This week I find myself at the Peninsula Hotel in the Makati area of Manila, Philippines, a pleasant location.  The hotel is a superb place to relax and a great venue for a gathering.  The people in the Philippines are friendly and good food is easy to find.  But the urban running…not so good.

I did my usual early morning run, right before sunrise.  A quick 5k loop around the Urdaneta neighborhood.  It was a combination of urban single track (broken sidewalks, narrow walkways, intrusive trees and branches), busy traffic (even before sunrise…noisy honking, loud engines and smelly smog), half awake laborers filling the walkways, and some stray dogs and cats.  One of the least enjoyable runs I’ve done.

The Ayala Triangle Gardens park was a welcome respite from the oppressive urban run route, but it’s short and has ongoing construction around its north vertice which is reducing its size.

I finished up around the Sultan Kundarat Monument. As I learned today while visiting the historical dioramas at the Ayala Museum, in the 17th Century the Sultan resisted Spanish occupation and the spread of Catholicism on the island of Mindanao.   Overall, the dioramas do an excellent job of telling the story of the often violent interaction and blending of indigenous people, the Chinese, the Spanish, Brits, Americans, Islam and Catholicism in the Philippines.