Abby woke up at 4am and Erwin told her to get back to sleep until the sun comes up. Thank goodness for black out curtains! 6am she was up and ready for breakfast. Er and she went down for what turned out to be an amazing breakfast and brunch buffet! Holy cow! The food was out of this world. Cynthia and I were in heaven with all the American food. Waffles, Pancakes, BACON! The fruit was crazy sweet. Melted in your mouth. We had an array of muffins, donuts (Ethan’s favorite), fresh croissants, ice cream and freshly made to order omelets! I could go on and on. Anything and everything you could ever dream of having for breakfast. It actually took us about an hour and a half to finish. Then we rolled out of the room.
Today is the first day of seeing PI through and through. I’m excited. I’m nervous that I’m not going to be able to take it all in. Nervous I’m not going to remember it all. Again, thank goodness I found a great camera. Ed has a great camera and Ritche is taking video of just about everything. Mom too! Our driver Nimrod picked us up in an air-conditioned van and the kids are arguing already about who is going to ride in the jump seat. No seatbelt was a super-treat for them. No way! (I was yelling in my head.) Seatbelts! (I’m such a mean mom) There are no seatbelt laws in PI. No carseat/booster seat laws either. Off we go and the sights are some of what I expected. Lots of kids, lots of people who look like they just need a roof over their head or clean clothes. What I mean by “just need” is they didn’t look sad or down and out. They were going about their day, their life. As we drove around I really couldn’t tell where the residential areas ended and where the businesses began. There were “squatters” on every other street in Manila. These were vendors of some sort. Sometimes they were drinks or snacks or clothes. There were full stores too. We saw McDonald’s and Starbuck’s. These seemed to be in newer strip malls with restaurants and such. A typical intersection had people on every corner. There were students in uniforms from the local college, maybe a guard with an AK47 in front of the corner bank. That was Abby’s favorite sight. Seriously? She would yell out, “GUN!” They were pretty intimidating with their weapons laid across their chest and military gear on. We did notice that 80% of the billboards and signs were in English. There was tagalong too, but mostly English. I found out from someone that they tried at one point in time to institute “only tagalong” in the schools. It was a no go. The students learn in English. Not sure if all day. Speaking of school, we past where Erwin’s Mom went to college. That was kind of cool. Dad told us that the kids go to high school for only 3 years. The school day in PI is from 7am to 5pm. Incredible! The city, even though it was the capital of the country was way behind what we would see in America. All electric and phone lines are above ground and an unbelievable mess. Nimrod said the locals call it “Spaghetti”. Abby yelled out,” You mean pancit!” lol! Fire hazard is what it should be called.
The congestion of people, cars, mopeds, bicycles, tricycles, big delivery trucks was overwhelming to say the least. There were traffic lights that I came to believe were only there for decoration. Honestly it was as if there were no laws for the roads. We asked Dad why there wasn’t a law enforcement officer anywhere. He said the only time you will see them out and about is when they are in need of money for the city. Then they start giving tickets and citing people for breaking laws. Thank Goodness the city was ok while we were there. We got to our destination in an old part of Manila. We were going to take a horse drawn carriage ride. They were actually called Calesa’s I think. Very cool way to see the sights. Our driver spoke some English. Dad new some of the information to pass on to us. We looked at stone walls and buildings that had the original bullet holes in them from Japan’s and Spain’s occupation in the Philippines. Eerie. Lots of pictures were taken within these few hours. A lot of Manila’s history was focused in this area. They had many memorials to their past leaders and war heroes.
With congestion of card and trucks and such, comes exhaust. Cynthia said at the beginning of the trip that she brought hankies for the foul smelling air in the city. I was like really? Give me a break! We don’t’ need no stinking’ hankies. Ummm… I ate my words when we ended up driving directly in traffic with everyone else. Not on the tour path anymore. We couldn’t breathe it was so bad. You could taste it. I whipped out some tissue and made Abby cover her mouth and nose and I did myself. I NEED HANKIES! I picked some up that day or the next. Phew! So much better! Our clothes smelled fabulous when we returned.
We also had a chance to stop at the Manila Cathedral. Gigantic and gorgeous! So old. I had a chance to really take some amazing pictures inside. The stone work was bee-utiful. As we started to leave the clouds decided to open up on us. Nothing horribly bad. We felt blessed it didn’t happen while we were in the carriages. Nimrod walked us to our van with an umbrella. So nice! We made a pit-stop at a small mall to do a tiny bit of souvenir shopping and eat. Yellow Cab Pizza. It was very good. I drank my 1st coke of the trip. Yummy! Only in a can. No ice! Then we headed back to the hotel. Day 2 of sightseeing was complete. I already have 100’s of pics. Oh boy! (Lemme know if you wanna see them, I will share a link with you.)
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