September 1, 2025 — The best cure for winter blues is a 10-day visit to sunny Philippines.  Sponsored by the Philippine Foreign Service Posts in Canada, namely, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, together with the Philippine Department of Tourism. the Philippine Ambassador to Canada, Hon. Jose Victor V. Chan-Gonzaga, along with the Philippine Consuls General in Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary will be joining this tour. 

September 16, 2023 - The Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs together with consulates general and embassy in Canada launched the 2024 Winter Escapade which promises to be an “adventure-packed and enriching vacation experience.” The tour includes stops in Metropolitan Manila, Iloilo, Cebu, and Bohol from February 18 to 27.

(Editor’s note: Planning a trip to Manila in pandemic?  In addition to the 15-to -18 hour flying time, you should also plan on spending two to three hours going through a pandemic-driven reception for arrivals at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila. 

This is the second of four installments of a series about a Via Rail train trip labelled The Canadian or Le Canadien, which you can board at Vancouver and take all the way to Toronto.

As a proud citizen of Canada, I felt it was my duty to know and see more of my country.

I have already explored my home province of British Columbia. So on May 16th, 2018, I took a Via Rail train trip labelled The Canadian or Le Canadien, which you can board at Vancouver and take all the way to Toronto in Ontario.

Everyone living in the Great White North would want to have a break from the gloomy, frosty winter months, most especially people who grew up in tropical countries, and us Filipinos are no exemption. We will always have some sort of attachment to the heat and the sun even if we have gotten accustomed to the cold.