Manila is not just a Brown Envelope

An old blog entry. January 2008.

It is a Sunday, the lazy sun is about to set here in Manila as I type this down on my old room where its never quiet, honks and engine roar from the jeepneys below, bells from the ice cream vendor, endless murmurs of passersby, kids playing outside...all these while sunlight strikes my window and a cool breeze blows from the curtains.

Manila Bay Sunset. (Not my photo, grabbed from Internet)

I am here and I still feel homesick, like I haven't been living in this town, or in this country ever since, or as if I've already left. It's funny coz I started this year feeling I should be somewhere else, doing something else. I don't know. I still feel that way most of the time, but right now I am sitting here, typing with my coffee and the classic egg pie from the bakery right across -  and I'm good. Sometimes this is all I need. A moment. A still frame that delays the passing of time, even for just a few stops.

I've realized that I will always long for Manila, especially the city, the old Manila where I used to live with my parents, where I studied high school, took up university, where I landed my first job at fledging PR and events company run by obsessive compulsive people.

It was in a house in Malate, I had this one corner where I wrote about all kinds of stuff, from furniture, to Chinese cuisine, Macanese festivals, hotel promos, budget travel, rubber shoes, grilled burgers and even yatch spare parts, name it. After work, I'd walk around the cultural center and breathe some badly needed air, badly polluted but who cares, watch the sun go down on Manila Bay, with joggers, lovers and sea leeches all in tow.


Last week I took a trip down there, old Manila, with some business I had to attend to, but still it was refreshing to be walking down its streets again. The orange jeepneys, crowded Taft avenue, the LRT, the old buildings, 3-star hotels brimming with all sorts of foreigners, bars in Nakpil, all kinds of bars, the streets lined with money changers, 7-11s, government agencies, employment agencies, internet cafes, Starbucks filled with med students who treats it like its their school canteen, fish balls and cigarette stands, an occasional kalesa (horse carriage), cheap paintings portraying rural scenes, all side by side in the streets of Manila.

Kalesa on the main road. Taken with my Holga 2008.

Of course I am aware that there are cellphone snatchers, sleazy pimps, swindlers and street garbage lurking in the background as well, but its all part of the chaos, so i swing my bag in front of me the way any street-smart Manileña would. It was a breezy afternoon like this, I look around, the crisp air whispering stories at me. In fact, every corner, every nook had a story to tell, just lying there waiting for scavengers like me to pick them up.

Somewhere near Binondo. Holga 2008

Carriedo LRT station. Holga 2008. 

But all is not lost, because I know someday these scenes will somehow find its way here and reappear in another world, fictitious or not. For now, I just want to share this feeling of homesickness, and the joy of finding those lost streets again, and maybe share with friends abroad, those thinking to go abroad, or even those just thinking of going on a vacation tour to some other country, or those who have never been here, that there is really so much of life here in Manila. It might not be the clean, progressive, chewing-gum and smoke-free city or the peaceful away-from-everything else paradise island that they have out in the south, but if you're looking life and stories like I do, I have to say, Manila will not dissapoint.

Ssssh. Manila Motel Rates. Holga 2008.