Day 4: Off the Beaten Path

It just keeps getting better! After an enjoyable evening on the Bayleaf Hotel's beautiful skydeck and a solid night of sleep, we were rearing to go explore more of Manila City! We met up with our awesome guide Greg outside of Binondo Church near Manila City Chinatown, which interestingly is the oldest chinatown in the world. He led us down Onpin Street into the depths of the city so that we could get a taste of urban Filipino life outside of Intramuros. There were many sights to be seen, such as street vendors selling wares that ranged from fresh fruit to fortunes told by tarot cards, small tributaries that looked not too clean, and beautiful plazas and fountains.  The only thing that might have trumped the sights were the tastes! It seemed only fitting that we try out a local vendor's coconuts after the plethora of information given to us the day before by Greg. Many of us could be seen sipping juice from the coconut's insides with long straws or eating the flesh, whereas others instead opted to buy local pastries such as Hopia from Salazar's, a popular neighborhood bakery. We finished up by doing a  bit of shopping among local street vendors, checking out the San Sebastian Church, a enormous church built entirely of cast iron, as well as the House of Wood and Stone, the former home of a revolutionary and his wife who helped instigate the revolt against Spain as an occupying country.

After taking jeepney's, the best form of transportation ever, back to the hotel to clean up. We headed over to PLM for a Q&A with the community leaders of the Intramuros Volunteer Movement (IVM). Questions regarding Manila City's issues and future concerns were asked in English by members of GIEU, and were answered in Tagolog by the amazingly nice panelists, with Christina translating all the while. It quickly became apparent that big strides were being taken by these leaders to try and positively impact their community as much as possible, so it was really great when Richard praised their efforts with certificates of recognition from U of M. Shortly after we were led outside to meet a large number of elementary aged children from local schools. The kids were all very friendly, some even sassy, but all of them were SOOO CUTE! It was a blast playing with them, especially when we started a massive game of tag in which they had to get from one end of the walk to the other without us touching them. Afterward, we took them inside and served our little guests porridge along with our PLM student guides. After the children's brief dinner, we gave the children story books as gifts, which they all seemed to love, despite the craze of trading that ensued among kids trying to get different books. A few were sad when it was time to say goodbye (especially to Robert!) but our time with them was quickly over, so we said our goodbyes to the kids, PLM, and Intramuros and headed for Cavite City where we were received by the Dynamic Teen Movement and Efren Penaflorida! After a delicious evening meal, we got to hear a little about the pushcarts and meet our host families for the next 4 days. 

Today has been simply awesome and none of us can wait to see what new experiences and adventures await tomorrow!

-Ray & Patrick