Manila Hotel

Adam’s school is on winter break so the boys have been entertaining each other at home. When the winter camp offered a field trip to the Manila Hotel which is right by the Embassy I signed them up and I left work early to meet them over there.

Some quick history about the Manila Hotel, it’s the oldest hotel in Manila. During his tenure as the Military Advisory of the Philippine Commonwealth the penthouse served as the residence of General Douglas MacArthur right before World War II. During World War II, the hotel was occupied by Japanese troops, and the Japanese flag was flown above the walls for the entirety of the war. During the Battle of the Liberation of Manila the hotel was set on fire by the Japanese. The shell of the building survived the blaze and the structure was later reconstructed.

You can take a tour of the penthouse that General MacArthur stayed in, but this was not that kind of field trip. It was Malcolm’s first field trip and he was pretty excited.

Especially when he saw this huge gingerbread house covered in macaroons.

And the boy’s friend Victoria was there which made it even better.

We started on our tour of their winter wonderland and the first thing we saw was this horse carousel. Adam was super excited, except he kept asking why it didn’t move. We may have gotten a little spoiled in the U.S.

We watched Arthur Christmas a super cute British Christmas movie that both boys love. Then it was time for lunch. Both boys were soooooo excited when they saw this spread! It was their first ‘tea party’ and they loved every minute of it. Malcolm spent most of the lunch picking candy off the tray for his pile of candies.