My Trip to Manila

After getting engaged, David and I jetted to Manila for a week to visit with his family. David's last visit was seven years ago! We were able to visit pretty much every relative David still has in the Philippines. Our schedules were jam packed with travel, good food, fun places, and quality time with my new family-to-be. Here's the week in pictures (David and I took a ton more, they'll be up on facebook soon!)

First, a meal (of course!) with David's mom's side of the family:

We then spent a couple of days touring Intramuros. Intramuros is the old city of Manila, where the Spanish built their fort in the 16th century. Intramuros was almost completely destroyed during World War II, so almost everything is a reconstruction.

This is part of the wall of the old Spanish fort:

Behind these walls is where Philippine national hero Jose Rizal spent time in jail before he was executed by the Spanish. Below is an actual size statue of Rizal (He was only 5'2") in the area where he said his last prayers before execution. The spot pictured used to be a chapel:

The surrounding area of the old city (to the right in the below photo), which used to be a moat, is now a golf course to help pay for the cost of upkeep of Intramuros.


Below is San Agustin church. It is the oldest church in the Philippines and just about the only thing to avoid being destroyed in World War II. The Japanese help American and Filipino hostages here so the U.S. avoided bombing it.

The Manila Cathedral, the second oldest church in the Philippines. This was destroyed in World War II, so the building pictured here is a reconstruction:


Visiting Tagatay, a mountain resort area:

The resort we went to had a small zoo!

Visiting Villa Escudero, an old coconut hacienda or plantation, turned into a resort. One of the attractions of this resort is being driven around by carabao:

This was my favorite carabao, an albino carabao named Pogi (meaning handsome):

Another attraction is eating lunch in a river, at the bottom of a manmade waterfall, which is an old dam used for electricity in the early 1900s.

Back to Davao, land of the Durian!