I am so grateful that during our one month stay for our teaching practice program at TAU, my friends and I had chances to have tours to Manila. We always loved the whole idea of going to Manila even though it takes 3 to 4 hours to get there by car. Who is not excited to go to the capital city of the Philippines anyway? Except the trip to NAIA, we got two chances of having trip to Manila.
The Trip to Bureau of Immigration in Quezon City Hall, Manila
The first trip to Manila was on September 9, 2019. Our only agenda that day was to go to Bureau Immigration of Manila to process our Special Study Permit. We were accompanied and taken care by Sir Julius who was so patience and kind. We also had chance to walk around the Quezon City Hall which was full with massive buildings, crowded yet magnificent.
Rizal Park, National Planetarium, Museum of Natural History and SM Mall of Asia
This second trip to Manila on September 21 was fully dedicated for vacation, and I remembered we were so excited since the day before. After arriving in Manila, the first destination was Rizal Park which also known as Luneta Park. It is a historical public park where there are so many flags of the Philippines installed all around the park. There are also lots of statues of the Philippines’ heroes and remembrance statues about colonialism era. The view was amazing there, we took so many pictures together.
After a tiring yet fascinating walk around the park, we were taken to the National Planetarium (NM) which was located at the Rizal Park near the Japanese Garden. I just knew that NM is the biggest planetarium in Asia which is so cool. NM showed us the journey of Itokawa satellite and it was beautiful and informative. Hope I could visit it again in the future.
Next we went to the National Museum of Natural History which located not far from the National Planetarium. The building was so stunning, no wonder there were so many tourists coming there. For me, it was a huge science museum about flora and fauna in the Philippines which are so freaking many in variety. There are countless sections with particular themes inside. I felt fed up by knowledge after visiting every sections and that was amazing. Unfortunately, we could not make it to visit all of the sections since we got limited time.
The last but definitely not the least was SM Mall of Asia. The exciting idea of visitingSM Mall of Asia for me was knowing that it was one of the biggest mall in the world! how crazy. Of course we could not make it exploring the whole area of the mall, we just suited ourselves at the north and south area of the mall. However we enjoyed it a lot, we found so many things we could not find in Indonesia. We also bought our souvenirs for our beloved family and friends there.
We were going home so happy and pleased that day. Even though our time and energy (and money) were limited, we were glad that at least we had the chance. I hope I could go back to the Philippines and go to these places because they are worth to visit.
The Chronicle of My Teaching Practice at Tarlac Agricultural University -Laboratory School 