Manila, Philippines

Good morning (po), Manila!

For the next 10 weeks, Astoria Plaza (in Ortigas, Manila) was our home. It should normally take under ten minutes to walk to the office, however we usually stop to pick up "coffee" or drop off our laundry along the way. Sometimes we take a longer route to work to avoid the stinky sewerage/bog-smelling drain. Well, the huge open drain is unavoidable in either direction, but we found a route that cut across a less stinkier part of it.

 

On the first evening of our arrival, we were caught out in a heavy downpour -- we'd arrived right at the start of the monsoon season! We'd never seen rain this heavy in our entire lives ... worst of all, we made the mistake of dashing across the road when there was a slight pause in the downpour -- the result was two very soggy people, and a waterlogged laptop!

Introducing ... MALLS

... a Mega Mall, to be exact. As the weekend was upon us, we took the opportunity to check out our the neighbouring "mall(s)" and stock up on supplies.

Along the way, we found a oddly designed and gaudily coloured building which was obviously aiming to attract certain types of tenants ... It was practically empty, save for a convenience store at the bottom.

Already feeling homesick and craving plain, simple food, we found a soup kitchen ...

Nevermind that it was constantly humid and too bloody hot outside -- soups are usually comforting. Alas, the chowder (of some sort) I had was not well-received by my lactose-intolerant gut! :(

As Mega Mall was a little too noisy, loud and disorientating for us, we decided to wander to Makati, which I remembered to be a little more upmarket from the last time I visited (about 3 or 4 years ago?). To our dismay, it was equally as loud, noisy and disorientating ... we soon discovered that hanging out at shopping centres / malls is a favorite past-time of the Manilans.

We watched the latest Superman movie in Greenbelt (one of the ritzier, newer shopping centres -- sorry, MALLS).

 

We had dinner at Masas (in one of the Greenbelt malls) -- it's a pretty upmarket Filipino restaurant, serving the less greasier, better qualitied version of the traditional Filipino dishes.

We had something belly (tuna?), a refreshingly sour beef broth, some stir fried vegetables (comes with meat, of course), some other sizzling tuna dish in some kind of coconutty gravy, with garlic rice. Yummo! The fresh juices were also very good -- we had watermellon juice, and ripe mango juice.

 

Hooray for cheap movies!

One good thing about living in Manila -- movies only cost about $3AUD! And that's in one of those big cinemas. (In Sydney they cost around $11AUD each, and that's when you purchase a book of 10 tickets). You get people walking in and out throughout the movie in the REALLY cheap cinemas ... so make sure you double check what kind of cinema it is ... Generally, expect to pay around 150PHP for a decent cinema.

Decent or no, don't be too surprised if you find people talking throughout the movie. Or eating. I'm not talking about popcorn -- I've seen people bringing in various hot (and strong smelling) meals from outside!

Wandering about in Quaipo and Intramuros

We decided to try out an alternative to hanging around malls -- checking out what the locals who don't hang out in malls do. :)

We did many things for the first time today -- a) Hang out with people from work. On a weekend. For non-work purposes! b) Ride a jeepney!

Jeepneys cost hardly anything to ride and vary in colour, decorations, interiors, quality and ricketyness (the door fell out in Muffin's hands on this one). Some have huge, loud speakers under the seats, blasting cheesy music from the 80s. To ride one, simply stand on the side of the road of the traffic heading in the general direction of where you'd want to go ... (ok, ok, some do have signs on them) ... they'd normally try to catch your attention (by honking, flashing or yelling at you) so try to look disinterested if it doesn't look like it's headed where you want it to.

If one has pulled over (and headed in the right direction), simply get on (correction, SQUEEZE on). Tell the driver (or the passengers) what your destination is. The driver or his assistant (or the other passengers) will tell you the fare. Pass your pesos over (to the passengers, etc.) To get off, wait for someone else to get off :P Or just knock on the side of the car, or tell the driver. Whatever. :) It basically stops anywhere and anytime along it's route ...

 

We found our way to Quaipo by jeepney, navigated past the throngs of locals, merchants, worshippers, clumps of poo, and made it safely to the other side of the river, to Intramuros.

Intramuros was a refreshing change of scenery. For one, it was desserted! For a tourist destination, we saw very few tourists. Secondly, there were green, living things there! Trees! (And moss)

Low-lying, tangled powerlines are a common sight in Manila.

Looking across the river, we could see the contrasting forms of settlement ... new apartments or condomeniums, with squatters homes at the bottom.

 

As we were walking, everyone suddenly crossed over to the other side without a word ... there was a rat very close to the exploding stage of decomposition ...

 

We were really hot and bothered after all that walking, and tried to enter a swish (apparently) hotel for some cocktails and refreshments. Alas, Yoann had been slapping around in his thongs, and we were REJECTED. Apparently, sandals are OK, but thongs are not?!?

Dejected, we ended up at another mall -- the Mall of Asia! (apparently the largest one in Philippines, but I'm sure someone else will build a bigger one)

We had a rather depressing lunch at the food court upstairs ... After deciding on the kind of slop we'd like to eat, we had to hover around some people so that they would vacate their tables and let us sit :)

Ninoy Aquino Park and Wildlife Centre

Sick of shopping malls, we decided do some naturey / wildlife watching things instead. According to my travel guide, there was a Wildlife Park in Quezon somewhere. So we hopped into a taxi, and away we went!

The taxi driver didn't know where the Wildlife Park was, so we pulled up to some locals in Quezon -- funny thing was, even the locals never heard of it! However, after asking about 5 different people, we were there.

According to the Philippines tourism website: "Quezon City's very own zoological and botanical garden, situated near the Quezon Memorial Circle, is a haven for young and old nature lovers. The 80-hectare complex of wooden areas is replete with wildlife conducive for picnicking and promenading. The park is also equipped with a children's playground and a man-made lagoon for boating. Specimens of the country's various flora and fauna, including the famous monkey-eating eagle, are found here."

Here's the lagoon, albeit very much mosquito-infested ...

 

Here's the children's playground ...

 

And here are the rest of the wildlife ...

In case you really needed to go, here's a bright pink male "urinal" -- consisting of some walls to pee against in relative seclusion. Your shoes would probably suffer from splashback tho.

 

Another (wet) day out -- Binondo, bugs and beer

As to be expected of regions prone to monsoons, it was yet another soggy day. How soggy, you ask?

That is not a river that the cars and bicycles are trundling through ... the water is almost knee deep in some areas!

After walking up and down Ongpin Street in Binondo (and having people waving at us to come inside everywhere) we picked a Chinese cafe that didn't have someone waving at us ... called "Tasty Dumplings" (the idea is that good places don't need advertising) :) Also, it was called "Tasty Dumplings" so it must be tasty :)

We ordered heaps of food -- about 2 or 3 dishes per person (Filipino portions are considered small for western standards) consisting of noodle soups, dumplings, meat buns, and various drinks. The food was pretty good -- not exactly Hong Kong standards, but hey, we're in Manila ... so we were glad we did feel any suspicious churnings in our abdomens later on. Also, it was a refreshing change from the food from our serviced apartment buffets.

Stuffed to the gills, we decided to walk off our morning of gluttony. So we walked a few doors down, to the Hopia shop, which has many varieties of Hopia (some kinda cookie), cakes, and snack foods. We bought a bundle to bring back to the office for sharing Monday.

Happy with our stash, we walked about and came across a purple fire truck. Apparently, the local fire service was so unreliable (that is, the fire service would arrive hours later, and then not turn on the hose unless they were paid), such that the more affluent merchants of Binondo decided to start their own fire service.

Next, we made our way to the Orchidarium and Butterfly Pavilion.

From past experience, we learned to not have any expectations on the tourist destinations mentioned in our guidebooks. We were amazed that we managed to even find the place on our own! So we paid our entrance fees and stepped in ...

 

It felt like a rainforest inside ... shady, wet, and soon, rainy! There wasn't much to see, again -- I have a feeling that we'd come during the low tourist seasons, so nothing was ready. The place was mosquito infested -- we were all furiously swatting and waving the little suckers away, whilst jumping over large puddles. Didn't find any butterflies either ...

Dejected and soggy, we decided to give Manila Hotel another go -- Yoann was wearing the correct footwear this time round. So, after going through a series of metal detectors and body searches, we were in.

A soggy day in Antipolo

It was yet another soggy monsoonal day, but that didn't stop us from schelping to the nearest main road and flagging down a jeepney ...

An hour or so later, we were in Antipolo, and it was still soggy. We were miles away from the city centres and business district, and nothing screams TOURISTS like Yoann's gigantic camera which he's lugged around in plain sight ... We walked passed a few workmen in garages before ducking into a shack which happened to have some food for sale -- and some more workmen amusing themselves on the karaoke machine ...

Unfortunately, we scared off the workmen so didn't get any more free entertainment. Instead we just took photos of the water buffalo and the traffic passing by.

 

As our guidebooks didn't cover anywhere outside Manila, we were totally lost and didn't know what we were planning on doing in this town anyway ... so we endured a couple of hours sitting in a jeepney heading back in bad traffic and breathing in fumes ...

Malls ...

Eeps -- yet another day killing time in the mall ...

Attempted to take a secret photo of some guy enjoying himself karaoking in Mega Mall today ...

Outside Mall of Asia

We headed to Mall of Asia to grab some lunch, but vowed not to venture INTO the mall itself ...

We had coffee in a little cafe near Malate church ... it was made in an interesting way (in some kinda bulbous glass tube) and it tastes great!

Met up with other ppl and headed to Manila Bay to watch the supposedly nice sunset.

Ended up enduring sprays of smelly poluted waters ... and found some kids swimming in the fetid waters. The shore was lined with various rubbish, slippers and sugar cane ...

Somewhat disappointed, we wandered into the streets of Malate ... found some places with pictures of prostitutes on the doors, and a few unsavoury types.

A little old lady with a few teeth remaining found her way into Muffin's backpack and took his mobile. Some villagers gave chase and caught her ... soon we found ourselves at a police station (the villager's idea, not ours!) where we witnessed the old lady get tasered and lots of miserable-looking people peering at us from the cells ...

Outta here!

We headed to Hong Kong for the weekend.

Makati for curry

We had a craving for curry so we headed to New Bombay Food in Makati for dinner.

Malls, movies and munchies

Ate at UCC Cafe for supper.

More Malls, movies and munchies

Ate at Chilis Grill and Bar in Greenhills.

Seafood galore at Seaside

We headed to Seaside with Toby -- which is good because he's great at taking photos (and eating food)! (some photos below are his)

We were so obviously non-locals I'm sure they charged us exorbitant prices, but nevertheless, still considered cheap!

We had garlic prawns, garlic crabs and some fish ... Yummo! Hope they weren't from Manila Bay tho ... (didn't dare ask, just in case!)

Off to Ho Chi Minh

We needed to get out to get another 3 weeks on the visa, so we headed to Ho Chi Minh for a long weekend.

Off to San Pablo

Had to get away from malls, so we headed to San Pablo for the weekend.

Off to Taal Lake and Volcano

Work people brought us to Taal lake and volcano .

Bye everyone!

It was our last day in Manila ... time to say 'bye' to all our friends and collegues in the Manila office ...