Manila

I call it: "Manila at sunset from the rooftops" 

Actor at the Wedding

Blind band in front of the iconic Philippine bakery giant,
Goldilocks. They're playing at the bottom of the stairs
at the exit from the light rail train..

Manila is not the first city in the Philippines, but it's by far the biggest. Almost 12 million people packed into 250 sq. miles. My first week in the Philippines gave me a few glimpses of Manila, but the sensory overload was too much for my exhausted mind to digest at the time. This round, I was relaxed and jazzed for a good time.

My relatives and I emptied out of Aringay in a mass pilgrimage to Manila for my cousin's wedding. Uncle Rolly generously keeps his door open for me to stay with him, Chris, Jojo and friends. For the wedding, I was sported a nearly hairless skull, caretaker Efran's cord pants, $5 rubber dress shoes, Uncle Ely's beach-goer's white longsleeve, and bleach-white skin many Filipinas would kill for. I clashed sharply with the formal suits and barongs worn by other men. Uncle Dani said I looked like an actor who was only there to make an appearance.

Chinese New Year main drag (traffic still open!)

But beneath the actor’s façade, I felt deep appreciation for the invitation. The wedding was presided over by a bishop, and besides being excited for my cousin, the ceremony itself was fascinating! I hadn't attended a Catholic wedding since I was old enough to pay attention, and I hung onto every word and movement of the bishop and his helpers. With utmost grace and in a monotone voice, the poor bishop read from his script as if it was written in a beautiful old book, getting lost and stumbling his way through a geriatric haze of the mind.

I passed Quezon City's Memorial Circle on the way to the University of the Philippines Diliman

Helluva Hot Rod!

The reception was beautiful but too short! There were so many relatives I hadn't seen in ages or hadn't even met yet. I could’ve spent hours with each of them. The food was typically Filipino, meaning lots of meat, rice, and fat. I fished some corn out of a roast stew, forgave myself for any dairy that was in dessert, and filled the empty corners of my stomach at the open bar. A famous actor/comedian took the microphone for a while, rapid-fire Tagalog ripping through my right ear and ricocheting out the left. Swells of laughter filled the room and after a long five minutes, he gave a warm-hearted blessing to bride and groom. There was no hope for a translation of what happened in those five minutes.

Outskirts of Divisoria Market from an overpass bridge

In the end, I was kidnapped from a conversation by Uncle Virjilio, whisked downstairs and into a car full of relatives who I didn't know were waiting for me. We headed for a fantastic folk bar called My Bro’s Moustache, where Uncle Renni treated my cousins and I to a night of Red Horse food galore, and great music. Uncle Vic even got up on stage and played a few tunes with his pals. I was blown away by the musicianship of every one of these guys. They know so many tunes and not just one part. Hotel California for instance, has many guitar and voice parts, and each musician knew all of them. The show was only a bready tummy-filler for a month-long banquet of an experience in Manila.

Rooftop view of a southeastern section of the city

Quiapo and a New Camera

Soon after the wedding I finally went in search of a camera to replace the trusty, decade-old one that died of old age and humidity. My relatives back home were so desperate for pictures to prove I was alive and loving life that they pooled extra money and wired the Christmas gift with “for a new camera” chiseled into every digital penny. And where does one go to buy a camera in the Philippines? Well, if you’re REALLY Filipino, you buy it brand new at the highest price from a mall. If you’re frugal bordering on obsessively cheap like me, you go to Quiapo.

Famous Quiapo Church

Quiapo is a neighborhood in one of the oldest parts of the city. Quiapo Church is the final destination for many Catholics visiting Manila. It’s on TV every day. Vendors sell everything you can imagine. Grilled GMO sweet corn, AA batteries, bootleg movies, plastic toys, fried fish balls, stolen iphones, alternative remedies that MUST include a few black market items, cheap Chinese imports for any need, fruits, homemade pastries, single cigarettes, candles and flowers for church, chicks and ducklings, and my favorite, balut. Balut is a fertilized duck egg served steaming but always runny. Lots of bloody, amniotic fluid is a plus. Still haven’t worked up the guts to give a crack at balut.

There are actual stores in Quiapo. Textiles, used clothing, the best hopia in Manila (an awesome stuffed pastry), music shops (hello cheap guitar strings!) and a cluster of specialty camera stores.  Every penny my family sent went to a camera to match my lifestyle. It’s a water-/shock-/dust-/cold-/life-proof tough camera. If it doesn't last at least a decade, I'll be sorely disappointed.

Puppies in Coitus

I spent the next week with Uncle Rolly and crew, a week that happened to be mating time for their doggies. We couldn't help but laugh whenever they were painfully stuck together in coitus. I wandered around the University of Santo Tomas, the oldest university in the Philippines, which my grandfather and many other relatives attended. Street food near the exit is top-quality around the time classes get out. Piaya, bananacue, dynamite sticks, dirty ice cream, and lots of meat stuff. Every other evening at Rolly’s was spent out on the family tab. I still wish there were better ways to thank all of my relatives for the endless food, drinks, treats, hospitality and love.

Condo Complex in Cubao

The love didn't end with Uncle Rolly. As giving as he was, I didn't want to overstay my welcome by sticking around for more than a month. My best friend Jason happens to also be a distant cousin of mine. His (technically also my) family bought a condo in the Manila neighborhood of Cubao. Just months old and bought specifically for balikbayans (relatives visiting from abroad), it hadn't yet been baptized. I was the lucky first to stay there and help iron out any kinks – give a little love to the place.

Setting Foot to Pavement

The International Chess Tournament 

Set with a camera and a place to guiltlessly come home to at any hour, I felt I could truly roam the city. When I get settled somewhere, I follow a pattern of walking larger and larger distances around my roost. I think it's the best way to get acquainted with the people and energy around a new home.

Most of the next four weeks were spent walking the city during the day and hitting the music venues at night. No matter what I wanted to see, it was within a 6-mile radius. For Filipinos, walking more than 200m is too far. It’s hot, dusty, takes effort, and is something you’d probably only do if you couldn’t afford 8 pesos (15 cents) for a jeepney ride. Coming from the United States, walking 2 miles to get to a friend’s house wasn’t out of the question as a kid. No Filipino I’ve ever met would even think about walking 2 miles unless it was a self-inflicted mountain climbing adventure. For me, with more time than pesos on hand, being new to the city, and looking to let serendipity be my teacher, foot transportation was the obvious choice.

With a free map from the tourist office, a water bottle and some Filipino foot covers (flip flops), I’d stake out some sights I wanted to see based on the location of the show I wanted to see that night. Then I’d head out in the late morning, greet the guards at the condo complex, and walk straight west on Aurora Blvd. As the only person coming and going by foot, and at all hours of day, the guards got to know me really well. I can only guess at what they fantasized my late-hours ramblin’ to be filled with.

A short digression: I taught myself to cook by making a point to make an entirely new dish every meal. I’ve scarcely repeated a thing for almost a decade. Some people have their morning coffee, their nightly Stephen Colbert or their Spring Break at San Padre. Caprice is my routine. I try not to walk the same route twice. The trip back from a place might take twice as long as the trip to a place, if only just to wander the back streets and to polish my sense of direction. I’d visit museums, old parts of the city, pristine business districts, washed-out slums, malls, parks, markets, anything heritage or unusual could warrant a trip. Or I might just go to visit Uncle Rolly and my cousin Chris near the University of Santo Tomas. Then I’d meet some friends for some nighttime fun.

Chinese New Year in Chinatown, Manila

During my first of 5 weeks in Manila, I put out feelers and found some cool get-togethers posted on www.CouchSurfing.org. Couch Surfing began as a way for travelers to connect with hosts who wanted to offer their extra sleeping space up for free to responsible, interesting characters from around the world who cross their threshold usually carrying a hiking pack, specialty foods from home, wisdom, art, or crazy stories from their travels. In Manila as elsewhere, Couch Surfing expanded to help actualize projects, businesses, or events.

Fun with Couch Surfers

I found a group of Manileños meeting at a venue called Sa Guijo to see an Indie band called Sheila and the Insects. Rather than work or school, Couch Surfing was the common ground, even though most of our group hadn’t surfed or hosted before. The band was decent, but my 5 companions were better. Each person had a different job - graveyard call center support person, finance advisor, waitress, security guy. They work their butts off most of the time, support their parents/children some of the time, and take one night per month to let Red Horse beer and a good band turn their world upside-down. Through each of them, I was introduced to many different groups of people, each with a similar story. And so, my time in Manila became one never-ending party. Every night was my friends’ one night to release and let their hair down! So many music shows, chains of bar-hopping, karaoke bars, and liters of Red Horse (the “extra strong” on the bottle is no joke). I think it’s laced with gin or something. It’s not a typical beer. I even joined a similar cast of characters for Chinese New Year celebrations and a little ultimate frisbee at the University of the Philippines.

Couch Surfing meets PATAS

I’m a jazz musician, and February happened to be the month of jazz in Manila. I went to a host of venues and made friends at every one. Snobbery aside, I was pretty disappointed with most of the shows. So I ended up filling in on keys or playing my own gigs because people wanted to hear jazz darn it! This place called 121 Allegro Bar was a good place to hang since they’re always looking for musicians and the organizer, Garch, shares some of my taste in music.

121 Allegro from the audience.

I picked up the guitar last year because a piano is hard haul around on foot. My style is more folk than rock, and more subtle than most, with some gentle plucked tunes. One night at 121, the band before me loved loud distorted sounds. My ears were blown and my acoustic guitar, Josephine, seemed completely out of tune no matter what I tried. I played through my ears empathizing with tone-deaf people. I was so thankful it was late, that the crowd had thinned before I took to the mic. Anyone left in the audience was too drunk to tell folk from funk anyway.

The Manila jazz scene is a funny mixture of expats and old locals. One guy was introduced as the man who has played every hotel in Manila. “Sarge” the bassist is a cool, old Pinoy who could have been picked up off the streets of New York in the ‘50s. He knows probably every tune in music history and shares love with everybody. I met him at one of the oldest jazz clubs in the Philippines called Merck’s Place. I stopped in on a random Tuesday and saw Merck, Sarge, and a couple of newbies backing up several different singers. One woman in the audience was a sort of organizer for Jazz Month. I saw her at almost every jazz show I went to in February, so I guessed I was catching the best shows. Another spot I played at was called Balete @ Kamias, a brand new venue with a Balete tree growing out of the property’s wall and slathered with Christmas lights. They had a solid PA system and a Casio, the best keyboard I’d played in Manila.

A street in Intramuros

The sights of Manila would have been something to behold 60 years ago. Structural Adjustment policies led to the flooding of Manila streets with job-seekers from around the country. Any Pinoy-Spanish architecture, art, and charm of Manila is a rare treat found only by the tenacious city wanderer with senses attuned to the frequency of half-buried beauty. Today, there are bleached-clean streets that branch out straight into slums, strands of radioactive-looking water that reach into the urban jungle, and old houses that share walls with skyscrapers. The more dilapidated an area, the warmer the people. Stressed, racing businesspeople, the people with jobs are the ones you feel pushing you from behind at the train station during rush hour. It seems no matter where you are, one can never be rich enough to glow with serenity or love towards the world around them. Ah, cities.

Moat at Intramuros

A short walk from Quiapo is Intramuros, which was once a defense garrison for the city, complete with draw bridges and moat. Horses still pull tourists behind them in carriages, there’s a cobblestone street or two, and some of the architecture is preserved, but the old energy is long gone, the ancestral character dissolved into the sprawling Manila character that infiltrated the thick walls. As I prepared to descend a ramp from the protecting wall, I snapped a photo of some pretty trees reaching overhead. Little did I know that walking up the ramp at that moment was a family from my hometown. 

Mommy, can we ride the carriage like Cinderella??? Sure kid.

Lancasterians Ho!

I heard the dad say something to his wife, and I picked out the accent immediately. Even more specific, I pegged his Latino-Lancaster accent. We have a style in my hometown. Lancaster, California is way out in the Mojave Desert. It's close enough to Los Angeles to have been touched by LA culture, but far enough to have its own flavor. This family was totally Lancasterian. I've driven on their street, Ave. P, many times. What a small world to meet them here on a centuries-old wall in the Philippines! They tried to make a date to meet when I got back home, but I had to break it to them that I don't plan to head home for many years still.

A taste of home

Imagine this synchronized to Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance"

Rizal Park may be Manila’s last open community space. The first time I went there was after dark, and there was a magnificent water show synchronized with lights, fire, and music. Really magnificent. If it was built to impress visitors, it reeled me in. I loved spending time in the gentle mist relaxing with strangers gaping; escaping.  The park is surrounded by the city-sponsored museums. There’s a huge play area for kids ($1 admission). There’s an awesome relief map of the Philippines with bridges over the ~100 sq. meter pond so you can look down at the many islands with major geographical locations identified. There are exhibits honoring the national hero, Jose Rizal. I even heard that the surrounding buildings aren’t allowed to build so high that they breach the tree-line (super subjective, but shows how important this space of greenery is as an escape from the city).

- Intermission -

There are fancy business and residential areas with some cool venues, including one with a late-night foodie tent. Tons of upstarts and well-known restaurants strut their stuff under the big tent until 4am. I met a white cheesecake guy whose fat-baker demeanor and wild sweet tooth reminded me of Wafels and Dinges. Cerveza Negra Cheesecake… Not a far cry from our Hoegaarden Ice Cream. This guy’s boyfriend was a beautiful bear of a Pinoy. These skyscraper-studded areas could compare with lots of similar North American city neighborhood, brewed coffee prices and property tax brackets to match.

A richer business section in Makati

Waterway protected by original Intramuros Fort

I walked the city and can’t remember a time I felt I had walked through a dangerous area. Maybe it’s that no matter where you are there are almost always mothers and children eager to say hello with a smile. Filipinos are opportunists, not violent. For its wealth disparity, it’s a much safer country than the United States. For one thing, hardly any weapons are available in the Philippines. Some urban survival techniques: I always had my camera and whatever else I needed for the day in a little string backpack, and I usually walked swinging my steel water bottle at my side. I always walked like I’d walked that street a million times and knew exactly where I was going (90% chance I’d never set foot to cement there before). I generally don’t have my camera out so as not to give incentive to a thief, but I don’t like to take pictures anyway. It seems to interrupt a moment, feels like I’m taking something from whatever is in the image, and I wouldn’t take a photo of an indigenous community or slum because without an already established relationship with those people, it’s like making a tourist attraction out of people’s lifestyles.

Guarding an old building in Intramuros

 That said, I did walk through some very poor areas. Sometimes the homes would hover seemingly without supports over the disgusting water of some canal. Other times, streams of people would appear and disappear from pitch-black, shoulder-width tunnels that reminded me of ant hives. Young children darted amongst the legs of adults. School isn’t even an option for the kids in these neighborhoods. As I was walking down a particularly narrow street, a teen-aged girl steps out from one of these tunnels wearing a brand new, bright blue dress and looking so radiant the Disney princesses would’ve been jealous. Her entourage of family and friends were tossing complements at her and I could almost see their words falling from above like flowers. For once, I wasn’t the person people noticed. I passed by unnoticed with their collective emotions etched into my memory. “Princess in the Slum”… New folk ballad?

Gigantic CCP, straight out of Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy or something

I wandered over to the Cultural Center of the Philippines to see the musical instruments in a museum space on the top floor, courtesy of ex-First Lady Imelda Marcos. That day only, there were auditions happening for the Manila Film Festival producers, which is a huge event. I got roped into doing an audition, thinking it might be fun and hey, I’d never acted on film before. Figured I was a shoe-in because I was the only white guy there, and several directors did take my photo and name/number. But nothing came of it in the end. 

The Madrigal Singers

Inside the Main Auditorium

Regardless, it was a fun day, and the instruments were incredible, demonstrating some influence from major trade routes back in the day – mostly Indonesia, India, and China. I bought tickets for the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra which gave its 40^th anniversary performance a few days later. Even the Phil-Phil (sorry, couldn’t help it) can’t take itself too seriously. Such a Western art couldn’t shackle the Filipino spirit. Goofy changes of seating, quirky jokes, and even Filipino time were rampant at this show. Loved it, and loved the relatively new French conductor. A handful of the musicians there had been members of the orchestra since its inception. I would’ve loved to chat with them about their experience.  The performance could’ve been a little better, but I couldn’t complain for having spent $2.50 to see the country’s premier orchestra.

Ballet Philippines

Pasinaya Dance Troupe

Later in my visit, the Pasinaya Festival was held at the Cultural Center (CCP). It’s the largest multi-arts festival in the Philippines, more than 200 performances over the course of one day. I saw traditional and modern dance troupes, folk arts, the national Ukulele group, a solo vibraphonist, Ballet Philippines, performance art and paintings in the hallways, and the Madrigal Singers, an amateur a capella choir that wins awards all over the Philippines. Every act was fantastic, but I think the Madrigal Singers were my favorite. I met up with some Couch Surfers after the fact, and the lead soloist from the Singers was in the group! Totally cool guy around my age with an incredible vocal range. He taught himself how to sing, and always put off auditioning thinking he wouldn’t get in. Now he’s touring the world with this amazing group. The whole day is meant to be accessible to anyone, and for people earning meager pesos, it meant $1 for the whole day’s events. I even got some Wintermelon tea from the Bhuddist temple’s food stall and learned that they serve free vegetarian food on the weekends there! Never did get to try it, unfortunately.

Dancing under the main awning

Uncle Vic and Marc Velasco at the Hobbit House

Another of my uncles is a folk musician in Manila. I’m noticing that half-assed doesn’t seem to be a gene that runs in my family. Uncle Vic is an incredible musician, and he plays with the best. I had trouble coordinating with Uncle Rolly and my cousins to catch Uncle Vic at his regular Sunday night gig, so I just decided to show up on my last Sunday in town. He was playing duo with Marc Velasco, a classical guitarist and folk musician whose “Ordinary Song” hit it huge. The venue was the Hobbit House, a huge Lord of the Rings-themed restobar that provides employment for midgets, who would have a lot of trouble finding work almost anywhere else. Sure the imported and even local beers were a little pricey, but I was so stoked to see my uncle play such amazing music. I couldn’t keep him from picking up my tab either. I wanted the music to never end, I was so enthralled and impressed. Thanks for such a special night Uncle Vic!

Hobbit-hole entrance to the Hobbit House

I would typically be out on the town six nights out of the week and would rest on the seventh. Felt like the Red Horse God – hangovers and everything. I’d take some time between events and on the seventh day to ride the stationary bicycle and work out at the gym on the first floor of the condo complex. Then I’d cool off and swim some laps in the pool. I’d eat a little bit at home, but beer and peanuts were basically my diet for a month. I’d never done any kind of city partying in my life, usually because it was so expensive. Here, I’d had the chance to see tons of shows, meet lots of people, visit family, see the sights, and drink myself silly. I think I’m done. As I write recall my time in Manila months later, I’m in such a different space of serenity and wellness that it’s hard to imagine I actually did all of this stuff!

Everyone talked about this sunset the next day -
even Manila can't avoid natural beauty

I decided to go up and help with a project in the Cordillera Mountains at the end of February. I’d stay with Doctor Dani in Baguio and see the Festival of Flowers before heading to the project. I said goodbye to Uncle Rolly, Chris, Jojo, and the puppies and caught the 5am bus up into the mountains. Nature, clean water, clean food, clean energy, clean air, here I come!