Today was day 2 in our experience in the Philippines. We started the day with a tour of Mary Johnston Hospital. MJH is a tertiary hospital with the units of OB, pediatrics, PICU, NICU, MICU, SICU, medical/surgical, OR, and ER. Each of these units was differentiated by color. Yellow was pediatrics, pink was OB, blue was medical/surgical floor, and green was OR. During our tour we learned about the history of the hospital, their hiring process and the benefits of working there. If you work there you get 75% discount on all your medical services, and most of the time the professional fees are waived. There is no insurance benefits so this discount is what we think of as insurance. These medical expenses need to be payed for before the care is provided. If you are a family member of the worker, you get 50% discount. MJH is a Methodist based hospital, so if you are Methodist you receive a 10% discount. If you are a priest you receive a 40% discount. These discounts for MJH are only for MJH. The discounts don't apply to other hospitals. Say you work for MJH and are in another city. Something happens and you need health services and you go to the hospital in that city. You would be responsible for all of the hospital fees with no discount.
After the tour of MJH, we toured Mary Johnston College of Nursing. That is where we are staying. MJH and MJCN are affiliated with each other but neither own each other. They have the relationship like CSS and Essentia or St. Luke's. MJH and MJCN are very close in proximity. It was just a short walk through a back alley that connects the two. Neither have air conditioning except in a couple units of the hospital.
MJCN was founded by Rebecca Parish and was named after Mary Johnston, a woman from St. Paul, MN! There is two buildings, one is the dorms and the other is a chapel/classrooms/library. The classroom and chapel are fairly new where as the dorms are the original building. Just a couple months ago they replaced the original roof of the dorms. The library books are almost all donated from alumni.
After a much needed three hour break we headed to Jose Rizal Park in Intramuros City. Today happened to be the Holiday celebrating Jose Rizal. This Holiday celebrates the death of Jose Rizal, their fallen hero. He was executed by the Spanish for being intelligent (spoke 7 languages!) and for recording all the terrible things the Spanish did. Intramuros City is within the city of Manila and it is surrounded by walls 6 meters high and 4 meters thick. It was originally built to protect the Filipinos from the Spanish.  To tour Intramuros City we rode in horse carriages pulled by what seemed like very small donkeys.  In our carriage we had 8 people and it felt like we were going to break it. We all felt so bad for the little donkey, but we nicknamed our carriage the Ferrari because it was the farthest thing from a Ferrari.  During the tour we had many native Filipinos staring at us and snapping pictures.  Some would stick their whole body out of their car to take pictures of us. At other times when we would stop to take a group picture, there would be a huge crowd starring at us and taking their own picture of us.
After touring Intramuros City and Rizal Park we went to dinner and a show at the colorful Zamboanga restaurant.  Dinner was family style with rice, fish, seafood platter, squid, pork, etc.  Once we finished dinner there was a cultural dancing show.  The dances they performed were nothing we have ever seen before.  They performed a marriage dance, Spanish conquest, a Christmas traditional dance, and the Filipino traditional dance.  Once the show was over they invited anyone in the crowd to try the Filipino dance.  This dance consists of stepping over long sticks while they are pounding them together and on the floor. It was actually much harder than we thought, but it was a blast! Once everyone tried the dance they selected who they thought did it the best and Kelsey Braatz was the best girl from our group! She then did the dance again with the guy that performed the dance the best. She won a pineapple! It was a fun day but we were all ready for bed by the time we arrived back at MJCN.

Tomorrow we head off to the Camayan Resort for 2 days!
Excited for the adventure to continue,


Alyson and Haley XOXO

Happy Birthday Lindsay! Got to celebrate twice over the international dateline.

Orientation to Mary Johnson College and Hospital

We made it!
The last 48 hours have been long but very exciting. We arrived in Manila late Sunday night, almost in disbelief we are finally here!
Today, Monday, we started our day with a tour of St. Luke's Global City Hospital. It's considered one of the highest ranked hospitals in Asia, after only being open since 2009. The hospital was huge, and we got to tour almost all of it. Most of us would say a highlight was touring an OR in use, and being able to observe a Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (basically, we saw a beating heart). The nurses were probably some of the happiest and most relaxed nurses we've come in contact with.
After a long morning at St. Luke's, we got to eat at a authentic Filipino restaurant called Abe. We tried tilapia (that came out as a whole fish, staring straight at us), chicken and pork abodobo, spring rolls, pickled papaya, baby catfish, a chicken and banana dish, fried pork, shrimp flavored chips, and a vegetable dish called wake up wake up, known for its spiciness.
We then spent the afternoon at Market Market, trying to barter for souvenirs. It was a indoor market within a shopping mall, four stories, and busier than MOA at Christmastime.
Throughout the day we felt welcomed by lots of smiles, compliments on our beautiful hair (which was pretty greasy from how hot it was), and being called ma'am, which sounds like mom. We  felt some definite culture shock from crazy traffic where no one uses blinkers or even lane lines, pedestrians cross when they want, there's many people sleeping or just making food on the sidewalk, and tons of stray dogs, cats, and roosters.
We ended our night trying to sneak past the stray cat that has taken residence by the leftover food bins, singing happy birthday to Lindsay and having cake, now trying to finish this blog so we can shower and get our jet lagged brains to bed.
Much Love from Manila,
Tatum, Nicole, and Maggie

Hope you have an enriching meaningful and fun experience.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

Enjoy your family and friends-our most precious gift of all.  Soon we will experience another gift of exploring new friendships and a new culture. We begin our journey in three days!