We arrived Sunday morning and hooked up with our driver, Renato Natividad. He was a former student of my Dad's and luckily he recognized me immediately because "I look just like your Dad." We went to the Pan Pacific Hotel and checked in. Lucky for us, this 5 star hotel did not have any rooms ready so they upgraded us to a room which was. This hotel rocked.
After cleaning up, we went to intramuros. Its a very historic section of Manila. We went to a church built in 1590s by Spain. It was pretty amazing and had the best stair case ever (44 steps, each a giant slab of granite). Pictures were not really allowed so you'll just have to trust me. We did sneak in a cool picture of the the music the choir would read from:
The next day we headed out across Manila to Faith Academy. It was exciting to see what was easily one of the best times of my life. As a missionary kid you never really "belong" anywhere, but I belonged at this school.
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After Faith Academy we saw the St. Lucia mall in La Cainta. Its about three times the size it used to be, but no longer has an "El Pollo Loco". I must have eaten dozens of chickens at that place. We did eat at Pizza Hut and I had forgotten how awesome Pizza Hut is in the Philippines. The bread is much better there.
The following day, we went to a volcano in Tagatay. It was a nice relaxing trip. You basically take a boat to the volcano and from there either take a horse or walk to the crater. Its only 5k and the people there will make it sound like its a harrowing journey with many dangers, but its nothing. We did hire a guide though for 500 pesos (as opposed to the 4k they wanted for the horses), mainly because we were more worried about what they would do if we didn't hire a guide. It ended up being a nice hike and got a good view out of it.
For the boat ride they used this as the gas tank:
On Wednesday we took the 7 hour drive to Baguio City. The drive was much like I remembered it, only more businesses and buildings along the way. We took Kennon road up, which is a great road to learn whether you get car sick or not. I was glad to see the lion is still around, though it looks slightly different:
Our first day in Baguio I made sure to visit Brent, Camp John Hay, Session Road, and Bell Church. Visiting Brent was great. The school recently had a 100 year anniversay and so they had a good exhibit for that. I also got to meet my third grade teacher Mr. Balbao who remembered me immediately as a kickball champion :D
Camp John Hay is still very nice, but is also very different. There are more stores and some subdivisions inside now, but the golf course is very well maintained (unlike the mini-golf course!).
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Session road is very similar except the addition of a giant mall at the top and 3-4 more Jolibee's and McDonald's spread around.
And finally, the main point of the trip is a visit to the Luzon Nazerene Bible College where I grew up. Not much to say other than that its still awesome:
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I also relearned how to play Sungka. I've even made a knol explaining how to play:
Overall I had a great time. My mind was on overdrive remembering random details about my childhood. Oh and I LOVE the food. I'm not picky, I'm just more Filipino than I thought!