Kamusta!
A little over a week ago, I arrived in the Philippines to start my internship. It has already been a bit of a rollercoaster ride, but it has been so worth it. After not sleeping on the plane ride here (that is around 18 hours of travel time folks), we got here around 8 pm on Friday evening. We were picked up from the airport and taken to our new home for the next 6 weeks. It is a condo building about 10 minutes from a gigantic mall, the Greenbelt, and our office. All of the websites about the Philippines do not lie. Filipinos are some of the happiest, nicest people on this Earth. I love working with all of my coworkers. They are always a bright spot in my day.
I've already begun to learn some of the key points of this internship too. The main ones so far being cultural differences in the workplace and how important the departments of DSM Manila are for White & Case to function. But enough about work, let's get to the traveling!
While we are in the Philippines, it is the rainy season (the equivalent would be our winter without the snow and still 80 degrees, so not really the same at all but the whole summer winter thing is what I was going for). That means that sometimes the outside plans we have, will have backup indoor plans. Well one of those backup indoor plans happened on Saturday because we weren't too sure of the weather. So we got to go haggle for some good deals at Green Hills. It is a huge indoor space with vendors, almost like a flea market but more intense. There is anything and everything from bags to jewelry to furniture to clothes to souvenirs. Our mentor, Ria, went with us to help haggle and make sure we weren't overwhelmed! It was a lot of fun and a good way to spend a rainy day. Today, the weather was sunny and warm so I got to visit the Taal Volcano - smallest volcano in the Philippines! That was really special because I've never been to a volcano before! It is also quite unique because the volcano has the largest island within a lake on an island within a lake on an island (confusing, right?). Anyway, the volcano and surroundings were absolutely gorgeous. To get there, first we traveled by boat. Then, you could either walk up (which is practically straight, up with the sun beating down on you) or you could ride a horse up. Me being the horse lover that I am of course wanted to see about the horses but there were ups and downs with riding them. Horses in the Philippines are very small and are treated as work animals (which translates to not being taken care of well as compared to the United States). This broke my heart a little bit but my horse seemed to like its job and I kept petting it the whole time (I've been going through some major horseback riding withdrawl). Once we reached the top, the views were incredible. We got to see the lake inside the crater and some lava! We had to get going for lunch so went back down, got in the boat, and went back to the van. From there, we traveled up to Tagaytay where the restaurant we were eating at was sitting on a slope overlooking the lake. There was a moment where the clouds just started rolling in over the lake and then all you could see was white. It reminded me of the Cloud Forest in Monteverde in Costa Rica. Actually, Costa Rica and the Philippines have a very similar vibe to me, in just the way the country feels and the cultures. All in all it was a great first weekend spent traveling around the island of Luzon with coworkers, who are now good friends!
Well, that's about it! Hopefully I will have more exciting places to visit this weekend!
Talk to you soon,
Kirsten
P.S. As always there are a ton more pictures in my Facebook album!
A little over a week ago, I arrived in the Philippines to start my internship. It has already been a bit of a rollercoaster ride, but it has been so worth it. After not sleeping on the plane ride here (that is around 18 hours of travel time folks), we got here around 8 pm on Friday evening. We were picked up from the airport and taken to our new home for the next 6 weeks. It is a condo building about 10 minutes from a gigantic mall, the Greenbelt, and our office. All of the websites about the Philippines do not lie. Filipinos are some of the happiest, nicest people on this Earth. I love working with all of my coworkers. They are always a bright spot in my day.
I've already begun to learn some of the key points of this internship too. The main ones so far being cultural differences in the workplace and how important the departments of DSM Manila are for White & Case to function. But enough about work, let's get to the traveling!
While we are in the Philippines, it is the rainy season (the equivalent would be our winter without the snow and still 80 degrees, so not really the same at all but the whole summer winter thing is what I was going for). That means that sometimes the outside plans we have, will have backup indoor plans. Well one of those backup indoor plans happened on Saturday because we weren't too sure of the weather. So we got to go haggle for some good deals at Green Hills. It is a huge indoor space with vendors, almost like a flea market but more intense. There is anything and everything from bags to jewelry to furniture to clothes to souvenirs. Our mentor, Ria, went with us to help haggle and make sure we weren't overwhelmed! It was a lot of fun and a good way to spend a rainy day. Today, the weather was sunny and warm so I got to visit the Taal Volcano - smallest volcano in the Philippines! That was really special because I've never been to a volcano before! It is also quite unique because the volcano has the largest island within a lake on an island within a lake on an island (confusing, right?). Anyway, the volcano and surroundings were absolutely gorgeous. To get there, first we traveled by boat. Then, you could either walk up (which is practically straight, up with the sun beating down on you) or you could ride a horse up. Me being the horse lover that I am of course wanted to see about the horses but there were ups and downs with riding them. Horses in the Philippines are very small and are treated as work animals (which translates to not being taken care of well as compared to the United States). This broke my heart a little bit but my horse seemed to like its job and I kept petting it the whole time (I've been going through some major horseback riding withdrawl). Once we reached the top, the views were incredible. We got to see the lake inside the crater and some lava! We had to get going for lunch so went back down, got in the boat, and went back to the van. From there, we traveled up to Tagaytay where the restaurant we were eating at was sitting on a slope overlooking the lake. There was a moment where the clouds just started rolling in over the lake and then all you could see was white. It reminded me of the Cloud Forest in Monteverde in Costa Rica. Actually, Costa Rica and the Philippines have a very similar vibe to me, in just the way the country feels and the cultures. All in all it was a great first weekend spent traveling around the island of Luzon with coworkers, who are now good friends!
Well, that's about it! Hopefully I will have more exciting places to visit this weekend!
Talk to you soon,
Kirsten
P.S. As always there are a ton more pictures in my Facebook album!