Home to Manila

After a successful staging in Philadelphia, myself and 80 other Education Volunteers (new funding through congress allowed us this opportunity) boarded our planes headed to Tokyo. The excitement was buzzing at our gate as we waited for our twenty hour flight to Manila.


Twelve hours and three meals later we arrived in Tokyo for an hour lay-over. The airport was one of the cleanest I have ever seen. It also had a few cool things that caught my eye. An Origami store with huge scenes of different things like Japanese Gardens and Japanese Dancers. There were Cherry Blossom trees and and Fireworks that were just a piece of a whole scene but individually really cool to visually study.



Five hours later we arrived in Manila to an amazing welcoming party of Peace Corps staff and helpers. From the time that we walked through the gate we were taken care of. Our luggage was loaded onto buses and we were driven through Manila to our little resort about a half hour from the airport. As stated in the guidebooks, the poverty is quite visible to a passer-by. Tightly packed houses built higher and higher because of limited land space.

After a good nights sleep my roommate Tracy and I headed out to check out our home for the next week at daylight.
The river outside of our hotel was filled with trash including what Tracy thought at first to be a human body floating in the water. It turned out to be a deflated Santa doll.

There were also wooden boat racks coming out of the water which were pretty cool looking.
We find out where our homes for the next three months will be on Thursday. In the meantime it is a bunch of introductions and preparation sessions for the next two years. The weather is much more humid than Hawaii but not too uncomfortable. The people are incredibly hospitable and friendly, we are definitely being spoiled for our short stay here in Manila.