This post is dedicated to the interesting, unknown, and all around fun facts about the Philippines! I am one of those people that love random facts, and for some reason, I can remember them better than my schoolwork. (This was inspired by a note from a friend):
1. The beautiful flag of the Philippines is displayed differently during times of peace and war. During peace = the blue side is up. During war = the red side is up. The blue side is currently on top and there shouldn't be a change anytime soon, from what I understand. Unless something more serious develops from the dispute with Taiwan.
2. The Philippines are the texting capital of the world! Just when I thought that suburban middle schools in the US had this title on lock, it turns out that nearly 400,000,000 texts are sent daily from 35,000,000 cell phones in the Philippines.
3. Karaoke was invented in the Philippines (not Japan). Good thing I love to sing!
4. The area of the Philippines is 1/30 of the US, but has twice as much coast line. Some beautiful coastline at that:
5. The yo-yo is an ancient Philippine toy that was originally developed as a weapon.
6. The Philippine University of San Carlos in Cebu City was founded in 1595 by the Spanish. It is the oldest university in Asia and is even older than Harvard.
7. The deepest trenches in the world's oceans are located near the Philippines. The Mindanao Trench (sharing the name with the island I will be staying on) is 6.5 miles deep and located directly east of the Philippines.
Now it is time to pack! See below for some links to the sites where I collected this information. As well, you definitely need to check out some other blogs about international travel! Carolyn is a good friend of mine from K-State and she is leaving for South Africa tomorrow. Her flight is six hours before mine at MCI and I promised her I would be there to see her off (fingers crossed). Also, my girlfriend, Morgan, is currently student teaching in Ecuador and will be there for the next couple of weeks. Both of these girls are terrific writers and will share perspectives of being abroad from other regions of the globe this summer!
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