February 5th- February 8th, 2016
Though it would be dishonest to say that I didn’t spend most of my time stuck in a traffic jam in Manila, the other memories are far brighter. When I arrived to my sister’s hotel room, and opened Facebook to check what was up, I noticed a friend from university who I haven’t seen for seven years was honest to god also in Manila. I was so excited and wrote the most ridiculous message to her status update that she later told me she thought I was drunk when I wrote it. I told her that I was just drunk on excitement, because I’m corny like that. We made arrangements to meet at a bar that night close to their hotel.
Waiting for our bus in Quezon City
Bethany and I spent the day exploring Manila. Our weekend in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, was very Chinese themed. We started off at the Chinese Cemetery. I was, and still am blown away by the Chinese cometary. Some of the houses are two stories, bigger than my shared Toronto apartment AND have air-conditioning. They are also much more elaborate than many of the locals can afford for the living. These Chinese who have since passed are basically succeeding better on paper than I am. It’s like a small peaceful city in the heart of Manila’s urban madness. Some of the graves are crumbling, robbed, with the pictures of the deceased faded by the sun. In the back of the cemetery, there are stacked graves, that are crumbling and also robbed. Some people even live in the shelters containing the graves often because they are family plots and that’s their best option. We spent some time there before catching a trike. Bethany was revelling in the silence, birds chirping, and traffic free existence. We spent the rest of the day in the Divisorsia Markets, huddled over our bags with our jewellery off. We went to China Town and found delicious dumplings, and decided to come back in two days for Chinese New Year.
Bethany and I in the Chinese Cemetery, in front of some grave (houses)
Bethany and I riding to the market in a Trike
That night we met Alanna and her husband Shae. It was the first time I’ve seen her in 7 years, so it was pretty marvelous to catch up. We met at a gringo bar and had way too much beer and such good convos. We met the next morning and went to the pearl market, the mall, and went to Rizal ParkWe literally ran all the way to a restaurant to see the sun go down over the city. We stayed there for quite some time, had some beers, then left, with plans to meet each other in Boracay the following week.
The next day I left to Palawan, but first Bethany and I decided to go celebrate Chinese New Year. It was a riot. We spent the morning and early afternoon there before I caught my evening plane. China Town is not the most touristy. There were thousands of people in every direction, and Bethany and I were the only ones with light eyes and hair. This made us an instant sensation. I got more pictures with strangers that day I ever had before. Like the white girls we are, we bought red flower wreathes and adorned our heads. We eventually found out that they were supposed to be offerings for the statues (and felt like fools but not really). We saw dragons dancing in the streets, all sorts of goods being sold, and monkeys everywhere since it was the year of the monkey. We went for more dumplings at another Dim Sum restaurant, and marvelled at all the celebrations going on. Then I jumped into a cab, and went to the airport to be shuttled off to the beautiful island of Palawan
