Thursday October 20, 2011
Hello
Manila! The welcoming yet eye-rolling music of the 2001 hit Stupid Love woke me
up to the beautiful street of a million street lights. I can only stare in
wondering awe and contemplate why things seem different. As I child, going to
Manila used to excite me so much that staring at the same bright lights painted
a luminescent glow in my face, creating an electric sensation all over. Now I
can only smile seeing them. It’s probably not because of the amusing pretty
lights. The thought of my childhood naiveté seem to amuse me that I almost
wanted to feel the same thing but unfortunately my grown up body chose to act
and feel nonchalant. Times change and people change too.
The
bus we rode then took us to the Pasay station at 5 am where unfortunately I
have to carry again my luggage which I firmly believe is twice heavier than me.
I sat down at the waiting area and spent a few minutes scanning my environment,
looking at people from different provinces and controlling anxiety, drowsiness
and hunger. I saw this huge San Mig coffee ad in front of me and I couldn’t be
more annoyed about the girl on it. Its relentless “Goodmorning sainyo”
commercial was so, I don’t know, tacky and irrelevant that I won’t bother
listening to it even if it costs me my life.
My
“Uncle” Colin came and took me and my mom and brother to their place near the
Manila Sanitarium. As you may have noticed I placed Uncle in quote marks. I don’t really address older relatives with
uncle, auntie or lolo, lola unless they’re 10 years plus older than me. Since
he’s only 23, calling him uncle I think would seem awkward. Well, to me. I’d
rather call him kuya or something like that. Anyway, we arrived at their place
where we met our relatives, ate breakfast and dozed off to dreamland.
Waking
up past lunch time, we decided to go to Mall of Asia, which is typical for
Manila first timers—Go to the nearest mall ASAP! We were accompanied by our two
“Uncles”. As I mentioned earlier, they were too young to be called Uncle, so
I’ll be putting quote marks on “Uncle” when I mention them in my blog every now
and then. We gallivanted around MOA and it was the same unfortunate sensation
of not being thrilled to enter a mall like I used to when I was younger. Plus
it used to be larger the last time I went there.
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