Typhoon!

Ok, not really, I missed the typhoon by a bit and just caught the tail end of it passing over Manila, which meant heavy rains on the day I arrived. I had hoped to only have to stay in Manila one night, but as my parents had to stop overnight in California and Korea in order to get here (standby travel sometimes means sleeping on a bench in the Seoul airport. . . ) I had a full day and two nights.The weather cleared in the morning (no typhoon for you!) and so I went out to explore Manila. As big cites go, it is hectic and crowed. I've found that while I certain cites are visitor cities and certain cities are livable cities and a few are both, some cities are neither (Tirana)and I think this is Manila too. That said I had an ok day walking around. When I was in thepark, I happened upon a rehearsal for some sort of performance that was going on later.

I went to get a late lunch and then came back to watch the show. It turned out to be a festival for indigenous people and there were over thirty groups from all over the country. Some of them had fantastic costumes and beautiful instruments and weapons (I wonder, do spears have to go in your checked luggage if they are part of your indigenous costume?). There was a parade in the park and then each group introduced themselves with a very short dance. This was followed by longer performances by a few of the groups.

After the first group, it started raining and the audience went up on the stage (the only part of the amphitheater covered) and watched the next groups.

If I understand things correctly (which I'm not always sure that I do) this was an opening ceremony and the different groups were going to perform at different venues (schools etc) over the next few days. After he slightly interrupted performance I took my first jeepney ride back to the hostel to wait for my parents. They finally arrived in the morning and we got the frak out of Manila and headed down to Davao.

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