Manila, Philippines

Our flight from Saigon to Manila was scheduled at the convenient time 1:20 am, which resulted in a quite scary taxi ride from the airport, and arrival at the Red Carabao hostel around 9 am. The hostel was very cheap (about $10 for a twin room), but scary. It looked like an old castle, had lots of stuffed animals and weird artwork inside. Also, it was located right next to the South gate of the Chinese cemetery; in a seemingly not so very pleasant neighborhood. After a few hours of sleep, we moved downtown to the business center, Makati. We found a very nice hostel called Our Melting Pot ($22), where we shared and apartment with an American guy named Tracey (who traveled with us for the rest of our trip).

The next day our Filipino friend Rhyan from Seoul National together with his sister Johanna and their dad took us sightseeing. We went to Rizal park, Intramuros, saw some beautiful old churches (of the few remaining in the second most destroyed city after WWII), went to the world's fourth largest shopping center; Mall of Asia, where we watched the sunset. Apparently it's so beautiful partly due to the extreme air pollution. Manila seemed like kind of a difficult city to get around in on your own, so I'm very grateful Rhyan and his family took care of us!