Daily Diary: Day Eleven

Written by Emily Choong

Photographs by Emily Choong and Dr Yeoh Seng Guan

     4 a.m. on the 29th January 2013 was a fairly emotional morning. We had no more than two hours of sleep the previous night and some of us were pretty much drained from an epic karaoke session to wrap up our stay in Iloilo. Our amazing student guides woke up at such an odd hour just to bid us farewell, which we were all very touched by. After many hugs, teary eyes and goodbyes, we immediately left for the airport as we were running late. During the ride to the airport, I was personally constantly having flashbacks of the many events which happened during those ten days which flew by so quickly.

"5J452 is now ready for boarding."

   We were still in the midst of paying our airport taxes when that announcement came in. True enough, we were nearly late due to an unexpectedly long queue entering the airport. Despite the slight delay and rush in our schedule, we took off at sunrise.

Video Diary: Day 11

Video Diary: Day 11 from ISOiloilo on Vimeo.

Manila: Editor's Note

In the place of a daily diary, our first day in Manila has been ably chronicled by three travellers in their posts describing the morning, when we arrived in Manila to the point we wandered around Quiapo, the afternoon, which we spent on a food tour of Binondo (Manila's Chinatown), and a reflection written at the end of the day. 

Session 7.1: Good Morning Manila

Written by Helen Sneha
Pictures by Jonathan Lim, Sarah Chong and Melissa Chia

2. The Big Binondo Food Wok >>

The architecture of the church is gorgeous

     We headed out into Manila on our first day feeling fresh and upbeat after a short, comfortable flight, a breakfast at Jollibee's, and a few hours of shut-eye. As we took a drive around the city, it gave us great pleasure to point out and compare jeepneys, various words, and buildings with the ones we had grown familiar with in Iloilo. We stopped by The Church of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo, and spent some time inside marveling at the architecture and the grandeur. I, for one, had not been aware of what the Black Nazarene was, and learned about it for the first time in the church on that day. It is a statue of Jesus Christ that had apparently turned dark when it survived a fire on its way to the Philippines, and is believed by many to be miraculous. We also spent some time looking upward at the panels on the ceiling depicting the birth of Christ on one hand and his crucifixion on the other.

Session 7.2: The Big Binondo Food Wok

Written by Gwyneth Liew

Pictures by Sarah Chong, Gwyneth Liew and vivafilipans.tumblr.com

<< 1. First Morning in Manila                                    3. Same same but different >>

      The Big Binondo Food Wok is one of many tours offered by the Old Manila Walks tour company that provides tourists with an experience of the rich histories of Manila which include areas like Intramuros, Binondo, San Miguel, Quiapo, the Chinese Cemetery and more. Although our pathfinder, Dr. Yeoh Seng Guan had originally planned for us to go on a different tour; it was switched to the Binondo Food Wok by popular vote when the original tour became unavailable. Our tour guide for the day was Mr. Ivan, a local who is of Chinese and Filipino descent. He is also a friend of Mr. Eugene Jamerlan, our previous tour guide who brought us to the magnificent and historic mansions in Mandurriao, Iloilo City.

Session 7.3: Same same but different

Same Same But Different: Close cultural proximities of the Chinese in Malaysia and the Philippines 

Written by Low Jia Wei 

Photographs by Jonathan Lim, Sarah Chong and Melissa Chia

<<  2. The Big Binondo Food Wok                             1. First Morning in Manila >>

      It never fails to amaze me how the Chinese diaspora in all parts of the world manage to maintain their unique cultural heritage amidst the assimilation and acculturation processes that usually consume minority cultures into mainstream ones. However, the Chinese culture proves to be a resilient one, bending and adopting other cultural practices into its fold, rather than breaking and becoming absorbed. Of course, I realize that China is a vast empire and as such its culture varies greatly from region to region, but for the purposes of this article, I refer to culture that originates from Fujian in China, a region from which the Chinese communities of Manila and my hometown, Penang, hail from.

A familiar sight