Learn the HISTORY of the PHILIPPINES! (Walking Tour of Manila)

If you love history, you've got the right tour. Because we will be passing about four different cities today. Welcome to Port Santiago. Indiana Jones. Wow, that's actually pretty nice. Mabuhay everyone! Welcome back to another video, this time from Manila, Philippines. Today I partnered up with Get Your Guide, which is the best place to unlock some of the world's most amazing experiences. We're going to show you Manila today. We're going to do a walking tour, meaning we're going to discover some of the best places that the city of Manila in the Philippines has to offer. So if you want to go on this tour yourself, I will link it in the description of this video. With me today, I have Frank from Baron Travel. Hi! He's going to be my guide and we also have four other ladies, lovely ladies from the U.S. on this trip. And what are we going to do today, Frank? Well, for the next few hours, we will be going around Metro Manila and the two major places, which is Intramuros. We are right here now in Intramuros. Then later on, maybe at the end of the tour, we will be going to the place called American Cemetery. Awesome, cool. Who's the perfect person to go on this trip that you're showing us today? It's a mixture of every, you know, different nationalities. But more of them are from Europe, no? Europe and U.S. Very cool. Of course, we have also people coming from Middle East, coming from Asian countries, you know, like Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. Great. Well, we're excited. Let's just jump right into it, guys. Welcome to the video. All right. Booking this tour was so easy. I did it on my phone through the Get Your Guide app. So as you guys already know, while meeting Frank, is that Get Your Guide have local guides that have authentic experiences that will take you around. And through the Get Your Guide app, you can book activities, more than 60,000 activities in 3,600 different destinations. There's a wide variety of different activities you can do. Probably wherever you're watching this video from, you can open the app and find something from your local hometown city. Window shopping in Fort Santiago. They also have a big souvenir store here, which we can check out. See if there's any local artifacts that we want to get home. Look at that shop. Where I'm staying in Pasay, you would see actually Cuyas men walking this around and selling ice cream in the streets. Wow, these are so beautiful. Look at this. Look at the design work of this. Wow. Somebody please comment below what this is called. This is super awesome. Filipinos, they use seashell and they'll make these different artifacts. This is made of seashell, right, Frank? That's right. Yeah, those are made of shells. Wow. Look at the size of this old cannon. Frank just explained to me that this was used by the Spanish when they colonized the Philippines for 370 years. And then later, it got captured by the Japanese during World War II. And also the Americans came here and did a lot of stuff. So we're going to educate you guys on all of that today. And we're starting at Fort Santiago. Only the Spanish has guns. We Filipinos, we don't have guns, okay? Our weapon then was just a big knife and a bamboo spear, all right? This is awesome. What a beautiful place. We've just been walking inside the famous museum of the national hero here in the Philippines. Jose Rizal. Or should I say one of the national heroes? No. No, he is... He was the only national hero. Oh, wow. But we have a lot of heroes, okay? Yeah. Yes. So now, after the museum, we get to walk on top of the Intramuros Wall, which is four kilometer long. Four and a half. Four and a half kilometer long. Wow, guys. On the other side, you get a view of the Pasig River, the longest running river through Manila. And also, right here is the oldest Chinatown in the world. Even before the Spanish settlers came here in the 1500s, the Chinese were already here. So there you go, Chinatown. So the name Manila came from there because during the time when the people sees the water lily, they would say, Oh, Manila na naman. That means Manila. We say it in Tagalog, Manila, with letter Y. But in English, it's Manila. Amazing. I never knew that. So much history, man. I love it. This tour is beyond amazing so far. We were just taught that in these dungeons that you're looking at right here, so it's like a hollow space under where I'm standing right now. And the dungeons are called the Dungeons of Fort Santiago. Actually, 600 Americans died there during World War II. All right, into the dungeon we go. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm very happy I didn't have to be here. My God. The spaces are super narrow. Walk through here. And they put up these human mannequins. So you can kind of picture what it looks like. But the horrible thing was that some people actually drowned because during the rainy season in the Philippines, the water gets so high in the river and it flooded the dungeons. I think we're kind of moving on to the history now, kind of more into World War II, which is going to be the second part of this walking tour that we're doing. What's this place, Frank? Those are the soldiers' barracks that has been destroyed during the Second World War. So that used to be the place where the Spanish soldiers used to stay, okay? And during the Second World War, it was also used by the Japanese. And this is the Japanese soldiers' barracks during the Second World War. Scorching hot, guys, today. And I'll give you three tips for this tour to make it more pleasant for you. Number one, put sunscreen on your face. Number two, bring comfortable walking shoes. There's going to be a lot of walking for you. And number three, bring your own bottle of water. Even though they have water in the vans, it's just nice to have your own bottle and you can bring it. I also bring a little backpack that I wear all my things in. Yeah, tamarindo. Is it used in cooking? Cooking, yeah. It's a candy, sweet and sour. Welcome to Fort Santiago. Back in the van. Time to explore more Manila. Hope you guys are enjoying the video so far. We are now going to go inside the governor's palace here in Intramuros. This is one of the two remaining churches that was built here by the Spanish. Used to be seven. I've heard it's really beautiful inside. Let's go see. Bruno Mars. Yeah, I'll give you a good price for this one. And also, I got Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones. Wow, that's actually pretty nice. This is the church of San Agustin. The second church here in the Philippines that wasn't bombarded during World War II. Actually, it was one of the only buildings that wasn't hit by any bombshells. So if you're a believer, that's a sign for you right there. The church was not hit, which is an amazing story in itself. The paintings here in the ceiling look like they have a 3D effect. But in fact, it's a painting technique. So they hold masses here, right? Oh, yes. Until today. Especially on a Sunday, every hour they have a mass. So what does the religion here in the Philippines look like? Or the percentage-wise? Majority are Roman Catholic. 80% of the total population are Roman Catholic. Then we have 10% Muslim. And the remaining 10% are combination of other kinds of religion. Now passing through the City of Dreams. This is where you will find all the casinos, amazing shopping, all those things. Guys, we have now just passed something called the Coconut Palace, which is the favorite resting place of the current president's wife. And right next to that is something called Manila Bay, which is a place I still haven't been to here in the Philippines. Which is why I also wanted to do this tour, is to get more familiarized with different areas and the culture. So let's go see Manila Bay. Wow, look at this. Oh, you love bikes? Yeah, I do love bikes. I have a bike like this in Siargao Island. In Siargao? Siargao, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so I finally got to go to Manila Bay. And my guide Frank's been telling me that if you want to watch the sunset, this is one of the best places to watch it. The Philippines is called the land of the setting sun, while Japan is called the land of the rising sun. We're now passing Manila Bay, where they've filled out sand. You can't really swim in the water, our guide is telling us. But you could go and just view it and look at it. On this tour, however, we're not going to stop there. But if you're here in Manila, I would recommend you to check in something different. All right, we're now passing Rizal Park, one of the most famous parks here in Manila. It's a very famous monument here, where Rizal, the guy that the park is named after, was shot. There it is. Okay guys, Frank has now taken us all the way from Intramuros through Makati, another big business center, and to BGC here in Manila. And we are currently at the American Cemetery. So we're going to be exploring this place. It's a beautiful location, and it's kept tidy and clean by the Americans. This is actually American soil. And he told me that if you're as an American, get into trouble in Manila and you come in here, basically you're under American jurisdiction. It's kind of a funny story. And yeah, beautiful memorial located on what's now today the Global Bonifacio City, also known as BGC, a place I personally like to go a lot. Good bars there and a lot of fun stuff to do. We're not going to focus on that in this video. We're going to show you this cemetery. So come along. Guys, we are now visiting the beautiful visitor center. And we just watched a 12-minute movie, which is included in the ticket, that really gave me the story of everything that happened here during World War II and how Filipinos and Americans fought together and why there's such a special bond for Americans and Filipinos today. So there are 58,000 men and women buried here at the American Memorial in Manila. And it was just a very touching movie. So I think it's a good thing what the Americans and the Filipinos did together to make sure that the Philippines became an independent nation. So if that's history, if you're really into history, this is a place you just have to visit. What I personally think is really, really nice about this memorial is that it honors both Filipinos and Americans. It's not just a memorial for Americans alone, but a joint memorial to make sure we never forget what all these people did. These are all the American cemeteries that America built outside America. Yes. You see, this is the one that we have here in Manila, okay? We have one in Netherlands, Normandy, South Africa, France, England, Belgium, and so on and so forth. But among them all, this one in Manila is the biggest. You see? Guys, on these walls are all the names of the people that hasn't been found. Their bodies hasn't been found. And the white crosses all around the cemetery are the people that they're actually been able to recover the bodies of. It's quite an impressive place as much as it also has a lot of history that's not positive. If you can extract some positivity out of it is that all these people that, you know, gave their whole self to the cause of freedom, today they have a resting place that we can all honor them. So I think it's easy for the younger generations, even myself as a millennial, to forget the sacrifices that our previous grandfather's generations put in. And a place like this really puts it all in perspective. And you're able to really appreciate it. And I just want to say thank you, guys, if someone from that generation or children of that generation is watching. Hi, we have just finished a tour with Get Your Guide for today. What an amazing tour that was. It took us five hours to complete the whole thing. But we got to see so many different parts of Manila. If you want to, the van will drive you home back to your hotel. So the other guests chose to do that. But since the tour ended on the American Memorial, which is in almost in the heart of BGC, I chose to go into BGC to have lunch. So it's now 1 p.m. And I'll show you a good spot, one of my favorite spots to eat lunch when I'm in BGC. And then maybe that's an option for you guys. Another thing you need to know about for the Get Your Guide tour is that it's a 24-hour cancellation policy. So as long as you just let them know a little bit in advance, you can either book another time or get your refund back. 24-7 customer service, super easy. And you saw the quality of the van and the tour and everything. So I was pleasantly surprised. And I also want to give a big shout out to my guide, Frank, for wonderful explanation, pristine English, which is normal among Filipinos, though. But yeah, thank you so much, guys. And let's go to lunch. So I'm not going to go here today, but this place is amazing. It's called Mandakoro. And it's, I believe it's Korean. Might be wrong for saying that, might be Japanese. But it's amazing, amazing food. So if you're into Asian food, definitely hit it up. Guys, it's been an amazing day. That lunch did me really well after the five-hour walking tour. I'm going to end this video blog right here. I really hope you enjoyed the video. Big shout out to Get Your Guide for collaborating with me on this video. And to all my international and Filipino viewers, thank you so much for the hospitality and love. And I'll see you on the next video. Bye!