Kristin Reporting!
Today we did a ship tour called ‘Charms of Old Manila’. It turned out this was one time when we should have done more research before spending money to take a tour. All of the sites we visited were within easy (for us!) walking distance.
The first thing we noticed when we went outside in Manila was the smell! The air was very hazy and the smell was either pollution that blew in, or came from factories, or was from local people burning trash. Later in the day, I saw a person in their yard burning garbage. Overall it was a mild smell that we became used to, but it was disturbing and did not make us want to remain outside breathing the air!
[Davin Interjection: To me the air smelled like there was a forest fire nearby. I don’t know if it was factory pollution or what, but (retrospectively) it was the worst smelling air we encountered anywhere on the whole trip! We were unable to actually find out what the pollution levels were in Manila because apparently it’s not being monitored by any of the online sites. Maybe they are trying to sweep the problem under the rug by not allowing the pollution levels to be monitored? My internet search did produce a number of articles talking about Manila’s worsening pollution!]
Simultaneously we noticed the intense heat and humidity. It was apparently unseasonably hot on the day we visited. So we had to endure more oppressive muggy weather.
The first stop our bus dropped us off was Rizal Park. This turned out to be the best stop on the tour. Our tour guide had an excellent grasp of history and we learned about the life, death and overall impact of Dr. Jose Rizal, who is the country’s national hero.
Based on what we learned about Dr. Rizal’s early life and academic achievements it is clear that the man had genius level intelligence. What made him a national hero were his treatises advocating equal rights. In the Philippines at the time, the country was under the control of Spain. Dr. Rizal wanted to work peacefully from within the established government to increase the rights of Filipinos.
Unfortunately, Filipino rebels latched onto his ideas but wanted quicker results than working within the system so they began violent revolution. The Spanish blamed the revolution on Dr. Rizal’s ideas, and despite his insistence that he had never spoken against the government and was opposed to violent revolution, they held a sham trial and sentenced him to death.
The execution took place on December 30, 1896. At his execution, he was ordered to turn his back to the firing squad so they could shoot him in the back for being a traitor. He was only around 28 - 30 years old.
According to a sign at the execution site: “Rizal’s martyrdom fanned the flames of the Filipino revolution of 1896 and inspired the Filipinos in their resolute and epic fight for freedom.”
The entire story was absolutely tragic and disgusting. It was one of those things that you feel was worth learning about, but just leaves you feeling horrible inside after you’ve imagined a young, brilliant man in the prime of his life being torn away from his loved ones and unjustly murdered. It certainly put a bit of a damper on my day.
The memorial at the execution site was impressive. There were bronze statues showing the firing squad and Dr. Rizal before them. In English, the narrative of events was played over loud speakers. Then, at the moment the guns fired and killed Dr. Rizal, the rifles of the Spanish soldiers cut through the air with a loud crack and smoke rises from their barrels. I wasn’t expecting the statues to do that! It made me and many others jump!
Next we headed to the part of Manila called ‘the Intramuros’ or the old Spanish city. In the Intramuros our first stop was Fort Santiago. This location has a long history as a fort going all the way back to 1571 A.D. The fort has been demolished and rebuilt many times over the course of history. The most recent demolition was when the Americans bombed it to kingdom come in the 1945 Battle for Manila. We were successful at retaking Manila at that time, but we blew up a lot of innocent Filipinos in the process of getting the Japanese out of the city. The fort housed a lot of prisoners that the Japanese were torturing and executing during the occupation period of 1942 to 1945. Most of those imprisoned at the time of the bombing were killed by our bombs. Restoration of the fort began in 1951.
Fort Santiago was also where Dr. Rizal was imprisoned for the better part of a year and it was from a cell in the fort that Dr. Rizal was led to his execution. There were golden footprints on the stone road to show the path Dr. Rizal walked out of the fort on his way to the firing squad. So, this visit meshed nicely with the first stop by continuing the important but horribly tragic history lesson that we were receiving on today’s tour!
From the fort there was a view of a river. Here I took some cityscape photos. You can see when zoomed out that the sky is clear and blue, but there is a thick strip of brown around the bottom edge of the sky where the buildings are.
When I zoomed in to take a close up of a building, all you see is a brown, gloomy sky. You would think it was an overcast day, but it’s not! When you can see it like that it’s pretty bad pollution. When you can smell it too... It was shocking to me as a person who has only experienced the conditions of the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan.
In the past, my mom and I have frowned on the level of haze we see over El Cajon that obscures the clarity of the mountains on the other side of “The Box”. After a rainy day, when those same mountains can be seen crisp and clear, we wonder at how bad it is for us to breathe the normal hazy air. Boy, we didn’t have a clue! I’ll still frown on our haziness back home, but real pollution is amazing to see and experience first hand, and then even more thrilling to be able to leave it behind!
The worst thing is that many Asian countries are sharing pollution. So we have no way of knowing if the pollution we saw today was generated by the Philippines or if it floated there from China. China is singlehandedly ruining the air quality in the Asian region (not to mention the global impact of their policies). Other countries in the region may be contributors as well, but D has read that China’s pollution just blows over to other countries.
Can you imagine? What if we lived in San Diego and massive amounts of pollution just blew in and settled over our city because Mexico didn’t have good environmental policies? What an outrage, and there would basically be no recourse. Small countries have little power to leverage over a behemoth like China. It’s absolutely horrible.
In the United States, we are so lucky we are as developed as we are and our country spans most of our continent. We are powerful and influential in the region and the world, and our own environmental standards are pretty good (at least when it comes to PM2.5 - particulate matter. We are apparently one of the world's worst polluters overall). Plus, our closest neighboring countries are good neighbors, and not polluting a$$es like China. The experience differential between breathing air in or around China, and breathing air in or around the United States is so different that it’s like being on a totally different planet!
(Note from the future: The experience would only become more eye-opening as we sailed day after day through the Asian region with brown haze on the horizon on every port and sea day.)
D, Master of Artillery, found more glorious cannons in Fort Santiago!
Across the street from Fort Santiago, we were given about twenty minutes to peruse the wares of a local tourist shop. There were some very nice carvings and jewelry, but we were not in the market. In front of the shop was a man selling some plastic flying device. We had been mobbed by a few such peddlers when we got out of the bus at Rizal Park. Everything they had seemed plastic and chinsy.
However, at this location the lone peddler was smartly demonstrating his toy. He would up a rubberband and threw the device into the air. The wings flapped and the flying device sailed around. I was impressed. I knew immediately that Scott would love this toy and would want to try to design an even more impressive version. We asked the price and were able to get 2 of them for $5.00 USD. We didn’t have small change to only buy one. I figure this is good too because one could break on the way home, or maybe one doesn’t work as well as the other. Another souvenir for Scott acquired!
While driving to our next stop in the Intramuros area, we admired the chaos of wires on the electrical poles in the Philippines. It was even more impressive than what we’d witnessed in Puerta Princessa. The mess is all in the low voltage section of the power poles so it’s not dangerous (Scott would have to confirm), but it is an interesting contrast to the organization that exists in more developed countries like the United States/Europe/Australia. D had me take many pictures of different poles because Scott might like them. So, no one can say that D doesn’t think about making Scott happy. D’s a really nice guy, but he’s also the biggest pain in the butt in the world. ‘Course D would say the same thing about me! ;p
The next stop of today’s tour was San Augustin Church and Monastery. This church wasn’t as beautiful and impressive inside as many cathedrals we’ve seen before, but it was nice. I thought it was interesting that the pattern on the ceiling in the cathedral hall was painted on but made to look as if it were carved out of stone. It was a very good illusion.
There were exhibit halls that told the history of the Augustinian missionaries that first came to the Philippines and told of the introduction and spread of Christianity through the country. These friars came to the Philippines from Mexico.
What interested me the most about this history, was that the Spanish established a colony in the Philippines and used it to facilitate a trade route over to Mexico. They would bring all kinds of trade goods from the Asian area to Mexico which was already an established part of the Spanish Empire.
There was a diorama display of the items that came to the Philippines from Mexico that interested me. However, apparently the main export from Mexico was friars!
From 1565 to 1815, a period of 250 years, it took 1 year to reach the Philippines from Spain. The ship would first cross the Atlantic Ocean to Mexico. Then a cross country transfer was required to reach Mexico’s west coast. A ship would then convey the passengers across the Pacific Ocean to the Philippines.
From 1815 to 1870, the preferred route used to reach the Philippines changed to a navigation around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. From Sprain it now took only six months to reach Manila.
From 1871 onward, the preferred route changed again thanks to the opening of the Suez Canal. From Spain it now took only 40 days to reach Manila!
The church also held rooms containing relics and Catholic paraphernalia. And there were several rooms containing interred remains, including Juan Luna y Novicio who is apparently still recognized that the best Filipino artist/painter or all time.
I suppose it is worth mentioning that the San Augustin Church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is the oldest stone church in the Philippines having been completed in 1607 A.D.
The next, final, and most bizarre stop of today’s tour was at ‘The Manila Hotel’. We were dropped off here for 20 minutes to do absolutely nothing! There was literally nothing to do! There was a nice lobby, and a talented pianist was playing there. (I thought it was cool that her sheet music was on her tablet!) There wasn’t time to go to an expensive sit down restaurant. There were no exhibits. You’d think it would be for shopping but there was only one tiny tourist shop– it was only about an 8 x 8 foot room!
The most amusing thing were some giant chocolates available for purchase for Easter! I’ve never seen such huge chocolate bunnies and bird houses! They cost a pretty penny too!
We wandered outside and saw the nice swimming pool, and then we went back to the entrance to sit and wait for permission to re-board the bus.
The bus brought us back to the ship and we were free to do some exploring on our own. By the way, the penalty for smuggling drugs into the Philippines is death. We saw a sign on a fence outside the ship, and we were given an insert for our passports that explained this when we went through immigration.
Back at the ship we wandered past the restaurant and decided to glance at the menu. We weren’t expecting to see anything worth getting, and planned to eat lunch out in the city. Unfortunately or fortunately, today they were serving schnitzel! So we had no choice but to fit in a quick sit down meal to eat a delicious schnitzel, and it was good!
We decided to take the free shuttle to a Robinson’s mall (just like in Puerta Princessa) to find some food. Driving through the city in large buses is not ideal. The roads are filled with motorcycles, strange auto-ricksha vehicles, and tourist horse carts. The smaller vehicles pretty much do whatever they please and will never let a regular car or bus in. So, to make turns, our bus would just drive blatantly into oncoming traffic and sit there inching forward and slowly force its way in! It was insane!
[Davin Interjection: Unlike Puerto Princessa, cars were actually the dominant force on the road here. Unfortunately, I’m not sure the road system is actually adequate to handle them. It would actually work better if most people were riding motorcycles. Cars just clog up the streets and no one can really get anywhere fast.]
We also passed an area where homeless people were living. I saw a woman doing her laundry and hanging her clothes on some bushes. I also took many more pictures of the messy low voltage wires for Scott to enjoy when I get home! Not only were they messy and strung up haphazardly, but masses of wire were just running right through the thick foliage of trees!
When we got the mall, the first thing we noticed were the security guards patrolling the entrance with shotguns. They made for an impressive sight. When we entered the mall, there were police checking everyone’s bags. I offered them my bag, and the security guard waved me by. The same policy we encountered in Puerta Princessa.
[Davin Interjection: Seeing a security guard with a shotgun in front of the mall was kind of a surreal experience. It didn’t really frighten me, but it made me ask myself what the hell was going on here that it was necessary to have shotgun toting guards in front of the mall? It wasn’t just one man either, but at least three or four!]
In the mall we saw all kinds of familiar shops: Jamba Juice, Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, TGI Friday’s, Aeropostale, Nine West, Payless Shoesource, Speedo, Pizza Hut, Roxy, Mc Donald’s, KFC, Sbarro, and Wendy’s. There were many more that I didn’t take pictures of, and even more companies that I’ve seen in Europe or Australia, like Jollibee.
We immediately noticed that there wasn’t a mall directory. If there was one, it was well hidden which is counter to the point of a directory. The lack of a directory particularly annoyed me because I like to find what I’m looking for. It’s efficient. The mall was quite large and we wandered around at random. Ultimately, we found our goal: Pizza Hut.
Interestingly, the only kind of pizza that Pizza Hut makes in this country is deep dish per the menu posted in front of the restaurant. However, we didn’t venture inside because we saw the restaurant next door and we changed our mind on where to eat.
Unfortunately, we then needed to find a bathroom to wash our hands before we could eat. By following the signs, we were led ridiculously far away. There had to be a closer bathroom, but we didn’t see it. Again, I was annoyed at the lack of a directory!
We passed by an arcade and thought it was interesting that it was quite crowded. There were some fun looking FPS games inside. There was also a Bingo gambling place!
After much walking, we finally made it back to where we had decided to eat lunch. It was a place called “Bacolod Chicken Inasal”. Here we hoped to get a local food experience. Inasal is a specially seasoned chicken on a stick. You really can’t go wrong with chicken on a stick so we decided to give it a shot.
According to the menu, chicken inasal is “a delicacy that originated from Bacolod City in Southern Philippines.” We were able to choose white meat or dark meat. We each chose our favorite, so I ordered dark meat and D ordered white. The chicken was served with a small lime that was cut in half. It was only the size of a marble. I watched a local Filipino man squeeze his lime through a fork and into the provided bowl. I copied him. The chicken was good dipped in the lime juice. Unfortunately for me, the chicken inasal was more flavorful as white meat than dark. I thought it was good, but I prefer El Pollo Loco or KFC. However, D thought the chicken inasal was exceptionally delicious and the best kind of chicken he’s ever had.
We also ordered Lumpiang Shanghai and Chicken Adobo. The Lumpiang Shanghai was a kind of eggroll, but it didn’t taste like a regular Chinese eggroll. It was really good when dipped in the sauce provided. The Chicken Adobo wasn’t to our taste. We ordered too much food, but only the Chicken Adobo was left in the end.
Feeling quite stuffed and quite satisfied, we returned to the ship. We wrapped up the day doing our usual activities. I spent 1.5 hours in the shower working on perfecting the choir song I’ve been learning. Tomorrow is the big show on stage in the Royal Court Theatre!
Next Stop: Hong Kong (March 10, 2016)
No comments:
Post a Comment