Philippines. A Travel Log.
It had been about 15 years since I last stepped foot in the land of adobo and tinikling (and Moros). When I booked our family tickets, Yulia and I had very different ideas of what this vacation was going to be about. Yulia wanted a week long R&R on a beach, tanning and paddleboarding. I wanted something more, I wanted to reconnect and reinvigorate the Filipino inside me. I wanted to reconcile my Filipino identity with my Canadian identity. Instead of continually trying to suppress my genetic and cultural roots, I wanted to give it a voice this time. Give it power. Day One. We landed at Terminal 1 at NAIA (Manila International Airport). After a quick and smooth deplaning and baggage pickup, we exited the area only to find dad missing. Frantically, we activated our SIM cards and called dad over and over again until we finally got a hold of him. He was at the wrong terminal, but he quickly made his way to us and we drove to our new generational house in Las Pinas accessing the new sky...