Malacanang Palace

 is said to be the White House of the Philippines.  Below is the museum and the guide who showed us around was great and did a terrific job teaching us a lot about the 15 Presidents of the Philippines.

 Greg laughed at us for wanting our pictures made behind the podium.  We did see the actual palace but weren't allowed to even take a picture of it.  That is where the equivalent to the Oval Office is located.  The palace grounds have many buildings and different Presidents have chosen to live in different buildings on the grounds.  The current President lives in a house across the Pasig River from the museum and rides a boat over to his office each morning.

 

 The wood and marble work throughout the museum was gorgeous!

 There were campaign materials on display

 along with Presidential decrees

 a room dedicated to the First Ladies, which of course was Ashley's favorite!

 This main gallery held a display for each President and some of their books, momentos.  We were told that as much as Immelda Marcos liked shoes, her husband Ferdinand liked books and many of his are still in the museum today.

 beautiful crystal chandeliers too!  We were told that during WW2 they took each piece apart and buried them and it took months to re-assemble-there were several in the museum alone

 There were pictures of many exciting visitors to the Philippines-Corazon Aquino with Mother Teresa in 1989

 We had our picture made with the statue of Benigno Aquino III, the Philippines current President and son of Corazon Aquino

 

Two pictures above is a picture of the current President made entirely from coffee beans and a picture of his mother in her favorite color, yellow.  Apparently she was very popular-there was a room in the museum dedicated to her.  Nearly everything in it was yellow, even the curtains

 a few outside pictures before we left

 

 Ashley took a nap on the way home and we laughed when we realized that we could actually SEE her drooling!

 We took Greg back to his office, went to the mall to get the boys haircuts and HAD to pose with these signs.

 I had a really tough job that I demanded they help with when we got home-we had to eat the rest (except 1 I saved for Greg) of Greg's ice cream birthday cake before we left for Donsol the next morning-they were happy to help!