Looking back before leaving the Philippines

    On July 23rd, my family and I were already finished with packing our things, and so we left to the airport for our 3 week vacation to the Philippines. Usually we'd visit every 2 years over summer break, but due to COVID and some other thing we had to delay it. If I recall correctly, the last time we visited was back in 2018, so it's been a long time. Anyways, we had to go through some frustrating stuff at the airport and went on over 18 hours worth of flights (all of which I got airsick on and therefore barely felt like eating), but after that we finally made it. 3 weeks passed by pretty quickly and now we're about to fly back, so I wanted to look back at this trip with this post.

    A very obvious thing I did with my family upon arriving in the Philippines is meeting with relatives, which is something we did throughout the trip. I'm glad to know that some of my grandparents are still alive and well, and that new things have been going on with them since the last time I saw them. Sometimes I'd visit their homes, and sometimes I'd go to malls and other places with them. Although I spent a lot of time on the trip just sitting in my room on my MacBook (which ultimately led to me finishing watching all of Daria), I did like spending time with my cousins. I remember visiting an orchestra thing that one of my cousins was part of perform. I also remember one of my cousins and her boyfriend bringing my sister and I to some places for a drink, some food, a Photo Booth, and a place to play pool, which I was enjoyed and did good at. I guess my time on 8 Ball Pool on my phone paid off, haha.

    When I did leave the house, I admired the environment quite a bit. Sometimes I liked sitting in cars or motorcycle taxis and looking around at different houses and buildings. The architecture wasn't as fancy and didn't seem as valuable, likely because there isn't as much wealth going around here when compared to the US, but I honestly feel like it has its own charm, though at the same time I feel bad for some people and the homes they live in.

    Putting that aside, I really appreciate the culture and food here. We went to different restaurants and had a lot of different food. There's some filipino restaurants and fast food chains that I wish had a stronger presence in the US. Oh yeah, also I don't know where to fit this in this blog post but we even went on some short mini trip here to another island and it was nice, visited a museum and some beaches.

    So yeah, that's all. I enjoyed this trip, the Philippines is a really nice place that expands across a lot of islands, and I hope to explore it more in the future. When I get back home I'll be sure to finish the EP and release more details on it in another blog post before dropping it.

- Anthony “Salteh” S. • • •