"Disaster!" proclaimed the text messages. "Tito and Patricia landed in Manila a day early." Not earlier than booked, but earlier than planned due to a miscalculation involving the international dateline and a midnight departure. Thankfully, we’d been given a local cell phone before we left the US, and after a quick hijack of the outlet powering the ladies’ restroom hand-drier, we were able to panic people across the world.
One of my wife's cousins kindly dropped her plans and picked us up from the airport and, in spite of Manila traffic, delivered us safely to Makati, our base of operations for the next 2 and half days. Makati is the new business district and boasts numerous malls with the latest and trendiest shops. After dropping our bags, we set out for a leisurely merienda, a mid-afternoon snack. The delicious meal revived us enough to make it trough Sunday mass. The Philippines, due to 300 years under Spanish rule, is an extremely Catholic country, so missing Mass is not an option.
The next day, completely awake at 4am due to jet lag, we decided to go to Simbangabi, the dawn mass held every day for the 9 days leading up to Christmas. Using a neon-blue cross cutting through the morning fog as our guide, we made our way to the 5am mass at St. Andrew’s. To our surprise, the church was packed with families, couples, and even groups of boys on their way to school. Mass was held in a mixture of English and Tagalong, so the sermon was lost on me. However, I didn’t need Tagalong to appreciate the procession of people, each bearing a straw blade for the Santo Nino's (Baby Jesus) manger.
Patricia’s father had filled my head with visions of rows upon rows of street vendors lined outside the church waiting to feed a pious but ravenous crowd. We set out to find the promised stalls but only found a handful of fruit stands and some unknown food in buckets. We ended up in a Jollibee fast-food restaurant. My disappointment faded quickly as we dug into delicious and cheap garlic fried rice, eggs, and longaniza (sausage).
We spent the next day exploring Makati and had a good time. However, not really being shoppers, the whole experience was somewhat lost on us. We also explored Intramuros, the walled old part of the city.
Quick Tips:
A little bit of Spanish goes a long way. Some words (especially food) are slight variations of Spanish words, if not the same words altogether.
Best Way To Get Around:
We'd heard about Manila traffic, but after 5 minutes, I, in my worldly view, proclaimed it to be "not at bad as people say." These words were punctuated by the grill of a truck stopping millimeters from my window. From then on, I just closed my eyes and kept my worldly views to myself.
Locals are both brilliant and horrifying as they weave their way through streets chocked with private vehicles: trimobiles, motorcycles with covered sidecars, and Jeepneys, the colorful signature transportation of the Philippines. Jeepneys were originally US military Jeeps left over from World War II that were stripped out for accommodating a lot of passengers and flamboyantly decorated by their owners. I would have loved to ride but was not sure where we would wind up.
Taxis are the best way to get around Manila. They are relatively inexpensive by American standards and you certainly do not want to drive yourself.