First Look at Manila

November 20, 2008 at 6:49 pm Leave a comment

Here are just a few of the photographs that I have taken of Metro Manila. I hope to get out to take more this weekend. The week has been filled with work and not much free time to explore. The weather is VERY warm and humid. Yesterday the weather outside was actually nice and not stagnantly hot. For it being the “rainy season” I have not seen much rain yet (knock on wood somebody, please…). It is interesting to see what businesses form the US have made their way over to Manila – Starbucks, 711, California Pizza Kitchen, KFC and of course McDonald’s – aren’t they everywhere??

Some fun facts about the Philippines:
~ There are 7,104 islands that make up the Philippines (I had no idea!)
~ 90.5 million pop (2008 estimate)
~ Covers 115,830 square miles, which makes it equal to the size of Italy
~ Regarded the “text capital of the world”. About 350 to 400 million text messages are sent daily by 35 million cell phone subscribers in the country, which is more than the total daily text messages sent in the U.S. and Europe, together. Wow!