My Story
Howdy! My name is Neil, your guide around Intramuros. As you can see I’m brown and Filipino as can be. But culturally I’ve experienced both the western world and the third world. My mom and I were bouncing from the Philippines to America for years when I was a child. We finally settled in California for a decade, where I absorbed the western style of living. I hung out with different people with different ethnicities and I found one common denominator, that is curiosity. If you ask an individual a place where he/she may want to go, you would most likely find a quick answer; “Thailand”, “Greece”, “Brazil” etc. Why? Maybe they are interested or maybe they are just simply curious.
After living in Cali for ten years, I moved back to the Philippines to study Business. Luckily for me, the place where I was staying at when I was in school was in Intramuros.I had no idea about the history and the tourist attractions this place has to offer. On a car ride to the apartment (where I will eventually stay) I was looking around and started to notice the old ruins of the city, and immediately got my curious bell ringing. I said to myself “why does this place look like 1700’s Europe, similar to what I see in the movies?” The walls, old buildings, and old European roads of Intramuros got me engaged in knowing more about the place. So I wanted to dive deeper.
As a curious young student I started exploring, I read descriptions and infographics about the iconic places,churches, and buildings of Intramuros that got me fascinated about the place. Little did I know the oldest church in the Philippines, the San Augustin church is located in General Luna street (a quarter kilometers away from my unit) which is 400 years old. That’s a long ass time. Not only that, Intramuros is where Jose Rizal the Philippines’ national hero was imprisoned at Fort Santiago.
I was absorbing so much information that I had to tell my family and friends in the States about this cool place. Until one day a family member of mine from Maryland came to visit me in Intramuros. They too were curious about everything I had told them about this place. So I gave them a tour. The puzzled look on their faces says it all. “ How did we not know about this place?” They all said, and that’s when the idea of being a guide kicked it in my mind.
I’ve been living in Intramuros for ten years now with my wife and baby boy. Everytime I stroll around from time to time, I’m still amazed by everything I see within the “walled city”. I find joy meeting new people and giving them a tour.