Archives

Making the Most of a Last Day in Manila: Intramurros, Chinese Cemetery, Ayala Museum

Jan19

January 17, 2016
Making the Most of the Last Day in Manila
     I have had a fairly fitful night with an unnecessary intrusion at 2.00 am when someone began shouting outside my door loud enough to wake me up, then knocking it and saying something in a foreign language. I am shaken and alarmed and yell back, “Hello, what is it?” The knocking stops, the person mutters something and leaves. My heart is beating really fast when the phone in my room rings. I wonder if I should pick up the receiver. When I do, it is the guy at Reception apologizing and telling me that I was awoken by mistake and that it was another room and other occupants the party was seeking. I get back to sleep but adrenalin keeps me on tenterhooks 
Brekkie and Off to Mass:
     I awake at 7. 30 am far too early for my own good, not having had adequate sleep. Still, I make it to the Lobby Dining Room for a substantial breakfast of an omlette, fresh fruit and coffee and then ask for a taxi to take me to the Manila Hotel. I am supposed to meet my colleague Jessica at 9. 30 am, but I am a tad too early and roam around the hotel instead, getting money changed from American dollars to Filipino pesos and using the Business Center to charge my phone.
     At 9. 30, I am in the lobby, connecting with Jessica, and then walking towards Intramurros, the old quarter, to get to the Church of San Augustin where we are supposed to attend the 10.00 am Mass. Only when we get there, we find that there is a wedding on. The couple is kneeling at the altar of the 9.00 am Mass and probably because there was a wedding at the 8.00 am Mass as well–I have never seen so many bridal couples in so short a time as in Manila– the 9.00 am Mass started late. We have arrived just before the Offertory begins and we take our places in the beautifully decorated church. Having reached in time for the most important part of the Mass and having had a chance to take Communion, we do not think it is necessary to start 10.00 am Mass all over again–especially as we find that it is 10.20 and the 10.00 am Mass hasn’t yet begun! After Mass, the photographer choreographs all wedding portraits against the backdrop of the altar regardless of the fact that it is well past time for the 10.00 am Mass and the congregation is waiting outside to enter. Were they in the States, the whole bridal party would have been shooed off right after Mass ended! I know that in India IST (Indian Standard Time) has come to mean Indian Stretchable Time; but here in the Philippines, time is infinitely more flexible.
 Walking Around Intramurros with Jessica:
     There is much bustling activity outside the church as wedding parties dominate the plaza. We decide to use our presence in church to stroll around the quarter and take in some of its Spanish ambience. Horse-drawn carriages (called Kalesas) pass by us frequently and add to the atmospheric nature of the quarter. But right past one of the bylanes, we are in a very poverty-stricken area with slums just as in Bombay, street children running around and beggars asking for alms. Manila, like Bombay, is a city of contrasts and through the rest of the day I will discover just how obvious these binaries are.    
Off to the National Museum of the Filipino People by Cycle Rickshaw:
     Yesterday, in the coach when we had passed by the National Museum of the Filipino People, I had thought that I would like to return. Jessica preferred to return to the Manila Hotel to prepare for an Awards Ceremony Luncheon at 12 noon. With about two hours to play with, I find a cycle rickshaw pass by me and I ask the man if he will take me to the National Museum. I know that it ought to cost me no more than 25 to 30 pesos. But he asks me for 100 and since he is an old and very poor man, I agree although I feel guilty throughout the ride that an elderly man is giving me a ride. Still. I try to quell my guilt by focusing on the fact that I have probably contributed to his ability to eat that day and we move on. It is about a 15 minute cycle ride to the museum and he deposits me there as arranged. He pedals the bicycle–I sit in a little cavity at the side–like a side car on a motorbike! It is an odd ride and a very unusual expereince.
     My guide book tells me that I ought to get to this museum to see the excavated Treasures of the San Diego, a 15th century Spanish galleon that went down in Manila Bay, thanks to the idiocy and lack of experience and sea-faring knowledge of its Captain Morga. In war with a Dutch ship, Morga made all the wrong decisions and led his crew to death and his ship to destruction. It lay at the bottom of the ocean until the 1960s when it was pulled up.
    While there aren’t many great treasures really in the museum what was interesting to me was a whole lot of information about the Spanish galleon trade from China and the Spice Islands (modern-day Indonesia) through the Philippine islands and on to the West. Through a series of wonderful paintings, this history is well-recorded and since I am designing a course that deals with this theme, I found it especially helpful. Of the treasures themselves, there was a fine collection of jars–gigantic urns really used as ballast when filled with oil and water. These were made in China, Thailand (then known as Siam), and the Philippines. Beautifully assembled together, they make a stunning display. There are also male gold jewelry (belt buckles, for instance) and artifacts and, most interestingly, a real coconut and a large number of real hazelnuts that were removed intact from the wreck. There is also a whole gallery devoted to the blue and white China that was produced in China and that the ship was carrying as part of its cargo. From ginger jars to plates, there were a variety of items and they occupy two whole rooms. The ship’s anchor as well as the navigational instruments used to steer the ship on the high seas were also recovered from the wreckage and they are a part of the main exhibits. It is worth getting to this museum only to see this section, especially if one is interested in aspects of Renaissance maritime trade in the Indies.
      I hailed a passing taxi on the street, after spending over an hour in the museum and made my way to Manila Hotel to witness the award-distribution ceremony held during one of the magnificent buffet lunches that have been a part of this conference. Awards were given to the most active chapters of the East-West Center Alumni Associations that are spread all over the world. A few short speeches accompanied this formal part of the event. Lunch was delicious and plentiful, as usual, and while I am sorely tempted by all these goodies, I am dreading the impact on my waistline and cannot wait to get back to normal eating again.
Going on More Sightseeing Adventures:
     During lunch, I happened to be seated with the Filipino contingent–a lovely group of men and women who graduated from the East-West Center in the 1960s and are now prominent citizens of their country and very distinguished at that. They were warmly welcoming of me and were very inclusive during the ceremony. I was able to glean a lot of tourist information from them. Mainly I told them that following the advice of my guide books (Lonely Planet and others), I wanted to get to the Chinese Cemetery and to the Ayala Museum and to get back to my hotel for a shower and a change and then return to Manila Hotel by 6. 30 pm for our last Gala Aloha Dinner and Talent Evening. They marveled at my energy and told me that basically the only way to get there was by taxi and that since it was a Sunday, there was a possibility that I might be able to cover both venues through the afternoon. So off I went. But first I needed to find a taxi.
A Word About Manila’s Public Transport:
     So, at this stage, a comment on Manila’s Public Transport would be in order. Basically, it is non-existent and neither is it a walking or walkable city. It is vast, sprawling and, like Bombay, runs in a north-south pattern with several scores of miles linking the two portions. Our hotels were in the middle of the city, the Chinese Cemetery was in the north and the Ayala Museum was in an area known as Makati, even further north. There are no buses and a very sporadic light-rail train system that might as well not be there, I’m told.
     Local people pile into a vehicle called a Jeepney–a strange sort of Jeep (which, apparently, is a relic of American occupation of the islands). About 12 people fit into it, six on each side facing each other. I suppose you would need to tell the drive where you wish to go and he finds a route that caters to all his passengers. It would have been an interesting cultural experience to take it, had I a companion. Being alone, I simply did not feel comfortable getting into one. Left with the only choice, I needed to hail a cab. Cabs are very cheap by American standards, but there is this one problem. Once you get into a taxi, you will simply sit there for God Knows how long–for traffic is insane. Luckily, all cabs are air-conditioned. So if you are patient and not in a hurry to get somewhere, taxis kind of work.
     So, a taxi it was for me. Again, luckily, all the drivers speak fairly good English and most of them are honest. They do not try to spin your around just to keep the meter going. I managed to find a taxi through the concierge at the Manila Hotel. He turned out to be a Born Again Christian–so for the duration of a very long ride, I was subject to his attempts at converting me to his faith! Not exactly what I had bargained for! Still, he was taking me towards my destination–so I could endure his spiel. Also, he knew how to get to these tourist venues and he took the shortest routes to get to them.
Exploring the Chinese Cemetery:
     A cemetery, you say? Why? A Chinese one? Why? Why?
    Well, Lonely Planet had extolled the virtues of this one and made it sound like one of the world’s most unique experiences. I was game to give it a shot. We reached it in about half an hour and for the payment of 100 pesos, I was allowed inside.
     The Chinese are a very wealthy community in The Philippines–mainly traders and businessmen. They believe in sending their dead off to the next life in style and in creating mausoleums for them that are worthy of their earthly status. So what you see in this place is a little township–almost like a residential suburb inside a gated community with streets running in a neat grid pattern. The family of each deceased person buys a sort of vault–each like a little cottage in a terraced housing project–complete with marble steps leading to ornate wrought iron gates that are decorated with Chinese motifs, lucky lions, curving rectilinear roof lines, urns, flower vases, etc. Some of these vaults are air-conditioned, have basins with hot and cold running water and I am told even flush toilets (in case, the dead get caught short on their way to the next world!) The vaults are interspersed with various houses of worship–Buddhist, Taoist, Christian (there were several chapels). I simply could not believe what I was seeing. Needless to say, I took many pictures and did not linger too long as it was oppressively hot outside my air-conditioned vehicle. The gates of one of the vaults were open and two Chinese women were tending to the raised altar-like graves inside. I asked permission to take pictures of it and they graciously granted it. Inside, I found black and white pictures (probably from the 1950s) of a man and woman on the wall above their altar-mausoleums. The ladies were changing the flowers inside and putting fresh ones with fresh water into ornate vases. I am guessing they were the daughters of the deceased. I found the entire operation very moving indeed and, were I not so uncomfortably hot, I’d have stayed longer to witness their rituals. As it was, I returned to the car and told my driver (who had waited for me while I toured around and took pictures) to take me on to the next venue–the Ayala Museum.
     I was really glad I made the effort to get to the Chinese Cemetery. I do not believe I will see anything like this anywhere else in the world. It was a wonderful lesson in cultural studies–a living museum, if you will, of Chinese customs in the Philippines.
Off to See the Ayala Museum and Exploring Makati:
     Back in the taxi, my driver continued to fight traffic to get me to the next venue I wished to explore–the Ayala Museum. The Ayalas are a noteworthy, billionaire Filipino family–the equivalent of the Rockefellers in the US or the Ambanis in India. They made their money in mall-development and then went into real estate development of commercial property. Manila’s newest neighborhoods that go by the names of Greenbelt 1 to Greenbelt 5 are entirely their doing. In the process, they have become wealthy as Croesus and turned towards art collecting and creating a museum to display their collection. The Ayala Museum is the result.
     One of the Ayala family creations is the neighborhood of new Makati–an area that leads you to believe you have left Manila behind and entered London’s Canary Wharf, Bombay’s Bandra-Kurla Complex or the Hiranandani Estate in Powai or San Francisco’s Financial District. This is the other face of the Philippines–one that is lurching towards the mid-21st century at breakneck speed, thanks to Globalization. Naturally, it has created two segments of the population–the fiercely upwardly-mobile that live in high-rise air-conditioned apartment buildings (as do Bombay’s nouveau riche) while the poorest have been left far behind, not even daring to step into these upscale neighborhoods. I was really glad I took the time and trouble to come out to Makati–to see for myself the designer stores, the trendy coffee shops and wine bars, the discos and clubs that cater to the young of this city that work by night as call center attendants and spend their days drinking, smoking and blowing up the money they earn working for American corporations as telephone support staff. Meanwhile, in the skyscrapers themselves, multi-national corporations work in glass paned, climate-controlled offices and I did pass by the Peninsula Hotel Manila and the Shangri-La Hotel in this area. These five-star hotels cater directly to the international financial community.
Exploring the Ayala Museum:
     Eventually, I did get to the Ayala Museum and it amazed me that for a private air-conditioned taxi ride that provided a driver that stayed the course with me through my stops for over an hour and a half, I paid no more than US$6! Taxis are an incredible bargain in this city and although we often sat in traffic that actually put me to sleep (I dozed off after my gigantic lunch), we did get to our destination.
     The driver drove away and I hurried to the Main Reception Desk, manned by a crew of very smart young men and women who looked like college undergrads. They honored my Metropolitan Museum ID card and gave me free entry into the museum after telling me that staff of all museums, world-wide, are allowed inside free of charge. I told them that I had about an hour and half to spend in the museum and wondered if they could tell me which highlights I should not miss.
     They directed me immediately to the fourth floor to see the Pre-Colonial Gold Treasures of the Philippines which would have been a great exhibit but for the fact that most of the items were on loan to a museum in New York at the moment–perhaps I will see it when I get back home. The few items that were there were good. Seeing this exhibit was preceded by a ten minute film that explains how these items were made–might have been worth my while if they had all been there.
     The second area they had directed me to was the second floor where the entire history of the Philippines has been depicted in a huge diorama consisting of about 75 windows or vignettes that detail pre-historic times to the present. It was a wonderful introduction to the country and having taken Carlos’ tour yesterday, it was like a refresher course, in visual terms, for me. You need a lot more time to do this exhibit justice and I hurried through it and was very pleased to bump into an American couple who were also attending my conference. They too intended to get back by taxi by 5.00 pm and I asked if I could share their cab–to which they readily agreed.
     Before leaving the museum, the three of us stepped into the lovely gardens that hold changing sculptural exhibitions. It reminded me very much of the beautiful gardens of the Norton Simon Museum in Los Angeles that I had explored last summer. Filled with koi (Chinese goldfish), the pond was a huge drew for children. Meanwhile, the Ayala Museum sits bang in the center of designer stores, coffee shops, etc. and get this, a church! In fact, Mass was going on as we passed by and since the church was very modern with gardens around it, the faithful had spilled out onto the green lawns and were listening to Mass in the midst of worshippers of Mammon. It was all very peculiar indeed.          
Back to my Hotel:
     We had a lovely conversation en route to our hotel. The couple, Richard and Rae, had met at the East-West Center in the 1960s as Grad students. They were both practicing lawyers in Honolulu, Hawai’i, working in their own law firm. They had one son in Los Angeles and had arrived in Manila from Australia where they had attended the wedding of their son’s friend. They were very easy conversationalists and we had a sparkling exchange that was a lot of fun. About 40 minutes later, they dropped me off at my hotel before driving off to theirs.
     I raced through a shower and a change and then requested the concierge to get me a taxi to the Manila Hotel. I was there in under ten minutes and hastened off to the Maynila Ballrom for the Grand Finale Gala Dinner of our conference where I had the chance to reunite with many of the new friends I have made over the past three days. I sat with Jessica and Mary and a few other people and had a really enjoyable evening. Needless to say, the buffet dinner once again left me feeling stuffed just looking at it and the talent provided on stage offered a range of abilities–some performers were good and some, well…let us say they earned full marks for lacking stage fright!
    At the end of the evening, after all the Thank-Yous were said, and table prizes were won, there was a lovely ‘Aloha Oe’ Song sung with all participants holding hands and forming two  huge leis as we sang the words. It was a touching goodbye and then the dancing began and we were all on the floor boogeying!
    It had been an incredible experience and I was very glad that I had juggled so effectively my attendance at some of the main sessions of the conference with exploration of the city and an examination of its most note-worthy monuments and museums. Since I do not believe I will ever return to Manila (although never say never), I was very glad I made the most of every moment in this city. Perhaps one ought to see other parts of the Philippines–its beautiful rural and natural wonders, for instance–but I was not unhappy with what I had seen and the brave attempts I made, despite many transport inconveniences and the unmitigated heat–to see the place.
            On the chartered shuttle coach back to my hotel, I meet a very nice elderly gentleman named Gerald Mullins from Wisconsin who was a career educationist, did his Ph.D. in Asian Studies from the EWC in the 1950 or 60s and has come to the conference with the idea of reuniting with his classmates. He was a very interesting conversationalist and I had a lovely ride back to our hotel together with him.
     Tomorrow, I shall rise at leisure, have breakfast and get ready for my departure to Bombay via Bangkok. 
     Until tomorrow…. 

 

 

My Presentation at the Conference and Half Day Tour of Old Manila

Jan17

Saturday, January16, 2016

Up and Awake:
     I am still keeping Indian time so jetlag continues to keep me fast asleep in the small hours of the morning. I awoke without setting an alarm for 7. 15 am, washed and went down for breakfast in the lobby of Lotus Garden Hotel which was basically a repeat of yesterday–omlette with ham and pineapple, coffee, fresh fruit. I hop into the Shuttle Bus at 8.45 am that takes us to the Manila Hotel, our conference venue and am there by 9.00 in time to listen to a plenary session on nations that are troubled by issues of terrorism. I learn a lot about the recruitment of young people by ISIS from countries like Indonesia. There is a session about the Muslims of the Philippines–Islam reached this nation before Christianity did. Hence, in the south of the country, Islam is a very vigorous presence and most of its practitioners are farmers. The Q&A session that followed was predictably contentious but did not get too uncomfortable. A Coffee break followed–little fruit tarts were served with it and they were both very welcome as I started to have serious nervous pangs in preparation for my session which followed at 11.00 am.

Making My Presentation:
     My presentation was at 11.00 am and by 10. 45, I was up in the room in which it was to be held. I met the Chairperson, Channay Sak-Humphrey from the University of Hawai’i, and the three other panelists of which one was from China and two others from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.  There were about 30 people in the audience and several walked in and out as the presentations continued. I was the second presenter and, as often happens, once I got to the podium, my nerves calmed down and I was quite confident as it progressed. I got quite a few laughs as I had inserted several jokes into my talk and since I was speaking directly to the audience rather than reading from a paper, it seemed somehow rather more interactive than most conference presentations are. The other participants used Powerpoint–I did not as I still believe that it can be very distracting.
     At the end of the presentations, there were questions and I had a few addressed to me. I have to say that overall I felt the audience were able to relate to a lot of what I said about preparing American students for jobs in the Asian work place by acculturating them to Oriental social expectations and norms. When the session ended at 12. 30, in time for another one of our humongous lunches, I had the great pleasure of being seated with a man who attended my session. We were able to continue our discussion during lunch and it was while I was eating that another couple came up to me. They too had attended my presentation. The man introduced himself to be as the Director of the International Education Program at Hong Kong Baptist University and he gave me his card and invited me to come to his university and give a series of talks on the subject I had covered. I was really and truly gratified and thanked him very sincerely. It might definitely be something I would consider doing in the next year.
     Lunch was finished by 1. 30 pm –another buffet affair with an abundance of dishes and really tempting desserts. And then it was time for those of us who had signed up for the sight-seeing tours to go out into the lobby to meet our tour guides and board our respective coaches.  Three different tours had been offered: Old Manila, Modern Manila and Technological Advances in Manila. Being the history buff I am, I had chosen the Old Manila Tour and since there were about 100 of us on this tour, we had three coaches that followed each other as we departed at 1. 45 pm.

On ATour of Old Manila:
     The tour guide on our coach was called Tom. He introduced himself and told us that our tour would begin at the National Museum where we’d be met by another guide who would give us a Highlights Tour. As it turned out, he led the driver to the wrong place–to the National Museum of the Filipino People (the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology) when, in fact, he was supposed to take us across the street to the National Museum of Fine Arts. Needless to say, I was thrilled that we ended up in the Fine Arts Museum where we spent the next hour.

Manila’s National Museum of Fine Arts:
     Our guide at the Museum was a very young boy who turned out to be amazingly competent for his age. He had his work cut out for him as he had to introduce us to the museum’s highlights in one hour. There were two floors and he started at the ground floor with two monumental paintings in a single room–one on the Assassination of Governor-General Bustamente by Hidalgo–a really huge painting with the most dramatic realism as to be deeply stirring. It depicts a very historic event in Filipino history (the murder of the Spanish Governor-General who was sent by the King of Spain to find out what the Catholic Friars were doing in the Philippines and to report to him. When Bustamente found out that the friars were a corrupt bunch and when he attempted to set them right, they murdered him in cold blood together with his son who tried to defend him. Did I mention that these were Catholic priests?) Well…
     The second painting is by Juan Luna, considered one of the greatest classical painters of the country. He studied Art in Paris during the mid-19th century and painted the Spoliarium, a depiction of the manner in which slaughtered gladiators and their remains were treated in the Roman Colisseum after their fights with wild animals. This painting won the first place in the Art Exhibition in Madrid and made Luna a celebrated name. The Filipinos are justly proud of him and on the upper floors of the museum, there are a vast number of examples from his repertoire–all of which I found very appealing.
     The tour then took us to the upper floors where we saw more contemporary works in the Cubist style–vast series of them that were spread out over several galleries that encompass the lives of the people and their history. We also saw sculpture and although the guide moved quickly, it was a very good introduction to these artists and their contribution to the cultural life of the country.
     Finally, the tour ended with a visit to the main room which was once occupied by the Senate of the Nation. It had marvelous bas-relief carvings on the crown moldings at the top that depicted international figures that have contributed to Law and Legal Studies. I found this room and their artistic achievement quite stunning.
     Our tour ended and we re-boarded the bus and made our way to the most historic part of Manila known as Intramurros–which, in Spanish, means ‘Within The Walls’. Indeed, we passed through extraordinarily thick stone walls of the city–apparently built of baked volcanic ash–and entered the area know as Fort Santiago (‘Fort St. James’ in Spanish). Incidentally, the patron saint of the Philippines is the Virgin Mary.
    
Discovering Fort Santiago:
     Fort Santiago is the very heart of Intramurros and is a lovely sprawling space filled with greenery, tall tropical trees and lilting fountains. The general history of the place was explained to us and then we were told to await the arrival of a young Filipino man named Carlos Cedran who has gained a sterling reputation in these parts as an actor who gives walking tours for which one has to sign up well in advance as they fill us very quickly. We were fortunate then to have been able to get him to take us on a walking tour of the area.
    The idea is simply that he presents a multi-faceted act that includes a rather brilliant monologue based on a script that he has probably written himself. It is a very witty script and includes a great deal of humor. He acts, he sings, he shouts, he dances, he laughs, he mimes. Meanwhile, he literally ‘walks’ you through the history of the country by taking you from one section to the next of the Fort,wearing various hats and using various portable props to boost his performance.
     He is irreverent about everything and spares no one. He begins in 1521 with the arrival of the first Spaniard Ferdinand Magellan on his circumnavigation of the globe–he was eventually killed in the Philippines–and the role of Lepgazpi which gave rise to the Spanish Galleon trade. From there he moved on to  rebellion against the Spaniards especially by Jose Rizal who wrote anti-Spanish novels such as Noli Mi Tangere and was imprisoned and executed for his pains. He is considered the national hero of the Philippines and there is a national monument to him in a park that is named after him, Rizal Park, which is very close to our hotel and which we pass by each day. His remains are now interred at the base of this monument. The monologue then moved on to the 400 years under Spanish rule when the country is said to have lived in a convent. This Christianization of the nation has made it the third largest Catholic country in the world after Brazil and Mexico–and probably the most devout.
    The act then moves on to talk about the arrival of the Americans especially the role played by General MacArthur. I learned that it ended with the near-destruction of Manila by the Japanese who attacked the city at the same time that they attacked Pearl Harbor. Hence, almost all of Manila today is a post-World War II reconstruction. The Americans brought rock and roll and jazz, modern electricity and appliances and public school education–which is why although the Philippines was never a British colony, English is spoken here very widely (not Spanish). Eventually, the Filipinos got their independence from the Americans and asserted their own identity despite a history marked by bloody wars and insurgency.
      Carlos ended his act at the Church of San Augustin, the oldest church in East Asia which is still standing and was spared destruction by war bombs. The city also has the oldest university in the East, UST or the University of San Thomas which was founded by the Jesuits in the early 1500s–which makes it older than Harvard. Saturday evening mass was going on by the time we arrived there –together with wedding nuptials–and we could not enter. I decided I would go there for Sunday Mass tomorrow.

Finishing with a Halo-Halo:
     Needless to say, I was thrilled that Carlos finished his tour with a Halo-Halo (which literally means Mix-Mix) at a very cute period restaurant where he used the national dessert to talk about the inter-racial mixing that has occurred in this country amongst the Chinese, Spanish and Americans resulting in a mestizo or population of mixed racial descent. He pointed out why there is no such thing as pure Filipino blood and why all the Filipinos look slightly different–different shades of skin, differing prominence of slanting eyes, etc. It was all very interesting and this bit of the act was accompanied by the consumption of a Halo-Halo that was served to each of us as we made ourselves comfortable on seats in a typical Spanish hacienda sort of inner courtyard garden attached to a restaurant that serves traditional Filipino food.
     Overall, Carlos’ act was marvelous and I thought we were very fortunate to catch it–although it lasted almost three hours, we did not find it too taxing (and there were some very elderly people among us). We piled back into our buses at which point I hooked up with Jessica, a Professor at the University of Oklahoma, whom I have just gotten to know. She mentioned that she too would like to go to Mass at the San Augustin Church and we made plans to meet at 9. 30 am tomorrow in the lobby of the Manila Hotel.
                  
A La Carte Dinner at Ilang-Ilang Restaurant:
     Meanwhile, because our conference did not include dinner this evening, I joined Jessica and another delegate from San Diego named Claire to have dinner at one of the restaurants attached to the Manila Hotel. I decided to try something typically Filipino and ended up with a vast dish of thick rice noodles with pork and shrimp which was flavored with a small sour lime called Kalamassi and Chinese chili sauce. It was okay–nothing to shout about. Best of all was the opportunity to interact and get to know other delegates and get their impressions of the Convention, the walking tour and their work as scholars.

Back to my Hotel to Bed:
 I left my friends still at dinner at about 9.00 pm and asked the concierge at the Manila Hotel to get me a taxi that then took me back to my hotel where I went straight to my room, had a shower and to bed. It had been a long but very fruitful day and I was quite pleased to sink under the covers and go straight to sleep.
     Until Tomorrow….