Some photos from the Philippines

So back in August, I went to the Philippines for about 2 weeks.

So, I went to Palawan for 3 days for sightseeing. In all the many times I have been to the Philippines, this was the first time I have been to Palawan. We went rock climbing, went on an underground river tour, and had a look at some various other sights. 

After that, we went to Butuan for a few days. For Butuan, it was purely to visit family... well rather family came to visit us. Mum and I stayed in a hotel with a large room, and what usually happens when going to Butuan is that the family will come to our hotel room and hang out with us for the day. In this case, they were able to get rooms in the same hotel as well so they could stay the night and hang out with us again the next day. Some of the family wanted to watch Deadpool & Wolverine, and I joined them. It was an ok movie, though I do appreciate Wesley Snipes' cameo as Blade. Give us a Logan-style Blade movie please.

For the final stretch of the trip, it was catching up with some family friends, and a little bit of sightseeing in Cebu.

This used to be an old Spanish base near a port. It had been abandoned for many years, and my mum told me that she used to hang out here with her friends as a kid. In recent years, it's been refurbished as a park/museum of sorts. The interior of the buildings was still being worked on, but it looks like they plan to put old photos/paintings in the rooms eventually.

Another place we went was the Temple of Leah. This is right up in the hills of Cebu. You will notice that the temple is a Roman-style structure, and maybe you're thinking it was built several hundred years ago. Actually, this was built over 10 years ago and was built by a very wealthy man in memory of his loving wife, Leah. Along with a golden statue of Leah, within each of the chambers of the temple is a collection of everything that she had purchased through her travels, and she had purchased quite a lot of fancy things, even alcohol weirdly enough.

Finally, we went to garden park further down the same hill. Unfortunately, I didn't remember the name of the garden, but there were a lot of structures and pieces of art where a lot of people would take pictures of. While I did that too, I was more interested in the view from the garden itself. While it was a cloudy, and occasionally rainy, day it was still a really neat view.

While I would like to go back to the Philippines again in the next few years, getting engaged recently has shifted priorities to finding an apartment and the wedding for the time being. Maybe after these two things have been sorted, we can perhaps look in to another trip to the Philippines, hopefully together with my fiancé. 

Toji in ... the Philippines?

For the first time in a few years, I'm posting this entry from outside of Japan. Currently I am in Manilla waiting for my connecting flight to Cebu.

Travelling to the Philippines is a big deal for me this time for several reasons. First, it's been 5 years since I have travelled overseas. It's been an hour since I arrived in the Philippines and it feels so... weird. For one, having staff speak to me in English took a little getting used to. Plus the whole driving system is the opposite of Japan. 

The second is that it's been about 20 years since I last went to the Philippines. When I was younger, my family and I would go the Philippines every few years to visit Mum's side of the family. Her family is rather big, so it's hard for me to remember everybody's names, while they only have to remember me. Sadly all of Mum's siblings have passed away save one that is in Australia, so it's just visiting cousins this time round.

The final reason is that this will be the first time to travel to the Philippines without Dad. As neither Dad and I can speak a lick of Tagalog or any of the dialects, while mum and her family talk away, Dad and I would just talk to each other. Fortunately, Dad was able to go to the Philippines with Mum a few years back, so he was able to at least see Mum's family and relatives before he passed. I only wishes Dad was able to visit Japan just once, even if it was just Ibaraki prefecture.

One other thing I noticed while going through Narita airport to my flight to Manilla, is that mainland Chinese are usually the most difficult tourists to deal with. A simple purchase/transaction at a store that should only take 1 minute or 2 suddenly becomes longer: and I'm standing there just waiting to pay cash for a bottle of water. I have to commend the shop staff at Narita airport for having the patience to deal with them, because I certainly don't, even when I was working in hospitality.

I will be in the Philippines for two weeks, but expect some photos of my trip after returning to 日本.