Turista sa Manila (It Rhymes!!!)
So my boyfriend invited me to go on a Manila tour with him and his office mates and despite my awkward shy self, I decided to go for the sake of exploring the beautiful city that is Manilaaaaa and of course to spend time with my love! ;)
We started off at Plaza Roma which is this...plaza... yes, at the center of Intramuros. There's this fountain in the middle, which despite the kinda dirty water is still pretty awesome since it has the original statue of King Charles IV from way before! They actually made a joke about how the water was dirty coz that was the original water lol but no, it isn't, obv. Haha!
Right in front of the plaza is the Manila Cathedral! I've seen it once before but never really got to go in that time so when I went in, I was like woah. The architecture is amazing and there are probably lots of other churches with wonderful architecture but yeah...Manila Cathedral. \m/ There's also this 7/11 nearby which I wasn't able to take a picture of....and you're probably thinking okay, there are like a gazillion other 7/11 stores all around but this branch is pretty special coz Padre Burgos (the BUR in the GOMBURZA) actually lived in the same spot!
On the right side of the plaza, you get to see the Palacio del Gobernador!
This plaza (I think it was a plaza) was so purdy, I could imagine myself running around on the grass in a white gown lol
This guy right here was our awesome tour guide, Sir Alvin Campomanes! He's also a professor back in my university. :)
This is Fort Santiago!!! The facade was beautiful and you can almost imagine how it looked like back in the day. (yes yes I have a B&W version right down here v just to give the olden times feel)
Here's my boyfriend (:3) with the guard!
This is inside Fort Santiago...
And here's Rizal's footsteps (yes those were his actual footsteps......NOT lol)
The ilustrados' pose!
Dramatic B&W stairs....err what is that piece of cloth doing there..... is that even cloth, we will never know.
After going to Fort Santiago and seeing Rizal's Shrine, we ate lunch at Chicboy (yum chicken oil and unli rice). It was cute how the design of the restaurants outside were trying to match the vibe of the city. And the picture above is what you see on the left side of the Plaza Roma in front of all the food places. Imagine that all those years ago minus the electrical wiring and all... @.@
Crossing the street Beatles' style (not really)
Afterwards we took a jeep to the National Museum. It might have been the 18398123th time (that was just an estimate, it was prolly my 4th time maybe?) at the museum but the Spoliarium still amazed me in all its gigantic...ness. S.S!!! (Spoliarium Selfie!!!)
The old senate session hall! I actually saw this before they renovated it and the old one, despite being rundown, looked like it was oozing with history (oozing....I'm imagining pus right now).
Here's the very controversial painting of "The Parisian Life," also by Juan Luna who painted the Spoliarium. This painting tho....the interpretations of it are just wow. Who knew paintings could have so many meanings....ok maybe you knew that but still hearing what it might mean was just really cool! (I really need to widen my vocabulary) I'm not gonna type down the whole explanation here coz you gotta hear it for yourself! We weren't able to finish the tour since we had somewhere to go but just so you know the last stop was Rizal Park! :)
So there! It's kinda like I gave you a tour myself. TOUR GUIDE ABI REPORTING FOR BUSINESSSSS. Kidding. Can't memorize all that history lol