Robby and I are going to attempt to keep a blog going so you all can hear about our travels and see some of the beauty of the Philippines. If you haven't had the chance to already, check out the two videos Robby made of a local fish market here in Manila and Hundred Islands where he spent Christmas.
Hundred Islands:
Fish Market:
I arrived and met up with Robby at the airport without any problems. We went back to our little apartment where I was relieved to find that the street noise was pretty well muffled (our building is right next to Katipunan Ave an 8 lane highway).
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| The highway from our balcony |
On our first day together I was pretty jet lagged, but had enough energy to give Robby a very mini Christmas. The card from Robby's mom is up on our fridge now because, in the Philippines, mid-Jan is nowhere near time to be done with Christmas. They've been playing Christmas music on the radio since Robby arrived in November and, I kid you not, Silent Night was playing during lunch at the restaurant we went to the other day followed by an hours worth of other Christmas tunes.
I had a lot more energy the next day so Robby showed me around our neighborhood which essentially consisted of walking down Katipunan to the University of the Philippines (UP) and walking around the campus. I got to see the Marine Science Institute (MSI) where Robby has his office (a big room he shares with the professor he is working closely with and another graduate student).
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| Dressed in typical work attire, of course |
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| Outside MSI |
UP is a beautiful campus, it covers a large area and has a lot of green space. The sidewalks are lined with palm trees and in the center there is a large oval (3.5 miles if you were to walk around the whole thing) that has academic buildings around the outside and fields and "gardens" on the inside. Though more peaceful than the rest of the city, it is definitely not quiet. Jeepneys, originally manufactured from leftover jeeps at the end of WWII, are still manufactured in the same style and are the most commonplace means of transportation throughout the country. Although effective, they are anything but quiet and can be found in abundance around the UP campus.
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| Oblation, UP's symbolic statue (think the Rotunda to UVA) |
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| Jeepney stop along the academic oval |
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| Beautiful trees canopying the oval |
By my third day here I was ready to venture out into the city. Our apartment is in Quezon City which is NW of "downtown" Manila (think Alexandria to D.C.), which, combined with Manila traffic, meant an hour-and-a-half taxi ride down to Rizal Park. Fortunately the park was well worth the trip! The park has several sections including a tomb guarded by two sentries in full uniform, an open air auditorium where the President gets sworn in and gives his first speech to the country, a Chinese Garden inside and another smaller venue where live music is played every Sunday evening. Our favorite part of the park, however, was a man-made pond that was built where someone had the ingenious idea to make a 3-D relief map of the entire country! Looking at it really gives you the sense of how the Philippines were formed and all the volcanic activity happening beneath the water. It was difficult to capture it with a photo, but I tried!
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| Rizal tomb w/uniformed sentries |
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| Chinese garden |
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| Relief map of Luzon (island we're on) |
To orient you in the above photo, find the large flat space in the middle of the island with the one little peak in the center. Down from that is Manila Bay and if you look closely you will see a little pit on the right of the Bay which is Manila. The sites Robby has gotten approval from so far can also be seen. On the opposite side of Manila Bay is a ridge of mountains. On the west side of that ridge, all along the coast, are the MPAs which Robby is currently working on getting approval to conduct research.
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| That same ridge I mentioned above from the other side |
From this viewpoint, Robby's sites are now to the right of the mountains and below them. You can also see Hundred Islands here, where Robby went for Christmas and took a lot of that first video. Follow the mountains all the way down and that cluster of little spike-looking things right on the coast, that is Hundred Islands. If you can't find it, sorry. Go watch the video!
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| Mindinao, the southern most island of the country |
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| My attempt at capturing the pond and the Philippines in their entirety |
After the park we headed to the Baywalk to watch the sunset over Manila Bay. The walk was lined with women and men offering massages on the wall, people pushing carts and selling corn, peanuts and the local streetfood favorite balot (a partially developed duck embryo that is boiled and eaten in the shell, we passed).
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| Manila Bay at sunset |
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| Taking a picture of Robby simply to document the massage happening behind him |
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| Local kiddos posing for a photo, it was a toy gun he's point at us. Don't worry. |
Well that about covers my first few days here. So I'll leave you with a fun fact about the Philippines. If you're out and need to use the bathroom, don't look for a sign pointing you to the restrooms or W.C. (water closest ) as I got accustomed to in Europe. Have to keep your eyes peeled for the door marked C.R.!
Awesome, thanks for the update. Keep us in the loop!!
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