Manila

From our resort in Sabang we took an hour and a half transfer to Puerto Princesa airport so we could catch our late evening flight to Manila for our final stop on this amazing adventure. Our flight landed in Manila at just before midnight and by the time be deplane and got our lunch it was well on our way to 1am. Our hotel thankfully is right by the airport and we found we could walk there by taking Runway Manila over the busy roadway beside the airport and then walking about 5 minutes to the hotel. While the sidewalks weren’t in the best of conditions and have limited accessibly ramps at the curbs we managed our way to the hotel fairly easily. 

We stayed at the Sheraton Manila Hotel at Newport World Resorts. We were upgrades to a large and extremely nice king suite with a view of the airport. The suite had a living room and eating area along with a powder room. The bedroom lead into a large walk through wardrobe into the large bathroom with double vanity, soaker tub and rain shower and the toilets were Toto toilets with heated seats!! We could watch plans taking off and landing from our bed. We finally got to sleep around 2am after settling in for a bit  and we both had somewhat of a broken sleep with the noise from the airport and roadway. 

After breakfast we ordered a Grab to take us to the Venice Mall Grand Canal - a Venice, Italy themed mall. As we approached the mall, I spotted a giant Tim Hortons cup and lo and behold we found a Timmies in Manila!! While we didn’t buy anything we did go in to see what it was like. They had a much smaller donut selection but had a couple unique flavours not found back home like a Venetian and another with coconut. We found this mall to have many of the western and American brands and restaurant chains including Dairy Queen which had a couple different unique flavours that we couldn’t resist but to try; mango for me and avocado Oreo for Z. 

From here we walked to the Manila American Military cemetery. I know a strange place to think about visiting however at noon their main memorial tower they play a chime and have a military helicopter fly over. The whole memorial is quite nicely built and a nice resting place for 77,000 souls lost in the battle of the Pacific during WWII. The visitor centre plays a very informative documentary on how the Filipinos and Americans banded together to reclaim Philippines from the Japanese. 

From here we continued our walk to the BCG (Bonifacio Global City) district where we started off with lunch at Manam. We shared a few different dishes here and once again really found each dish full of exploding flavour. The BCG district is a modern newish area of Manila. You can find countless modern high rises here along with retail shops, restaurants, other commercial and malls. All over the Philippines, places and streets still had their Christmas decorations and this area was no different with very elaborately decorated Christmas trees and other decor including gingerbread men. There is a pedestrian shopping street called Bonifacio High Street where we found many interesting shops including a French patisserie which I could resist going in to browse their pastries and ended up getting a pistachio macaroon. Gentle Monster is a high end Korean eyewear store that is also known for its artwork throughout their stores. This location has a gigantic human like sitting man statue in its entrance. The likeness to real was uncanny. A couple other stops along the street included afternoon coffee at Harlan + Holden Coffee, a minimalist coffee store front serving high quality drinks; some standard coffee drinks but also a lot of different varieties and flavours like a peanut butter flat white which I had to try! And lastly we stopped in at Fully Booked, a multi-floor bookstore geared towards any sort of bookworm. In the middle of the main floor they have a magnificent art piece mural made entirely of books. 

All in all, while we only had a day in Manila, we filled our day with a good amount of sightseeing and activities to give us a descent feel for the city. Overall we had such an amazing time in the Philippines. We got to create some really great memories, enjoyed some really unique experiences and saw such beautiful landscape and beaches. The people were incredibly friendly and genuine. We enjoyed way too much good food and indulged in a lot of fresh mango shakes, yellow watermelon, and calamansi drinks. We met several interesting and friendly fellow travellers along the way… the German couple in El Nido, the Swiss couple on Flower Island, and an English couple (originally from Portugal and Brazil) in Sabang. The Philippines is definitely on the return one day list!! 

To travel is to live… until next time. Life is good!