Today we are in Manila, The Philippines. A new country for us. The Philippines are named after King Philip II of Spain when the Spanish controlled the islands. We arrived here midafternoon and were welcomed to shore by an enthusiastic welcoming committee.
Our tour was of Intramuros (the old city inside the Spanish city walls) and Chinatown.
The Philippines
is celebrating international Women’s Day today.
Saw this banner in several places around the city.
Our first stop was Intramuros and Fort Santiago. The Intramuros is the old walled city of Manila and one of the oldest sections of the city. The walls were built by the Spanish (arrived there around 1571 and controlled the islands until 1898. Practically the entire city of Manila, including Intramuras, was flattened in 1945 during the Battle of Manila when the US ousted the Japanese from the city.
The walls and moat.
The old barracks (now the Rajah Sulayman Theater).
The wall gate to the river.
The Pasig River with views of Manila.
We had a short stop to visit the Manila Cathedral, which was also badly damaged during the Battle of Manila. It has been rebuilt seven times over four centuries as it has been frequently damaged by earthquakes and war. It was rebuilt in the 1950’s.
The interior looked much like any Catholic church in Europe.
Electrical lines here are much like we have seen in many other places in Asia.
From there we headed to Chinatown. Before heading into Chinatown proper we stopped to at the Binondo Church right next door to the entrance.
While the Chinatown tour could have been interesting (they have a large and colorful Chinatown) the group was too large for a good tour. We were strung out too far due to the narrow streets. People missed much of the guide’s narrative and the plans for sampling street food as we went along didn’t happen. Instead, they had the food delivered to the bus where we could sample it there (about an hour before dinner time on the ship).
They did succeed in getting us a Chinese "biscuit"...sort of a cookie.
The cookie shop was brightly decorated for the New Years.
Chinatown was decked out beautifully for the Chinese New Years. Red Lanterns everywhere.
We had a stop at this street cross/shrine, The Cross of Longnos. Unfortunately, it was hard to hear much of the narrative about the cross.
Traffic in Manila is much like everywhere we have been in Asia...interesting with heavy traffic and all types of vehicles.
Sunset as we were headed to dinner. From the ship.
However, the day did end spectacularly. Our evening performance was the Sindaw Philippines cultural dance performance, a local folkloric show. The costumes were colorful, the music fun, the performers were enthusiastic and talented,...
and the singer was great.
They included audience participation, which was fun and funny. They asked for volunteers to try the local delicacy, a fertilized duck egg only slightly cooked, right out of the shell…
and participating in the dance where you try to avoid getting your ankles thumped while jumping through rhythmically clapping bamboo poles.
The performers did the stick dance at a much faster rhythm.
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