// travel diaries: iloilo city, philippines

We're really lucky that we have the chance to go to different places this summer. The second leg of our travels is in my mother's province: Iloilo. This is where she lived for the first sixteen years of her life. It's quite different compared to Manila. The remnants left during the Spanish era makes it look like it's stuck in time. The infrastructure's beauty is timeless and definitely eye catching. 

Iloilo is located in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines and being surrounded by vast seas, there is an abundance of FRESH seafood that anyone could ever dream of. Name one and they'll most likely have it and to make things even better, you can eat all the seafood that your hearts desire for such a cheap price.  

We arrived here on the 25th of July,just in time for the Feast of St. Anne in the Molo District. The atmosphere was lovely as everyone was ecstatic and ready to celebrate. We were surrounded by family and close friends we haven't seen in months and of course, food! There we loads of filipino dishes served from pancit molo (iloilo specialty) to dinuguan. But I think it's safe to say that the main star of the massive mahogany table in our dining room was the roast pig pictured above. (Fun fact: My cousin, MM actually named it "Petra" lol. Hi Ate Em! *waves*) 

Besides the good food, one thing I was grateful for that weekend was  the fact that Hanna and I were reunited with our cousins slash childhood friends. The laughter and banter was endless. And so were the selfies and polaroids. We probably used up around fifteen polaroids that weekend haha!

All of the photos we took in the course of two days lol

Having a huge family is one of the coolest things ever. Tito (Uncle) Dino had an alumni game of basketball at their alma matter and everyone was there to be his cheerleaders (None of us could beat Ate Em though, she's like the number one cheerleaders lol!) We gave life and colour to the otherwise very quiet game of basketball. Even though we lost by two points, it was quite a good game. Considering the ten year gap between my uncle's team and the opponents. After all the cheering we did, it was finally time to go to "Tatoy's Manokan" a very famous eatery here for a well-deserved meal. We were told that they've recently opened a resort so we went for a night swim. 

Bullet, Ate Em and Tina

These were before we went to my uncle's basketball game to cheer. 

We'll be staying here for two more weeks then we're back in Manila again since it's grand-pere's first death anniversary. We're in the last month of our summer holidays so I hope everyone's making the most out of it. Go out and make some memories! Thanks for reading this blog post guys! <33