Green Leafy City

Quezon City, the Philippines

May 8, 2010

This particular summer has been a scorcher; I’d give my front teeth for some cool and breezy respite in this microwave oven milieu. Now there’s the wisdom in having more of the jungle in concrete jungle.

Shade and the City: La Mesa Ecopark in Quezon City

Lucky me, I live in Quezon City, one of the leafier cities in not-so-tree-friendly Metro Manila. Less than 15 minutes from my house is a forest reserve called La Mesa Ecopark. It is tucked away behind a residential community and beside a landfill (of all things!); you wouldn’t know it exists. But it’s actually a large swathe of area around the La Mesa Watershed, the water source of the metropolis that this forest protects. This sylvan enclosure is covered by both city ordinance and a canopy of trees. I had not been there before even though it’s practically in my backyard.

The Tragic Beauty of Manila

Manila, the Philippines

May 3, 2010

There’s no better way to know a city than by walking its streets. Though I’ve walked and known other cities, I was not inclined to accord the same intimacy to Manila, the city I work in but would rather not walk in. There was always something that kept me off its streets: the mundane grind of real life perhaps, or the grime, crime, and grinding poverty it’s known for. But one sun-baked afternoon, cabin fever lured my friend and I outdoors to pound the city’s pavement.

A Calesa on the Sidewalk in Manila

In the Bowels of Binondo

Manila, the Philippines

April 22, 2010

They say that God made man and woman; everything else is made in China. I say that everything that God has made is eaten in China and in Chinatowns the world over.

Every major city in the world outside China, it seems, has a Chinatown. And Manila has one of the oldest – at more than 500 years old! After all these centuries, Binondo is still a partly-insulated enclave of Chinoys (Chinese-Pinoy, Pinoy being a vernacular shorthand for Filipino). Binondo was the heart of old Manila. That heart has since been transplanted to Makati in recent years. Now Binondo is more like the belly of Manila – the city’s gastronomic center where dim sum delights and lavish lauriat can be had. I’d always wanted to sample authentic Chinatown cuisine, but it’s not common for most to go to Binondo. It’s in an out-of-the-way district for people from other parts of the metro. But one day, the yuzhou conspired that I should go on a culinary tour of Binondo, thanks to my Chinoy friend who treated us on his birthday.

Binondo Church

Lent in Lucban

Lucban, Quezon Province, the Philippines

March 27, 2010

“What is the Matrix?” asks Neo, the famous Keanu Reeves character. The answer is out there – in old Philippine towns where streets radiate out in gridiron pattern from the four corners of a central plaza, marked by a huge stone cathedral. No less than King Phillip II of Spain, whom the Philippines was named after, legislated such geometric town planning in all colonial communities in the Americas and beyond.

Old House in Lucban, Quezon

Lucban, an old town in Quezon Province, is a perfect example. Our bus could only maneuver turns around right-angled kitty-corners with snail-paced precision. Even then, the unwieldy mammoth vehicle almost tipped over a street sign.