My First day in Manila
Today I arrived at Ninoy Aquino Airport, Manila and travelled to Cainta Rizal where I am staying with a Filipino family. Metro Manila is the name for the whole Manila area including Manila City and its 16 surrounding Cities and municipalities. A 2000 census revealed this area has a population of almost 10 million people living in just 636 sq.kilometers making it the 24th most populous metropolitan area in the world (source: wikipedia.
There is much poverty here and travelling through the busy traffic I could see many streets with tightly packed houses. Some areas are fully of squatters in shanty towns - photographs of which I hope to take later. The powerlines are an amazing mess of wires suspended from posts with many people illegally tapping into the electricity supply to get their power. This is a completely differently world to what I am used to.
I am staying with a typical Filipino family. The house is small and there are already 6 people staying here. There is no hot water, but you do not really need it as its so hot here a cold shower is always welcome. The family are very kind and the food is very good. Most of what I have tried I really like, especially the meat and rice dishes. Dinner is served chinese style with lots of plates of food on a carousel where you can pick and choose what you want to eat. Today I tried beef adobo, a spicey dish and pork hamonado, also spicey but more sweet. For sweet I had homemade tiramisu. The heat has stifled my appetite a bit, but I'm sure I will get it back.
After dinner I went to one of the malls. This 'smaller' mall is still bigger than my local mall. There are 4 floors