Saturday Around the City

Saturday morning Jing, LAM, and Gina met us at the Ascott and we headed out for a day of sightseeing around Manila. We started out by driving past the Malacañan Palace where the President lives. We were stopped by guards at the gate and Gina had to explain that they were taking us sightseeing! We weren't allowed to take any pictures.

Next we stopped in a church (the name of which I cannot remember right now). There was a wedding in progress--there were weddings at all three of the churches we visited!

 Next, we went to the University of Santo Tomas, the oldest university in the Philippines (actually, according to its website, the oldest university in Asia!). It is 400 years old!

We went inside the building and toured the museum. It was full of things like this:

Creepy animals

Creepy snake!

Creepy sea creature! We decided they all come alive in the night so we hightailed it out of there.

Religious statues (not in the same room as the creepy animals)

 

 

 Upstairs, Jing found a cabinet and really wanted to look inside...

It was locked.

 And then she found a chair she needed to peek around...

Too bad it was roped off!

Then we went back outside for more pictures. I found an elephant, and since I'm apparently into elephants now, needed a picture with it.

Cute elephant.

I assume this guy is Santo Tomas himself.

And a couple of pictures with the UST letters to round out the set!

Just me and the giant yellow letters.

Laura, Gina, and me. No clue what pose I am trying to do!

At this point in the day, my camera battery started whining that it was low. I had forgotten to charge it the night before! You'll see I still managed to get quite a few pictures throughout the rest of the day, though not as many as I would have liked.

After UST, we stopped at Binondo church. They were getting ready for a wedding, too.

After walking around the church, we headed into Chinatown. We ate lunch at President Restaurant and had delicious Chinese food.

A small sampling of our delicious lunch.

The things on the right tasted kind of like PopChips.

 We walked around Chinatown in the rain. Stopped at a Buddhist Temple right before it started downpouring. I pulled out the emergency poncho (silly me, I had left my umbrella in the van) and proceeded to walk around like that for a while.

After Chinatown, they took us to 168 mall and Divisoria. We were the first to go there of any of the TR travelers. We had a good time hunting for bargains and didn't get pickpocketed. I got some fabric and a souvenir for AJ. There were a ton of people there (or so I thought) but the real crowds happen closer to Christmas.

At some point (maybe between Chinatown and 168?), I looked out the window and saw THIS!

I don't know what they were selling, but I'm glad the Future Shop exists.

Quotes from the van:
LZ: How do you spell it [Divisoria]?
LAM: 168!

(Those three tiny numbers have caused a great deal of laughter. The entire TR Manila office has heard the story by now, and everyone has laughed almost as hard as we did when it happened.)

LZ: Shannon! (Referring to me, of course, since people confuse me with other people everywhere I go.)

Gina: Erin! (Again, referring to me.)

LAM: We'll call you Sherin!

LZ: I can sleep next week. [When she's RETIRED.]

Okay. After all of this, we weren't done--not even close! We went to Fort Santiago, which is a 16th century fort where Jose Rizal was imprisoned before he was executed. Rizal was a writer and political figure.

Rizal statue.

Those metal grates are on top of prisoner holding cells. This is overlooking the Pasig River.

Artsy Rizal shot

Jing, LAM and me trying on a different look.

 We stopped at the Church of San Agustin next. Another wedding! This church was beautiful. And then my camera died.

The church has been here since 1607!

 After this, we still stopped at Rizal Park, and then drove past the Mall of Asia, and US Embassy, and Manila Bay. We had a great day--it was fun to see so many different parts of Manila with such fun ladies. :)