First Weekend

I had a very full day seeing the sights on Saturday. I started the day before 9 AM by walking to the Ayala Musem, here in Makati City. It is a very nice museum but much smaller than it would appear from the outside. Most notable exhibit in this museum was a 5 kilo fine chain of pure gold that was worn by a nearby chief around 900 AD. This chain was part of the Suriago Treasure of gold relics that wasn't discovered until 1981. In addition to the gold relics, the museum has 60 nicely created dioramas dramatizing the history of the Philippines from prehistoric times to its independence from the US.

After spending about an hour at the museum, I took a taxi to the American Cemetery.  Here is a very nicely maintained cemetery contains the 17,202 graves of American military dead from WWII.  For those of you familiar with the military cemetery in Hawaii, this cemetery is very similar.   From the cemetery, I got another taxi and went to old downtown Manila, Intramuros.  This is a wall area of the city which was the old Spanish heart of the city.  It is now very much a city within a city.  Although there are still walls and buildings everywhere, these were rebuilt in recent years.  They were made to look much older than they are as most of Intramuros was reduced to rumble during WWII.

After walking and looking about Intramuros, I walked over the bridge and had lunch at a Chinese vegetarian restaurant in Chinatown.  After lunch, I walked to a nearby rapid triain station and went to the Chinese Cemetery.  This cemetery was started in the mid 1800s as the Spainish wouldn't allow the rich Chinese be buried in the regular cemeteries.  To counter this discrimination, the Chinese created there own cemetery which is really a bit over the top.  For example, Most of the recent tombs look like town houses and many have A/C so mourners can be comfortable.  One, I understand, even has a swimming pool.  The locals claim these are some of the best accommodations in Manila.

From the cemetery, I got another taxi and went to the Shoe Museum in Marikina.  As seems to always be the case, the driver claimed to know where the museum was.  However, this is a case where he didn't!  Instead of the shoe museum, he left me off at a store which had on display the of the world's largest shoes. It seems Marikina is the shoe capital of the world and they made these shoes in honor of that.  Any way, I had a Filipino tell my next taxi driver exactly where I wanted to go, that is the Shoe Museum.  Of course, he knew where it was.  But that was obviously not the case again as he stopped two times for directions.  I finally had to use the Google Navigator on my phone so he could actually find the museum!  BTW, I replaced my SIM card in my Samsung Smartphone and nose I have a local phone and local number!  But I burned through my minutes using it for the Navigator app several times during the day.

After all the trouble finding the shoe museum, I didn't find it all that interesting.  Still, it has 800 pairs of the over 3,00 pairs of shoes Imelda Marcos had in her possession back at the time of 1986 revolution.  The museum also has a small collection of shoes from other Filipano celebrities and dignities, as well as a tribute to the shoe history of Marikina.

  After the museum, I took my first jeepney to a rapid train station.  For those of you not familiar with jeepneys, just picture a colorful cattle car for people that goes along a select route.  Of course for those of us not familiar with the routes, this can be a challenge.  Any way, I did finally made it on the correct jeepneys and made it to the station.  From there, I took the train back to my hotel or at least I tried to do that.  Actually, I got off at the wrong station and ended up taking yet another taxi.  Fortunately, taxis are cheap here in the Philippines.  To end out the day, I had dinner with Art at a nearby Thai restaurant.  

Today, Sunday, I went by rapid train to one of the largest (flea like) markets in the Philippines.  Although it was huge with propel everywhere, it wasn't interesting as it was mostly clothes meant for the locals.  I didn't see another Caucassin there.  After that, I returned by the train and had lunch.  Then I got busy on the Internet in my room to make reservations to fly to Cebu on Tuesday.  If is a bit difficult to figure out the fares etc. here as there are several small airlines with different required add ons.  The largest of these is AirAsia which are not even listed on most fare search engines.  my reservations are with them and I was required to add extra for each of the following: the convenience of paying via the Internet, a checked bag, insurance on my baggage and finally a qfuel surcharge.  Still, after all these fees, the fare came to about $60 for my  way, one hour flight to the island of Cebu.