PICTURES OF CEBU, MANILA, SAIGON - JULY 2011

Here are some pictures I took this past month while I was in Cebu, Manila and Saigon. I may have to break up the pictures in several blog entries, and I'll do writeups later on. I just got back to Santa Monica and am still jetlagged.












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From top to bottom, l-r:
Lynley Ocampo, Cecilia, Gavin Bagares;
Terry Manguerra, Helen Franco Misa, Cecilia
Group picture shows: front row - Helen Misa, Chinggay Utzurrum, Inday Blanco, Terry Manguerra, Middle row - Cecilia, Joy Uy, Steve Aznar, Jimmy Sy, Diana Franco, Father Dodong Desuyo, Back row: Gavin Bagares, Louie Nacorda, Dodong Canete'

Group photo taken in Yap-Sandiego House: Boging Sandiego, Chinggay Utzurrum, Inday Blanco, Mrs. Sandiego, Terry Manguerra, Cookie Neuman, Cecilia;

Group photo taken during the Fiesta of Parian: Seated- Inday Blanco and Cecilia; back row - Gavin Bagares, Terry Manguerra, Chinggay Utzurrum, Jaime Picornell;

Group photo taken at Zubu Chon - Lynley Ocampo, Cecilia, Gavin, and Manager of Zubu Chon;

There's the glorious pair having breakfast in Makati - Angelica's Daughters - Nadine Sarreal and Cecilia;
Another pair having breakfast in Makati - Cecilia and Yvette Fernandez, editor of Town and Country Philippines;
Cecilia and Marily Orosa having lunch in Banko Central
Group photo showing STC highschool classmates: Front - Ginny Genato, Cecilia, Evelyn Bosh, Cynthia Posa, Carol Teodoro; Back: Aida Grino; Norma Lucero, Sandy Sampaico, Lilu Gimenez; Meng Sandico; Dina Karaan; Monina Magallanes, Mila Santillan

MANILA BOOK FAIR - ANVIL BOOTH

Marily Orosa sent me pictures of the Anvil Booth in the book fair in Manila. Some 40 authors, Marily and I included, have their photos featured. Our picture is sandwiched between the photo of Felice Sta. Maria, looking intent and sultry, and Linda Panlilio in a formal dress. I think I have a double-chin in the picture, but Marily says, "We look nice. We look young and natural and happy and confident. No, I dont think you have double chin." Marily is my good friend, you can guess.

I'm assuming that the books Marily and I co-edited, A La Carte Food & Fiction and Behind the Walls: Life of Convent Girls are featured, plus my other books by Anvil: Contemporary Fiction by Filipinos in America, Cecilia's Diary, Journey of 100 Years, and Growing Up Filipino (Philippine edition).

John Silva's National Museum Tour

From Manila, John Silva sent an email about the tours he gives at the National Museum. Schedule follows:
FINDING BEAUTY IN OUR OWN
A National Museum Tour by John Silva
Tour Dates:
July 5, 12, 19, 23, 26, 29, 30
August 2, 10, 13, 16, 20, 23, 27
Tour starts 10- 1
500 pesos - child; 700 pesos - adult
Museum of the People Finance Road, Rizal Park, Manila
Reservations Required- Call/text 0926-729-9029 or 527-5082; or email jsilva79@mac.com
A three-hour lecture tour through 21 galleries in 2 colonial-era buildings, full of the museum's artifacts and works of art.

FLOATING DOWN THE PASIG RIVER

Today, my friend Tillic picked me up and we took a cab to Quiapo - to Ilse D'Touls (Sa Ilalim ng Tulay) - where you can buy handicrafts dirt cheap. You must haggle even though their markup isn't that high. The shopping area is under the Quiapo bridge and near the famous Quiapo Church with the miraculous Black Nazarene statue, object of veneration to so many people that they have stampedes during the feastday of the Nazareno.

Back to the shopping center: outdoor stalls with quite a lot of shell craft, bamboo items, capiz shells, weavings, leather items. You can find lamps, bags, shell hanging dividers or wind chimes, tablecloths, napkins, knickknacks, carved wood, embroidered items, the list is endless. I picked up a lovely Filipina dress: handpainted kimono with skirt and panuelo for P1,500 - that's around $38; a nice beaded bakya (native wooden clogs) for P250 ($5); ebony back scratcher; shell pill boxes, woven purses, etc.

The best part was returning to Makati because we took the ferry down Pasig River. The ferry service is only two years old and it was the first time Tillic had taken it. It was wonderful! The terminals (except for Quiapo) were all quite nice, the ferries were clean and new, with a large screen for those who wanted to watch movies. I spent my time looking around because I'd never seen Manila from this vantage view. I'd read about Pasig being a major thoroughfare in the 1800s. In olden days one could take a boat all the way to Laguna. Jose Rizal writes about such a voyage in his famous novel, Noli Me Tangere. There are antique pictures showing the Pasig River with boats; the ancient steps on the banks are still there! There are also some old houses on the riverbank. And the ferry passes right by the Malacanang complex - that's all quite handsome. So, as we floated on Pasig for about an hour, we saw the Malacanang complex, warehouses, refineries, slums (yes, that too), and now and then some surprisingly intriguing mansions. Tillic was fascinated by the white birds that could fly forever that looked like small seagulls. They kept pecking at something on the water. I don't know if they were fishing, but we did see people fishing from the river banks, and also some children swimming. When we were young, the Pasig River was so polluted it had no fish; it was covered with green plants and a lot of garbage. To swim in the Pasig was tantamount to a cholera-sentence. Now, it's obviously cleaner.

So very fun! I highly recommend it, but don't have your hopes too high. It's not yet Bangkok, but I can see how in 5-10 years, this Pasig ferry will be quite a fashionable way to travel in the Metro Manila. Think of it: no traffic, no pollution, low stress - really you could take a nap, you could read, you could watch the movie - you can't do these things in a jeepney or taxi, you just can't because the frenetic Manila traffic is just too over whelming.

FAST FOOD IN THE PHILIPPINES

I listened to two mothers talking about their children, and they went on about their children being hyperactive - "super-kulit" is the term they used. Before this, they had talked about how picky their children are about food: one child didn't eat lunch at school and the mother had to give the kid Ensure in the morning and at night, and another child just ate fast food. I asked if fast food may have something to do with the hyperactivity and they both said yes.

We talked about how we didn't have fast food when we were growing up. Our snacks consisted of fruit and well, yes, sweets, but we didn't have Jollibee and McDonald and those stalls that sell assorted fried snacks.

I have noticed that there are a number of younger people who are heftier. When I was young and even now in provinces, people were/are generally more slender, sometimes too thin. I've always assumed that diet had something to do with this, in the same way I assume that the fast food diet is affecting the people in the cities where there's a proliferation of such food.

It would be interesting to see if there's an increase in diet-related health problems ever since the addition of fast food to the Filipino diet.

MANILA REPORT #3

When I was a student at Maryknoll College in Quezon City, I used to drive down EDSA. And at that time EDSA had long stretches of fields so the feeling was that you left the city of Manila, drove through nothing until you hit Quezon City. Now, there's concrete jungle all along EDSA, and needless to say the traffic along that avenue is horrendous.

Today, it was particularly bad because there was a fire in a slum community. The cab driver said the area was called Guadalupe, and it was made of shacks - squatters' homes. He said this was the second time the area burned down; five years ago there had been a fire. The owner of the land posted many guards to try and prevent the return of the squatters, and the cabbie said there were a lot of fights, with people getting killed. The squatters managed to get back into that land and rebuild. Then, there was this morning's fire.

Dark smoke swirled up into the murky Manila sky. People stood on the overpasses to look at the smoke and fire. The firemen apparently couldn't enter this area and blocked the surrounding roads. I didn't understand this statement fully, but I'm sure that is what the cabbie said. The cabbie insinuated that the fire could have been arson, but he toned down his statement by saying it's hard to tell because these kind of dwellings are made of flimsy wood, with illegal electric hookups, etc.

It took 50 minutes for me to get from Makati to Pasig ordinarily, it would take 30 minutes. So this wasn't too bad. The highway going the opposite way wasn't moving at all. After my hour meeting, I found another taxi and the guy was distraught about what route to take to get back to Makati, since EDSA traffic was at a standstill. He wound around through Mandaluyong and back streets and I think he may have taken advantage of me some because the meter was 50% more than usual. A lot of confusing and unnecessary turns, back tracking in some cases. But never mind he got me back to Makati - and even though the dollar is WEAK, it's still a bargain to travel from Pasig to Makati for $4.

I was tempted to go to Ilse D'Touls (you have to pronounce this with a French accent; it should really be Sa Ilalim Ng Tulay [Under the Bridge]) - a down home shopping section for handicrafts, unbelievably cheap, but the place has an edge so when you go there you have to be prepared for purse-snatchers and other bad people. I didn't go to Ilse D'Touls; didn't feel like adding any more edge to my life today.

So I thought about going to Ermita, where neat antique shops and restaurants are, and where Frankie Jose's bookshop La Solidaridad is, but it's Friday and traffic is just extra awful Friday afternoons. So I'm holed up in Makati.

Let's see what tomorrow brings!

Signing off from Makati.

RED LIGHT DISTRICT (?) IN MAKATI, Philippines

I've put a question mark after "red light district" because this place isn't like the red light district in Amsterdam, which is very forthright about sex for sale. The place I'm writing about is a section in Bel Air, Makati,where there are numerous bars, clubs, and hotels - and guys looking for girls, and girls in little short skirts cruising, looking for guys. The only difference here, is that unlike Amsterdam, the guys and girls trolling Bel Air can pretend they are looking for real love. In Amsterdam, I would think it would be quite a stupid man who would be looking for love in that red light district.

Seriously, here in Makati, I've come across a couple of older White guys looking for wives. Now, you are probably wondering what I would be doing in a place like this - and the answer is simple - I used to stay in place nearby and I used the internet cafes in the area.

The computers in the internet cafe I'm in right now all have cameras, for Skype users. I don't know if they still have the little rooms with the cameras, but a couple of years ago they did. A hairdresser named Lisa (a guy) had explained that these internet cafes have private rooms used by girls who do business via the internet. They apparently pick up clients from internet chat groups,and accept payment via Western Union. I will stop here and let the reader figure out what else transpires.

I mentioned this to my high school nun, Sister Consuelo, and she affirmed that such rooms do exist. She talked about an internet cafe in Cebu which she once used, and she wandered down a hall with little rooms! She asked the manager about those rooms, and the manager didn't give her a straight answer, according to her. So, my relaying to her what Lisa said educated Sister Consuelo about what happens in those little rooms. I think she may have gone back and scolded the manager.

All for now, from Makati's Redlight (?)District
Cecilia 

Read also

Remembering the Woman in Amsterdam
From Hanoi to Ho Chi Ming City
Kenya Safari
Ireland 1, 2
Visiting the American Southwest
Visiting Colonial Mexico
My Love Affair with France
Burma
Malaysia 

Grand Tour of Egypt 1 (visit also Egypt 2, 3) 

Maids in the Mist - Canada  (and visit Canada 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
Turkey 1 (and visit Turkey 2, 3, 4)

Brazil 1 (and visit Brazil 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
The Fascination Called China

Northern India in March 
Thailand and Cambodia
Peru

tags: Red Light District, prostitution, Philippines, Makati, Manila, travel, tourism holiday

MANILA IN JANUARY - Report #1

How do you survive a 20 hour trip across the Pacific?
Here are some tricks: travel light, including your hand carry. Homeland security checks in the U.S. are quite rigorous now, so you're better off if you minimize your luggage. Besides, it's easier to move around with fewer baggage (Ha - a pun!). Also consider your footgear, because you have to remove your shoes at the X-ray section before you get into the "sterile" area of the airport. You're so much better off if you wear slip-ons, rather than lace-up shoes. And don't bother bringing water, gels, perfume, etc. in your hand carry. You risk having them taken away from you.

Next, a week before your date of departure, you should call your airline and request for either window or aisle seat. I myself like aisle seats; although some people like window seats.

Airline food is now quite terrible, so it's a good idea to throw in some snacks in your carry-on - seriously, the food I had in Cathay was supposed to have been sweet and sour pork and it was not edible. Some domestic airlines charge you a few bucks for snacks that are nothing to brag about. Some people like to bring an empty bottle of water, which you can fill up once you're past the security check area.

Bring a book or magazines to read in the airplane. There are movies to watch of course, but sometimes, it's just nice to read quietly.

In the airplane, make it a point to get up and walk around. Stretch, bend your knees, do a bit of exercise because those long trips are murder.

All for now!

(I'm in Manila - arrived without any incident. It's not that hot; in fact it's cloudy right now. More development in Makati, near the Greenbelt church. The dogs are still there; apartment fine. Oh, it's 40.87 pesos to one dollar.)

WAITING IN CEBU FOR CARGO

I was supposed to have returned to the US early Sunday, but had to stay on because of delayed cargo from Manila, which I must receive here in Cebu.

I will point fingers here because this kind of mistake is unforgiveable, especially for an outfit that charged an arm and a leg. Never, but never use Lane Movers and Storage in Manila! I trusted them, contracted with them a door-to-door service to ship from furniture and household items from Manila to Cebu. The manager, Dennis de Guzman met with me once, and when I paid him, never showed up again. The packers did show up - and they seemed efficient. But Dennis never showed the day of the packing. The other thing Dennis did that was annoying was to give an initial quote, without mentioning that crating and insurance would be extra - and the costs were large - so the final price was a shocker. Insurance was mentioned to me AFTER the packers had whisked away my things.

But here's the really unforgiveable part. I made it very clear to Dennis that I was scheduled to leave for the US on a particular date and I had to receive the cargo in Cebu before then. He understood me clearly. Then this is what happened. I was told I'd get the cargo on Monday, then it was delayed, then I was told it'd get in Wednesday, then Thursday, and meantime, I'm scheduled to leave Sunday. The recent report from Lane is that my cargo will get in Monday - tomorrow. I had to cancel my Sunday flight to the US, with great difficulty as it is high season, not to mention the upset to my schedule and my family's disappointment.

So let us see if the cargo arrives tomorrow.

Meantime, Lane blames Sulpicio shipping for bumping off my cargo. A nephew said Sulpicio does do this. It seems unthinkable that I contracted Lane to send my cargo on July 16, and here it's July 30 and I don't have my cargo. This is not international shipping.

My big advice: DON'T USE LANE MOVERS AND STORAGE AT ALL.

People and Places I've Seen This Past Week

Mila and Sito Santillan, Lilu Gimenez; Cynthia Posa, Araceli Lorayes, Nadne Sarreal, Karina Bolasco, Marily Ysip Orosa, Ambeth Ocampo, Guia Lim, Ina Garcia, Titang Gonzalez, Rene Wage.

Places: Japanese Restaurant in Rockwell; Ermita's Remedios Circle; Las Pinas Boys Choir performing in Phil Am Life auditorium; Sentros in Greenbelt 3; Breton's in Greenbelt 3; Old Manila; Glorietta; Dusit Hotel; Greenbelt Chapel; Don Bosco Chapel; Landmark; SM,Katutubo.

and I'm sure there are more people and places which I've missed.


Photo Above l-r: Nadine Sarreal, Cecilia Brainard, Karina Bolasco
Photo Below l-r: Sito, Cecilia, Mila

What Does One Do in Manila?

And what does one do in Manila?
1. Eat at Fat Michaels - now, unfortunately I can't give you the address of Fat Michaels because it's in the middle of nowhere. It's not that far from Makati, but it's not in Makati. It's near a building that says something like Makati View apartelle. It's a 1950s house that's been converted into a restaurant - very homey, artsy, eclectic indeed. And so successful, you need to make reservations. So successful they've opened a Fat Michaels in The Fort - fine dining here, which means more expensive. Order their Black Paella, and their salad is very nice, also their iced tea.

2. Eat at Cafe Juanitas - This restaurant is in Pasig, owned by a doctor turned restaurateur. It's an enchanting place filled with flamboyant, colorful, and unusual items - I understand the things in the restaurant are all for sale. Every corner is filled with a surprise - quite a fun and magical place. Try their callos, and fried fish.



3. Have a drink at the Handlebar in Bel Air Makati - bikers' bar this one; then have paella in nearby Alba's and La Tienda.

Photo above shows Cecilia and St. Theresa's HS classmates and Sister Consuelo Varela dining in The Fort
Photo next shows Guia Lim (VP Union Bank) in Cafe Juanita