After a grueling 13.5 hours in a flight from Vancouver we landed in Milano Philippines.

Overall, I have to say I am incredibly impressed with Philippine Airlines. First of all, they have their own theme song! Its really REALLY catchy, and their service is top notch! In the flight we were served 3 meals that all tasted really good too (I recommend the pork & eggs)! We were provided refreshments every 2 or 3 hours or when/if you asked for it. The staff was incredibly friendly. They were not super strict about passengers getting up to walk around, using the restroom or even just standing in the isle to stretch—which is not to say they don’t take safety seriously, once that ‘fasten your seatbelt light came on’ they were all about getting you to sit down and bugle up. It was so refreshing to be treated like a human on a flight and not cargo.

We landed in Milano in the morning and elected to have a 9 hour layover. We wanted to explore a bit, but had been given some warnings about traffic & security lines so chose to stay close to the airport. Which lead us to a really big mall! Yep, traveled to the other side of the planet to go to a mall! However, we’ve heard they are quite proud of their malls, and this one was really quite large. We got started with a cup of coffee at Starbucks, because we’re ‘Ammerrrican and its what we does.’ Then we set off to find a place to store our bags so we didn’t have to carry them around the mall the entire time. After about 2 hours of asking, looking asking, looking, asking again we finally found what we were looking for “Pay Station” a place we could pay a few Philippines Peso to take a shower! Who knew? You can shower in a mall.  And afterwards, we finally found baggage drop off.

Being much less burdened with heavy packs, we explored a little of the mall, which is HUGE by the way, and then sat down for a delicious meal at a waterfront cafe. No idea on the name, but the food was super, the wine tasty. After dinner was some more exploring of the mall, walking along the waterfront, and then back to the Airport for the final leg of the trip to Bangkok. I’d love to make it back to the Philippines someday to explore. The people are so incredibly friendly and I imagine there’s much to see in the country. It was extremely humid, and had recently rained so visibility wasn’t great, but I’ve included some of the sites we got see while exploring.

Finally getting to play with my new camera. Lots to learn, but good to finally have something decent to shoot with.