Manila!

Leaving Detroit...

We're here!  After 23 hours of travel and lay-over time, we arrived in Manila around midnight Sunday morning, which would be 11am Saturday in Erie.  The flights were smooth but incredibly long, and the in-flight movies didn't help the time go any faster.  The first thing to hit us when leaving the plane was the humidity and temperature.  It's muggy and warm.  Manila is the fifth largest metropolitan area in the world, topping 20 million people, so the second thing was the immense amount of pollution in the air.  You can almost taste the smog in the air, almost a sour taste on the back of the tongue and heavy on the lungs.  The drive from the airport to the hostel we're staying at took about 40 minutes of weaving and dodging a jam-packed freeway of 7 lanes - completely packed with cars (even at midnight!).  It's obviously a 24 hour city with shops open all the time.  If you've ever been to a foreign country like this, you know how crazy the drivers are.  We could easily have grabbed hold of the sides of buses, cars, and jeepneys (you'll find out more about those soon) as we darted in between them, horns honking, brakes squealing...good times!  We'll get some pictures up and more details tomorrow, but breakfast is in 4 hours and we're off to bed.  Blessings to you all!