I had a really fun past few days in Manila. I didn't really know what to expect when I arrived. One friend who had been there last year described the city as a "shithole", but I was pleasantly surprised to find it both cosmopolitan and diverse. The section of town I stayed in was right on Manila bay, was relatively clean, and had nice restaurants and stores.

Of course, this image stood in contrast to the very visible poverty throughout-- families sleeping on the street living out of little wooden pushcarts, dirty children running around wearing only a t-shirt or sometimes nothing at all, were all too common sights.

I stayed at a hostel called Penion Nativitad, which was comfortable, sociable, and very affordable. I spent many hours sitting around the outside tables meeting amazing new people from all over the world. I met up with my old friend Emily and her husband Jon, who are Peace Corps volunteers living in the Philippines for 2 years (they've been here since May). Just by coincidence, they were pulled from their original worksite for security reasons, and are now hanging out in Manila without much to do until they are re-assigned next month (in fairness they did both have plenty of work to do also, they weren't just hanging out). The hostel was the official one that all Peace Corps volunteers use while they are in Manila, so I had the opportunity to meet and talk with lots of very cool volunteers, all with different perspectives and backgrounds. I was able to have lots of my questions answered, and it got me more excited than ever to hopefully join the Peace Corps myself sometime next year. PC volunteers are also generally fun, interesting people, so I really had a blast.

I was in Manila 4 days but didn't feel the need to rush to see every single sight in the city, and took things at a very relaxed pace. My first day I just took a walk from my hotel without any idea where I was going, and ended up wandering to a cool park in honor of the Philippines revolutionary hero. In the afternoon I got a 2 hour massage for $ 10 U.S! It was great! Another day I went with some friends I had made at the hostel to visit a few churches in the area. The churches were interesting, but just walking around the area was the most interesting part-- we wandered through a very lively market, passing colorful local vegetables and meat, among other things (It reminded me alot of the market I saw a few months ago in Huaraz, Peru). Sara also wanted to visit a historic house she read about in the Lonely Planet. I was initially a bit bored, but it turned out to be the highlight of the day when we began speaking with the lady who ran the museum, an incredible, very warm Philippino woman with a PhD in Philippino studies. She had done lots of research on Philippino culture and religion, and I had a fascinating discussion with her on Philippino spirituality and religious beliefs. a former colonial colony, the Philippines is the only predominately Catholic country in all of Asia. Nonetheless, Dr. Obusan explained to me how the country's officially catholic beliefs are really strongly fused with traditional, pre-Hispanic religious customs and traditions, including a strong dose of mysticism. What fascinated me about the discussion was how similar this all was with what I have learned about religion in Latin America, particularly the Andes, where even today Christian language and symbols are used in conjunction with much older beliefs in things like witchcraft and mysticism. I'm certainly not an expert in this area, but was fascinated to see these parallels between 2 such vastly different cultures. Moreover, as a student of Latin American studies, I have been interested to see other more general similarities between the Philippines and Latin American countries as former Spanish colonies, in such areas as architecture and even language--Tagalog, also known as Philipino, perhaps has 10% of its words borrowed from Spanish, so it's been very strange for me to listen to a completely unfamiliar language and suddenlty understand random words and phrases.

The Philippinos I have encountered have been among the friendliest, most open people I have ever come across, and I have struck up numerous conversations with people after chance encounters since I've been here. Yesterday a group of students approached and asked if we would be judges for their school dance competition, which they were just getting ready to start. Walking on the street today, I came across some people singing karaoke in their house (they had rented the machine for a birthday party--Karaoke is HUGE here), and they invited me to sing, so I sang a very embarassed off-tune rendition of "My Girl". My guidebook describes Philippino culture as "quirky". I wasn't quite sure what that meant until I was here a few days. Those are just a few examples, you'd have to see it for yourself to understand. Of course, Philippino culture is more than just quirky, and I'm seeing that it's really quite complicated. While speaking with the doctor the other day, she lamented how Philipinos strive to emulate the West, America more than anything, in nearly every way they can, and seem to not be proud of, or really to even understand, their own unique identity. When speaking with another woman about the Philippines' colonial past, why it had allowed itself to transfer from Spanish to American sovereignty without much resistance, she described what she termed as Philipino "resilience", their ability to adapt to new conditions (or new exploiters?) and still be happy. Put this way, the undeniable Philippino friendliness I have observed gives me rather mixed feelings. Nonetheless, their openness seems very genuine and has made my experiences here so far much more meaningful.

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I flew this morning from Manila to Busuanga, a relatively small island south of Manila not too far from Borneo. I flew on a tiny prop plane and it was quite and adventurous flight, flying over Luzon's green mountains followed by the South China sea. As we approached the island, my jaw dropped and my body shook with excitement as I looked down at the blue water and coral-fringed beaches surrounding a lush, mountaineous jungle landscape. From what I've read, this island is supposed to be one of the jewels of the Philippines, an unspoilt adventure sports paradise, but I've only been here for a few hours. My plan is to stay here at least a month in the town of Coron, and to get my training as a SCUBA divemaster, which would then qualify me to work and get paid to lead dives, rather than continuing to pay for this very expensive sport. I've spoken with a local dive shop who will give me the training for a very good price, and best of all I'll get to dive all I want during the training-- the area supposedly has some of the world's best wreck diving on a fleet of Japanese ships that were sunk here in a surprise attack on one day during WWII in 1944.

I plan to dive a few days before comitting to anything, so today while I was walking around, I was faced with the decision of whether I really want to invest an entire month of my time here. I've realized that the town is not a "tropical paradise" in the traditional sense of the word, and has a few disadvantages. First, there is no beach. There is waterfront, but is mostly covered by mangrove trees, and houses and docks are all built on stilts far out over the water (actually a really cool feature in and of itself, but not a beach) Second, the water here is not the perfectly clear blue you would picture of the South Pacific. The town is located within a sort of river-like tidal archipelago, so when you look out, instead of seeing a blue horizon you see sort of dark turqoise water, and the green siloutte of nearby Coron island, a very dramatic and impressive limestone island rising from the water 2 km from shore. The downside is that visibility on dives here is pretty unimpressive, averaging only about 8 meters (25 feet). So while not what most tourists look for in a tropical destination, this fact leads to some advantages. First, the town seems to have an incredibly energetic and local feel to it, and is not just another tourist beach crowded with foreigners. I walked around town today and passed by the elementary school, where countless smiling children in uniforms were just coming out, stopping to buy candy on their way. Many smiled and said hello, a few were even brave enough to ask my name. I didn't see another foreigner the entire time I was walking. At lunch I met a teacher at the local university and had another fascinating discussion about him and his family. Everyone here seems very genuinely friendly, I really like it already. But I guess the biggest test will come tomorrow when I finally get to see for myself how the diving that I've been waiting so long for really is...