Makati Randomness
Jo has already covered a lot of first impressions of Manila, along with various tortuous and waring trips to the low budget John Lewis that is Landmark. However, despite not venturing far from the flat due to the heat and my pursuit of web design greatness, I have noticed some marvelous randomness.
Manila stretches on forever. From our 17th floor balcony, not only can you see the terrifying demolition by hammer Jo noted. but also endless low rise housing. Once you’re out of Makati, in all its partially shiny, partially falling down goodness it’s just chaotic inner-city housing, slightly reminiscent of Bangkok.
Cabbing around is just not worth it, with all the one-way systems it’s just quicker (although stickier) to walk. I’ve come to the conclusion that the system are in place to prevent total gridlock, rather than the mere glacial traffic they currently endure. Although this does mean you often end up going in precisely the opposite direction when you start a cab journey.
It’s back to proper Asian driving here. I presume the one-way system is in place to stop cab-drivers swerving into oncoming traffic as if they’re in the middle of a video game where that sort of behaviour earns you extra points. As it is, it’s only the junctions that get a bit hairy.
Cars are clearly a national obsession, I’ve never been in the centre of a city with so many car-parks. The bottom 4-5 floors of every condo is car park and the malls and office buildings all have 2-3 levels beneath them. You realise that all the cars in Singapore are new (because it cost so much to run a car you may as well own a new one!), every now and then a real old banger goes past choking pedestrians and giving me warm memories of my student days!
Missing Building Syndrome
Makati isn’t all gleaming skyscrapers, 70s condos and enormous shopping malls. As you walk around there are great building shaped holes in the blocks, where you can see straight through to the road on other side. A handful are obviously designated as sites for condos, but of course most are used as car parks during the working day.
The most obviously surreal thing I’ve seen is the dilapidated half finished skyscraper on the main street in the heart of the CBD.
Apparently it’s been stranded there for years ever since whichever chaps were building it went bust/got locked up when their cronies got thrown out of government, in one of the quaint coups they seem to like over here. I seem to find it peculiarly beguiling, much to Jo’s puzzlement.
On that note, so far, no political marches, coups or bombs, although we did have an extremely loud typhoon pass through, but the streets remained flood free. We have that joy to come!
Food
I’ve just about got my head around the random American brands in the supermarket, and we’ve found a couple of places to eat, I can indulge my sushi fixation at the reasonable Teriyaki Boy and a lovely restaurant called Sala Bistro currently occupies Jo’s favourite-places-to-drink-cocktails list.
Plus the fact we now have an oven means the number of dinners I can successfully make has doubled. To two.
And Away
As our visas currently only allow us to stay in the country for 21 days, this weekend we take an (AMS sponsored) jaunt to Hong Kong. Dim Sum and noodles beckon us from the US-style fast food temptations (every ten yards) in Makati.
This is to be followed by our first trip to a Filipino beach the following weekend. I’m looking forward to getting out of the grime of the city. And I’m hoping this is when I can finally start to feel smug about being here, after the initial culture-shock of arrival.
Andy 16 May 2008
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Hey Guys, juts checking in. Sounds like it’s all going….well it sounds like it’s going somehwere anyway. Andy, you’re DIY savvy, why don’t you get cracking on that Semi-completed Skyscraper. Sure, it would look lovely in laminate
Michael Arrigan # May 20