More Manila Trips and Ramblings 2

If you really should know, I have an overactive imagination so I really tend to think about these kinds of things. Moving on...

Right at the foot of the bridge lay the imposing Manila Post Office. And as my impromptu mind cranked on, I decided that that would be our next stop. Besides, this is my chance to see it up close and personal (and internal. weeeeehhh. ). Well, the structure is very beautiful and I could really feel the "prewar vibe" emanating from its walls. On a whim I bought a postcard with different pictures of Manila on it and mailed it to my lola in the US. Aside from the workers and people mailing letters and packages, there was a group of little kids and their parents and yayas, presumably on a field trip. Well, lucky them. My mum and I weren't allowed to tour ourselves from top to bottom of the building. According to the not-too-friendly guard, it's because of security reasons. Too bad as the staircase is grande to my nearsighted eyes. I would have loved to go up and down those stairs. Well the stairs actually continued down to the lower ground level so at least we still got to walk down them and exited towards the promenade.

Well, the Jones Bridge was just a few yards away from where we were standing, so it's off to Binondo we go, baby!

While crossing Jones Bridge, I could see a very interesting looking ancient building along the bank of the Pasig River Binondo side. Hm. As you might expect, we went straight to that part of Binondo and found not one, but two ancient buildings side by side! (of course there are other ancient buildings in Binondo but these were the ones we went to). The first building we saw from the corner is now completely abandoned, complete with boards on the windows and chained giant wooden doors. Besides a small group of people gathered around a makeshift sari-sari store out front, there isn't any life at all there. How sad. However, the other building which I saw from the bridge still shows some signs of life as indicated by a small table (presumably the "front desk") with two guys who remotely look like security guards. Or maybe they're caretakers of the building, we didn't really ask. And as with our Escolta tour, we confidently walked up to the two men and asked them all sorts of questions about the building. From what we could pick up from them, the building's name is El Hogar and it's about a hundred years old already. The offices are only up until the second floor and the rest (3rd to 4th floors) are vacant. I went past the lobby and out into the "courtyard" in the middle and saw the grandest staircase I've ever seen in my entire life. Even grander than the staircase in Perez-Samanillo Building in Escolta. Though it was obviously old, it still shows its character through its wrought iron sides with wooden banisters and the tiles. The "courtyard" was a pathetic excuse for a courtyard, though. It must have looked really beautiful during its glory days, but as I looked up to the other floors, some doors to the other units have been padlocked and clothes were hanging on a wire. Some were even in the basins, soaking up the sun. Gawin ba naman daw labahan ang lugar. I thought that maybe the building was converted into apartments. Another sad thing about this "courtyard" is that it smells like imburnal. *sigh*

Then we asked the men if we could go up. Thank God they allowed us, and so we went up after a false alarm (mum misunderstood what the guy said about the elevator and she screamed out to me--and i was already in the elevator by this time--that it wasn't working. it was working.).

Going up there was probably one of the most out of the ordinary things I've ever done. There was this sense of adventure that I knew I would regret it if I didn't go up. I got off the elevator first once we reached the fourth floor and stepped back in surprise as there was another guy who wasn't wearing a t-shirt and was holding a pail and mop right out in the hall. We (well, my mum mostly) started to ask this guy more questions about the building. Of course he wouldn't know a lot about the building dating back from before the war, but he mentioned that the building is being used these days as a location for commercials and movies, mostly horror. Go there and you'd understand why. One of the commercials he mentioned was Ceelin Vitamin C for kids, where this CGI dragon was stalking a kid, ready to shoot darts of diseases but the kid was protected by the trademark Ceelin orange hat. When I watched the commercial for the first time I thought that the location looks a bit strange for an elementary school. Now I know why.

I left my mum still grilling the custodian and checked out every room whose doors are left ajar. There weren't a lot of things to see; just some wooden boards on the floor, wood planks leaning on the walls, and a lot of dust. The most interesting room in there was the one overlooking the Pasig River. Besides more plywood and other carpentry effects, there was this tan leather highbacked swivel chair facing the open window. For a wild moment I imagined it turning by itself to face me and a skeleton in a suit was sitting on it. I would have left it at that if there wasn't a tie-dyed t-shirt with holes on a hanger hanging on a wire spanning the width of the room.

At the end of the hall there's another flight of stairs that leads to another office. Though wooden and painted chocolate brown, it's obvious that this flight of stairs is old as well. I went down and round the other side of the hall, where, there was another grand staircase. Beside it is another elevator bank which isn't used anymore. I would have gone all around the hall if there wasn't this tapping and clanking sound coming from one of the padlocked rooms. Believe it or not, there were strange sounds. Imagination is one thing, but the real thing stirs the imagination even more.

And just as we did in Escolta, my mum and I went down the grand staircase. The edges of some of the stone steps have chunks chipped away. According to the topless guy, the workers used the stairs as a some kind of ramp for heavy stuff. Pathetic, huh. Whoever allowed the use of that stairs as a ramp must have no sense at all.

I emailed Ivan Mandy if he knew anything about El Hogar and the other building. He mentioned that what the guy said about El Hogar's age might be true, but it's possible that it might be over a hundred years old already. As for the abandoned building right beside it, it is the Pacific Commercial Building which was the former site of the original Citibank offices when it was still HQed in Binondo. He added that it was probably built in 1922 during the American colonial period. Nice.

After El Hogar we backtracked to Quintin Paredes Street. By this time our legs were getting pooped out and so we went to the New Po Heng Restaurant (which is the last food stop in Ivan's Big Binondo Food Wok) to rest.