thefilipinotraveler

Hi guys I'm on a trip right now to the Philippines and would love to share this tripreport to all. After my last tripreport (Kathmandu,Nepal) in June, I've actually been to several trips as well so in case you wanted to check them out, pls feel free to do so.

Bangkok flying QR 787 and A380 in biz class
Lufthansa First Class to Astana
Panama flying TK Biz class
Guangzhou flying QR A380 F, EYA380 F, TK C
Trip to Vilnius and Tallinn

Day 1. Dec 23 TK C,ARN-IST


Arrived 2:35pm at Arlanda and after check-in, used fast track. Always nice to use this lane especially when there is a long queue in economy class.


Stockholm Arlanda T5 Duty Free shops

thefilipinotraveler

Stayed in the SAS Gold Lounge where they had very good food selection including lax, tomato soup, meatballs, ricesalad with vegetables, spicy tuna, etc.


Saw this ad: The New Volvo S90 on the way to the boarding gate


We were about 15 mins delayed departing from Arlanda but still okay for us as we don't have a tight connection in Istanbul. Food was very good specially the salmon I've flown TK several times and they seem to offer this menu often


For my main course, I had the beef which was tender Mike had the fish which accdg to him tasted very good as well


A bit of detour before landing in Istanbul


Even if we had a delay from Stockholm, we still landed as scheduled, 11:05pm and parked beside the Turkmenistan airways plane It's not very often I see planes from such airline so it was cool


We are here now in TK Istanbul Lounge and would be boarding in 30 mins.

I have to say I'm really excited to be back in the Philippines for a lot of reasons:
-to celebrate the holidays at home
-to see the aesthetical improvement at NAIA T1 which TK uses. I know it has been voted the world's worst airport time and time again (how I wish TK uses T3 so we could visit the gorgeous SQ Lounge)
-celebrate New Year in Boracay which is voted as the best island in the world accdg to the readers of Conde Nast Traveler
-to see how it is for tourists to travel to a land where the President is very much in the news right now for his war on drugs.

thefilipinotraveler

Merry christmas guys from manila
We are about to leave the hotel now for our manila tour and at the same time, from CNN I just heard there's a super typhoon landing in Manila in a few hours. Hope all goes well.

Day 2: December 24, 2016


Was hoping for the one with the BatmanVSuperman livery to manila but I guess they flew it the day before.


TK Business Class cabin on the Boeing 777-300ER

thefilipinotraveler

The economy class cabin


Business Class cabin


Watched Jason Bourne among the new releases

thefilipinotraveler

The Denon headphones w/c they have started to give to biz passengers flying on long haul

thefilipinotraveler

Candle light dinner high above the clouds, appetizer


Grilles seafood which was very good


Breakfast was served about 2 hours before landing


View of the Entertainment City before landing The pink lights are from the Okada Manila which will be the official hotel of the delegates of the Miss Universe in January.


Clearing the immigrations was really fast and bags also arrived pretty quickly.

thefilipinotraveler

NAIA Terminal 1 Arrival Hall


NAIA Terminal 1

I thought they really did a good job making arrival at NAIA T1 (immigration, customs, etc) really easy and I hope improvement will continue

thefilipinotraveler

Day 3: December 25, 2016


Philippine flag at the Luneta Park


Rizal Park with the monument of the National hero, Jose RIzal

thefilipinotraveler

Intramuros or the Walled City


Plaza Armas

thefilipinotraveler

During the WWII, 600 died here in this dungeon thru suffocation.


Pasig River


View of Pasig River and the Post Office from Media Naranha, Fort Santiago


Manila Cathedral, Intramuros. Most of the churches have the baroque style but the Manila Cathedral has the Romanesque style


Plaza de Roma

thefilipinotraveler

San Agustin Church in Intramuros is the oldest church in Manila. With its Baroque style, it was built so that it is could survive erthquakes unlike the nearby Manila Cathedral which is now Manila Cathedral number 8 as it had been destroyed 7 times in the past.


Binondo Church in China Town is dedicated to the first Filipino saint, San Lorenzo Ruiz.


Ongpin Street in China Town.

Trivia: The China Town in Manila is the oldest Chinatown in the world.

thefilipinotraveler

Time to leave Manila for Cebu


NAIA Terminal 3 is the newest terminal being used by Cebu Pacific and a few airlines who transfered from Terminal 1 including Singapore Air, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, KLM, Delta while Terminal 2 is exclusive for Philippine Airlines.


Cebu Pacific flight from Manila to Cebu. Flight was 1hour and 20 minutes. It was a bit turbulent before landing, otherwise, it was okay.


We arrived around 6:30pm in Cebu Mactan Airport. Above is an ad for the new Terminal 2 being constructed. It is supposed to open in June 2018 and would be the world's first airport resort. Really happy everything is going well for Cebu

Dieuwer

Great trip report so far
How long would you suggest to spend time in Manila to see the sights?

ramondelapaz

heaps of flights cancelled today because of typhoon nina.

cebu must be super crowded right now.

thefilipinotraveler

Thanks Dieuwer We did the Manila tour from 9am to 1:45pm. When we come back to Manila on January 7, we will do the Pagsanjan Falls Tour (about 2 hr drive from Manila) and which I'm looking forward to as I've never visited the place. I know most tourists also do the Corregidor Tour. Corregidor is an island fortress and was known as "The Rock" during WWII. You can also do the Tagaytay tour which is 1.5 hrs drive from Manila where you'll be amazed with the beauty of Taal Volcano, a volcano within Taal Lake. I heard they just opened a new McDonalds there which has one of the best views you could have while enjoying a cup of coffee It all depends on you but if you would like to do all these tours, I guess 4 -5 days would be okay specially if you would like to experience the night life in Manila and do some shopping. Not much traffic last Sunday as it was a holiday but I heard that traffic in Manila is really terrible. Hope you have fun on your trip