Corregidor Island

Wait, wait, I’m being a tourist in Manila?

Well, but of course!

After prancing around SE Asia, we came back to Manila, and still had a few spots to hit before my parents left to Brazil.

Of course there was Greenhills, Divisoria and Intramuros…

And this weekend we had the final tourist destination in Manila:  Corregidor Island, about an hour and a half by boat from Manila.

I’ll be honest…  I wasn’t looking too forward to going there.  Waking up at 6am on a Saturday to go spend the day in the sun walking around looking at ruins?  Ugh.  But turns out, the sun wasn’t so strong, there wasn’t even much walking around (it’s all on an open air bus!), we had a great tour guide (I seriously had no idea it even included a guide!), the ruins were super interesting, and Corregidor has soooo much green space, that it was nice to breathe a bit of fresh air and get away from Manila for a day.

“I shall return!”

Corregidor has a ton of history, since the Americans had a base here (called Fort Mills at the time), which was later bombarded and taken by the Japanese, until the US attacked them and reclaimed the island.  A lot of the ruins is due to bombs, a lot of the metal doors and guns are damaged by bullet holes.  It now serves as a military memorial for the soldiers from all three countries (US, Philippines and Japan).

The sign below says “Beware Bomb Crater”

Our embassy group (yep, coincidentally the embassy planned a trip while my parents were visiting, so we just tagged along with them).

(Can you believe a year or so ago I was running almost the same distance below, twice?  What happened to me as a runner??)

If you’re in Manila and haven’t been to Corregidor, it’s worth the trip!  The visit there is not cheap (P2,000 for the boat ride, tour, lunch and ride back through Sun Cruises), but totally worth it!  Even if war history doesn’t interest you, just getting away from the city for a day or two (you can stay overnight for a little more) is super-relaxing.  Plus the tour is VERY organized, probably the most organized tour I’ve been to.  Despite having many buses leaving at the same time, each has a different itinerary (but all covering the same sights, just at different times), so it’s never crowded, and you have plenty of opportunities for pictures.