A tour of old Manila

So as part of our cultural grounding, we thought it would be cool to get a guided tour around old Manila. For those of you who might not by aware, the Phillipines was (apparently) originally inhabited by Malays aaaaaages ago (yes, even then the Malays were all around here!!! =), then by the Spanish for about 300 years after being discovered by Ferdinand Magellan, then finally by the US for much of this century. Well, all of this according to our tour guide, who wore thies weird little speaker phone thing and a funny nut hat ...



We got to see lots of the old Spanish architecture, which had (obviously) pretty strong European roots. Though much of it was blown up (by friendly fire?) during 1945, here is a nice building that still stands ...



... and inside ...



We then checked out the Chinese-Filipino museums. That's right, even though the Chinese never "ran" Phillipines, they were there for much of the time. Go Asia! =)

We weren't allowed to take photos in the museum, even though they had some great-looking exhibits. Here's proof, honest! =) Well, I thought I'd take a photo, just to show them ... =)



Now some 80-90% of Filos are Catholic, so there are cathedrals EVERYWHERE. We then went on a tour of some of the bigger, more impressive ones ...



... and naturally there were lots of people getting married there - every hour, even though it was a weekday?! They kept getting in the way of my pictures!



Overall, an enjoyable tour. And here's a picture of the tour group! Cool bunch of guys (well, so far anyway ... just kiddin)