). It's now a park and ruin, and also houses a shrine to Jose Rizal, one of the fathers of Filipino independence. He was a doctor and poet who wrote some subversive literature, and was executed for his troubles by the Spanish (literally a few months before the Americans kicked them out and handed the country to the Filipinos). His trial and prison cell were inside the Fort, so the area was turned into an interesting museum. A little too much detail, but good to learn about someone I'd never heard of before.

    Last stop for the day was Casa Manila, a large mansion in the old town that has been furnished and preserved as it was around the turn of the 20th century. Great insight into how the 1%ers of the time lived, and interesting to see as well the balance between traditional art and furnishings versus some rooms full of European pieces. Apparently the opening of the Suez in 1859 had a huge impact on the Philippines, since a six month journey around the Cape of Good Hope suddenly became a six week journey instead.

    We tried to have a coffee at the Casa Manila shop, but after waiting 20 minutes and the waiter twice saying to just have a seat and wait, he'll be right over, we walked out. On the way back to the hotel we walked through Rizal Park (a huge manicured park dedicated to Jose Rizal), which was teeming with locals enjoying their sunny Sunday evening. We walked around for a bit enjoying the atmosphere, eventually ending up along the bay front where the sun set slowly into the mountains across the bay.

    Growing dark, we retreated to our hotel where we were both a bit footsore, hot and dusty. But always onwards, we knew we were out of clothes so it was down the street to a laundromat where we spent an hour of our lives we'll never get back.

    Decided that for dinner, we'd try the hotel restaurant. Shandos had a grilled pork dish with rice that was quite nice, but my pork soup was totally not what I was expecting. The soup was tangy and sour, and the pork meat was extremely fatty. I struggled through half of it (and ate the entire portion of rice), but could make it no further. So I committed the cardinal sin - we went straight to McDonalds afterwards, where I had a small cheeseburger meal to actually fill me up!

    Then back to the hotel and upstairs to read and sleep. I like Manila more now than I did this time yesterday, but I still don't like it that much. Nobody seems that friendly, and after all I've read about pickpockets, scammers and thieves, I find myself on edge constantly because of all the people lolling about. It seems like a place where it's very easy to take a wrong turn and end up in a dangerous slum. And of course it's hot, smelly, noisy and very pedestrian unfriendly. I've smelled more fresh urine today than on the rest of this trip combined.

    But I'll cope - only a few more days here until the conference.
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