069 - Manila, Philippines
SHOW NOTES - episode 069: Manila, Philippines 
Nicola Holden continues to thrive! Join us as we explore and bring you a special sound scene tour from the American Cemetery and Memorial in Manila We show you some great PodAsia images we’ve collected in our library of Google Earth images . Podsafe music this week is by not-so-famous Sarah Mac Band from southern states of the USA.
MANILA AMERICAN CEMETERY AND MEMORIAL: As PodAsia flew into Manila airport, we saw out the starboard window and noticed a cemetery of some description. No one could assist with an accurate description at the Shangri-La Hotel Makati hotel but with the aid of my Google Earth and memory of what we saw, PodAsia was able to identify the American War Cemetery (below).
The World War II Manila American Cemetery and Memorial is located about six miles southeast of Manila, Republic of the Philippines within the limits of Fort Bonifacio which is the former U.S. Army Fort William McKinley.
The cemetery is on a prominent plateau, visible at a distance from the east, south and west. It contains the largest number of graves of US military dead of World War II, a total of 17,202, most of whom gave their lives in the operations in New Guinea and the Philippines. The headstones are aligned in 11 plots forming a generally circular pattern, set among masses of a wide variety of tropical trees and shrubbery.
The chapel, a tall stone structure enriched 
with sculpture and mosaic, stands near the center of the cemetery. In front of it on a wide terrace are two large hemicycles with rooms at each end. Twenty-five large mosaic maps in these four rooms recall the achievements of the American Armed Forces in the Pacific, China, India and Burma.
On rectangular Trani limestone piers within the hemicycles are inscribed the names of 36,285 of the missing who gave their lives in the service of America and who rest in unknown graves. Carved in the floors are the seals of all American states and its territories.
From the memorial and other points within the cemetery there are impressive views over the lowlands to Laguna de Bay and towards the distant mountains.
The cemetery is open every day to the public from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm except December 25 and January 1. Visitors should first visit the "Visitors Building" where you can receive a free guide book and a staff member is on duty to answer questions and escort relatives to grave and memorial sites.
GPS TRACKING AND TECHNOLOGY: PodAsia has been using a Pocket PC, a handheld tracking device and a cool software package called GPSDash2 to track our travels.
This is the software that PodAsia uses to track locations and identify landmarks.
The Pocket PC records the satellite positioning with correct coordinates; latitude, longitude, altitude, time and so on. A special KML or KMZ Google Earth file is then created which is imported into Google Earth Professional Edition. This married together both positions and we can then see the overlaid positional coordinates of locations we travel to on Google Earth.
This has a great advantage to identify hotels, restaurants, tourist locations and shopping areas! An invaluable free travel resource to further assist you when you are traveling.
This image (click to enlarge) clearly shows the two holding patterns and final approach of PodAsia’s Singapore Airlines flight had to circle in a pattern before making our landing approach into Manila International Airport. We have also loaded some terrific other in-flight aviation images of travel departures and landings <<< HERE >>>
Similarly, this image (click to enlarge) shows the locations - called way points - of major hotels in Metro Manila. These hotels - Mandarin Hotel, Manila Peninsula, Shangri-la Makati, Oakwood Hotel and the Hotel Intercontinental - all cater to the busy business traveler and PodAsia will be offering special reviews, hints and opinions about certain hotels where we travel to.
If you look carefully you can see the mass of cars on the Makati road.
Music in this episode is from the not-so-famous podsafe music band Sarah Mac Band or SMC and Greg Ferico Pacific Coast Highway. Both from the podsafe music network.
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