The Phillippines are a bizzare mix of English, American and Japanese influences. Initially we had worried a little that we wouldn't be understood in Manila as the language would be completley different, but how wrong we were, it took us about 12 hours to realise that nearly everone speaks English and not only that but all signs, newspapers, radio, cinema, shops pretty much everything is in English. So it really wasn't much of a culture shock as they have embraced American culture wholeheartedly, and we felt pretty comfortable straight away. That is at least with the language, the city itself is another story. We only stopped off at Manila because we had to, to fly to Palau, so we only had two full days there before getting on a plane again. This was more than enough
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