Sometimes going back to the Philippines can feel very wistful to me. Life is so different in Canada, and having spent two-thirds of my life here, sometimes returning home can feel like discovering an old pair of beloved shoes and finding that they don't quite fit you anymore. It makes me want to work harder to keep my connections with the country alive.

This post is the first of a two-part account of my trip to the Philippines. In this post, I'll outline where I went and what we did, and in the second post, I will do a deeper dive on some of my thoughts about the culture there and how I perceive it as someone who's spent the majority of her life in the diaspora.