Daily Diary Day 12

Written by Esther Ho and Emily Choong
Photographs by Cultural Center of the Philippines Website, Openbuildings.com, Melissa Chia and Emily Choong

Sun, Sea, Sand and Scenes 

   Today, after enjoying a good night’s rest, we travelers woke up to a splendid surprise - complimentary breakfast at Rosa’s Garden Hotel’s restaurant! On offer were the classic big American breakfast (Toast, bacon, eggs, coffee and juice); Filipino Favorite (Longanisa, corned beef, egg, rice) and Mercedes breakfast (pancakes, butter, maple syrup, fresh fruit). Feeling indulgent, most of us opted for the big American breakfast and some of us learnt that while the restaurant prided themselves in being able to do eggs any style, poached eggs was just out of their reach. 

     Alas, breakfasts on study trips are never a fine dining experience. We were hurried out of the hotel in straggling groups on foot towards the Cultural Center of the Philippines via Manila Bay. Those who were too late would take a taxi.

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.

Daily Diary Day 10: Cultural Night and Karaoke

Written by Helen Sneha 

Pictures by Jonathan Lim 

     On the tenth and final night of our stay in Iloilo, we held our cultural night performance. Attendees included our host from the University of the Philippines Visayas, Dr Rosalie Arcala-Hall, and many other individuals to whom we owed the success of our trip. Everyone gathered in the foyer of the UPV Cinematheque (where we had had our first international film screening a few nights prior) to mingle with one another and partake of some Malaysian snacks and finger food which we had brought with us. After dinner, which we spent chatting with our guests on the one hand and conducting hushed last-minute-preparations on the other, we all headed into the cinematheque for the cultural night performances to begin.

Daily Diary: Day 5

Written by Lestari Hairul
Photographs by Sarah Chong and Lestari Hairul

A day of churches

    The day started out pretty late today as we had no special sessions in the morning, so most had taken the opportunity to sleep in while Sarah and I got up bright and early to make the trip to the various churches of Iloilo with one of the student guides, Noraisa. This is a record of our short adventure.

Daily Diary: Day Four

Written by Sheril  A. Bustaman 

Pictures by Joyce Ng, Sarah Chong, Melissa Chia & Jonathan Lim 

  Today was by far the earliest start we’ve had so far- the travelers convened at 7.30am and made their way via jeepney ride to the Ortiz Pier where Joyce bought us ferry tickets to the island of Guimaras. Our chief editor Chrishandra had to register us all by name before we could board the boat. A short fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the Guimaras Roro Pier and arranged a jeepney to take us to our first destination of the day. While waiting, Dr Rosalie Hall pointed out the balik bayan goods that were being unloaded onto the pier. The travelers learnt that balik bayan (literally translated as “to return home”) were goods sent from people living overseas for their family and friends or even their own things because they are now returning back to their homeland. What is so special about the balik bayan is that it has no weight limit and has a flat rate that varies according to the country the goods are being sent from. The jeepney finally arrived, and the travelers then piled in.

Now this is where things got interesting.

Daily Diary: Day Three

Written by Gwyneth Liew

Photographs by Melissa Chia, tumblr.com

     Our day started with a feast kindly provided by Prof. Rosalie Hall, our host at the University of the Philippines Visayas. The feast consisted of a serving of rice cakes referred to as ibus as well as juicy mangoes, a favorite among locals. Ibus is a rice cake which is similar to the Malaysian's nasi pulut (starchy rice). During the feast, some of us learned from our female student guides that there was a special way to open the ibus from its leafy packaging. One would first have to push down the ribbon and outer layers before using a fork to slice it halfway down. It felt like a peculiar way of peeling bananas.

Daily Diary: Day 2 - City Heritage Tour

Written by Chrishandra Sebastiampillai   

Pictures by Melissa Chia

     We were met by Mr. Eugene Jamerlan, who was to be our guide for the day.  He gave us a brief description of the history and geography of Iloilo, which he described as four separate towns joined together. We began where we stood, on the UPV campus grounds, which used to be the Iloilo City Hall, and was donated by the Mayor of Iloilo in the 1930s to ultimately become the city campus of UPV. The Mayor himself went on to become the Vice President of the Philippines. 

We really enjoyed ourselves

Daily Diary: Day One

Written by Helen Jambunathan 

Pictures by Emily Choong & Sarah Chong 

            Having left Monash University at 10 pm on Friday night, we travelers found ourselves arriving in Iloilo City after nearly 12 hours of being on the move. In between, some of us had managed to catch some shut-eye sleeping on three plane seats with the armrests up, but for the most part we were all bleary-eyed, having missed a night’s worth of sleep.

 The sun glinting off the plane wing.