December 2006
December was a fairly busy month. I managed to miss all the
Fulbright end-of-grant presentations and the Christmas party because my
fiance David visited during the middle of the month and we were
traveling when the Fulbright events happened. Before David
arrived, I worked on a grant application, knowing that I was unlikely
to get any writing done while he was here. After he left, I got
busy with Christmas preparations with my Pinoy family.
December, I think it's safe to say, is a busy month in the Philippines
in general. I went to Manila with Grace and Edwin a week before
David was due to arrive, and I thought I'd quickly reserve a room at
the Gilarmi for his first few nights in the country. However, the
Gilarmi had no rooms available. We walked around for a while,
ruling out several hotels as too expensive, and finally having luck
reserving a room at the Millennium Plaza. I tried to reserve their
airport shuttle as well, but due to some sort of communication problem,
either the staff at the reservation desk didn't understand or the
shuttle was no longer operating, despite the sign on the desk that
advertised the service. In the end, I saved a lot of money by
flagging down a taxi on the street when I went to pick up David.
If you're flying to Manila from the eastern US, it seems that
there's one flight - NW airlines 71. It leaves from Detroit,
pauses in Nagoya, Japan, and arrives in Manila at about 11 pm after
something like 15 hours in the air. If you leave the US on
Wednesday, you arrive in Manila at the end of the on Thursday.
Many Filipinos who are abroad come home for Christmas, so David's
plane was full, and about 6 other planes arrived at the same time.
Ninoy Aquino International Airport was a zoo.
When I arrived in the Philippines, I made it through immigration and
customs rather quickly, and I really didn't notice the arrivals waiting
area. Going to the airport to pick up David was an entirely
different experience. The taxi driver dropped me off on the upper
deck of the airport, at the Departure doors. Taxis aren't allowed
in the Arrivals area unless they're airport taxis. I walked down
some outside stairs (only ticketed passengers are allowed in the
terminal) and made my way to the waiting area. Because so many
family members will show up to meet a relative, the arrivals waiting
area is fenced in and separated from the airport exit doors by a
parking area where taxis and rented or private vehicles pull up to load
passengers. I had to pay P30 to get into the waiting area, and I
promptly despaired of ever finding David. People were 10 deep or
more at the fence, vans were blocking the view across to the exit
doors, and even when they weren't, the other side was far enough away
to make identifying passengers difficult. Each side had lit signs
that said "Waiting area for surnames ABC" etc. However, no one on
my side seemed to be paying any attention, and I hadn't known about the
signs, which are referred to as the extension areas, so I hadn't told
David to head to the "TUVWYXZ" area. Eventually I had him paged
three times, and he finally emerged, more than an hour after arriving.
He had to wait quite a while for his bags to come out, customs
was backed up, and part of the exit area was closed because of
construction. After I spotted him, we waited again for an airport
taxi and got to the hotel not too long after 1 am.
December 7
We spent the first day of his visit in Makati. I had discovered
the Filipino Heritage Library's website when trying to find a place to
buy some Filipino natural history books, and I wanted to visit it.
We found the library in the Ayala Triangle Park, but a sign on
the door stated that the library was closed until January for their
annual inventory. The library's website neglected to mention this
fact, though I think parts of the library, like the art gallery, were
still open. We passed the library and did some shopping, visited
the Fulbright office, and tried to cash traveler's checks. My
bank wouldn't cash them, and the teller said we should go to an
American Express opposite Greenbelt 1. Unfortunately, they closed
at 4 pm so we had to wait until the next day.
December 8
The second day we went to the bank first and headed to Intramuros,
which David wanted to see. I hadn't taken the LRT before, but we
found the Puyat station, got off at the U. N. station, and walked
through Rizal Park. We stopped by the Orchidarium, which had a
number of orchids in bloom, as well as a number of other tropical
plants, but it looked like they were still cleaning up from or
preparing for a large event - moving stacks of chairs, digging up a
path - so we weren't able to go around the whole place. We walked
up to Intramuros, and I was surprised by how hard it was to see
anything in the lower part of the area. The streets were narrow
with even narrower sidewalks, boxed in on either side with buildings.
We stopped in at a cooperative store that had native handicrafts
- some beautiful things but most of it was large pieces of carved
wooden furniture - not very easy to transport. We had fun
browsing and didn't buy anything, but I later regretted not getting an
example of basketry weaving because we didn't find another place that
had those kinds of goods. We had lunch at a bistro called
Marinara, whose specialty was supposed to be seafood. Amusingly,
none of the seafood on the menu was available, nor was the adobo.
Adobo is more or less the national dish of the Philippines and I
couldn't believe they didn't have it.
We stopped to see the Manila Cathedral, which has been destroyed and
rebuilt multiple times (like all the other old cathedrals in the
Philippines), before heading to Fort Santiago. The fort is a
peaceful place now, with ferns growing from the walls and a view of the
brown Pasig River, but reminders of its bloody history are everywhere,
from the brass footprints that show where Jose Rizal walked on the way
to his execution to the dungeons where the Japanese imprisoned and
tortured people during WW II.
Then we set off on an adventure to find the Autobus station.
Autobus goes to Banaue at night, and I'd been told that it was
best to reserve tickets ahead of time. The catch was that I
didn't know where the Autobus terminal was. David and I got the
LRT again at Central station, got off at Doroteo Jose, and switched to
the MRT at Recto station. I'd never taken the MRT either, but I
managed to round a corner and find the stairs that led directly to
Recto. The MRT is new, with a bright shiny terminal and vending
machines that dispense tickets. Recto is the start (or end) of
the line, so there were no people on the train when it arrived, but we
didn't get a seat because people push and dash on to get the seats and
we just weren't that fast or pushy. We got off at Cubao station
and started asking for the Autobus terminal. Cubao has a lot of
bus terminals, and I'd been told to look for Autobus there. The
first few people I asked (security guards) nodded and pointed off in
one direction or another, but eventually we made our way to Victory
Liner, which has buses to Baguio. A man there examined my map,
trying to find the Autobus terminal, but eventually he gave up and a
taxi driver took us to the terminal on Espana Ave. We got
tickets, walked a few blocks back to the Doroteo Jose LRT station
(where we'd started!), and went back to Makati.
The last adventure of the day involved going to dinner. We had
gone to a tempura restaurant just down the street from the hotel the
night before, but we agreed to go somewhere nicer for dinner.
After walking around all day, we were both exhausted and the
temptation to just lie down and go to sleep was pretty strong, but we
managed to get cleaned up and out the door. I had a blister from
walking so much, so we hailed a cab. About 25 minutes later, we
arrived at our destination, which was at most a 15 minute walk away.
Makati Ave. resembled a large parking lot, packed with as many
taxis, cars, and motorcycles as possible. Traffic police were
directing movement through intersections, but it was very slow going.
When we finally got to Greenbelt, we wandered around a bit before
selecting an Italian restaurant. The last challenge of the day
was finding a cab to take us back to the hotel. The designated
taxi queues had long lines of people and no taxis in sight.
Last updated: January 15, 2007