Day 118: Museums in Manila

Time for the museums! After a hotel breakfast, our first stop was the National Museum of the Philippines, just a short walk away across Rizal Park. This was actually a really good museum with some really interesting exhibits about Filipino history and culture. Our favourite, though, was a large exhibit about a Spanish galleon that had sunk in waters just off Manila Bay in the 16th century, and was only recovered in the 1990s. Lots of items and interesting finds, including two samurai swords and suits of armour, leading to a suspicion that there were a couple of Japanese mercenaries on board!

Back outside by 1pm, we had a look around the 3D relief map of the Philippines which covers a big corner of the park. It's a man-made lake with little fibreglass models of each island placed appropriately. Cool little diversion for 15 minutes. Afterwards we had lunch, back to Jollibee's since it was nearby and there just aren't that many non-fast-food restaurants here.

After lunch we went to the national Art Gallery which was adjacent to the museum. Interesting in that all of the works were by Filipino artists - I guess partly to showcase their own artistry, but also because their government likely wouldn't have the resources to build up a collection of expensive overseas art. We had a great couple of hours wandering around, looking through the various galleries of artists we'd never heard of, doing their best to balance between local and outside influences.

Back outside it was by now late-ish afternoon (as mentioned it gets dark quite early here), and there was a thunderstorm looming in the distance. After a short sit in the park, a brief look through the underwhelming Japanese Gardens and a thankfully trouble-free encounter with a pair of would-be pickpockets, we got back to the hotel around 5pm where we relaxed and had an early dinner in the hotel restaurant. This time I had chopsuey, a saucy chicken stir fry which was much better than the earlier meal.

Afterwards we relaxed all evening, and spent a bit of time on Skype with the Cleavers who'd just returned from a week away in Port Douglas. Last night in this hotel, we're checking out tomorrow to move to our conference hotel!Read more