lakaran galore ramblings

i've been dying to walk along the streets of quiapo once more even though i didn't have an exact plan where to go. i saw my chance yesterday when my friend heidz asked me to accompany her to the salon earlier in the afternoon. i warned her to wear comfy shoes as we're going to walk... not really aimlessly, but ya know, just walk wherever our feet bring us. =)

LOST IN QUIAPO
on the fx ride to quiapo, i told heidz about globe lumpia house which serves really good fresh lumpia for over 50 years. we instantly craved for it and i immediately texted my pa where the eatery is located. he replied that it's just on the street behind quiapo church but he doesn't know the name. i should have listened to him right then and there and went directly to that street. but noooooo. there were just too many people and stalls around that we did not see where the lumpia house is exactly. or maybe it's just me and my semi-bad sense of direction. anyway, we passed by ma mon luk--and we went back and forth along quezon ave. asking people where it is, and they all replied, "banda roon pa." eh san nga yung "banda roon"? we were so hungry by then that we just gave up looking for it and just walked over to carriedo by way of sales street (where we saw the philippine school of criminology) and bought these japanese cakes with cheese filling. back on familiar ground (at least, for me), we passed plaza lacson and went over to escolta where we went on to the promenade. we saw one of the new boats on the river just leaving the escolta station and for fun, we decided to ride the boat on our way home.

TASTY DUMPLINGS (AND PORK CHOP RICE)
one japanese rice cake for each of us ain't enough so we ate dinner at tasty dumplings in ongpin. both of us got the humongous pork chop rice and i ordered an extra of kuchay dumplings. yum-yum! after polishing off our food and an hour of chika, we walked along ongpin as heidz wanted to buy a mooncake. i bought red monggo hopia and ube hopia (for my mum) at eng bee tin, then we went on to salazar bakery. it was my first time inside salazar bakery and i can say that i sooooooo love the chinese music pouring out from the speakers. heidz finally bought a lotus cream with 1 egg mooncake while i bought lao po pia (sweet heat cake... don't ask, i don't know what this means either ü). i asked the girl at the counter where i can buy a cd of chinese music and this chinese woman who's manning the cash register answered "galing yan sa china." oh ok. i really wanted to buy one ever since i was bombarded with chinese music at the malls in KL (which was about to celebrate the chinese new year at the time).

CRUISE IN THE DARK
we were just in time for the next trip going to guadalupe (8.15pm). the station in escolta is well-lighted. and inside the boat? FREEZING. it's like we stepped into an industrial-size freezer where the meat is kept. the seats are also made of hard plastic so... it's very cold... ^^;;
the boat also reminds me of the supercat i rode going to ormoc, leyte from cebu as it looks exactly the same except for the seats. i would have loved to look out the window and see the sights, but as it was already night time there wasn't much to see except for places that were lighted--and there weren't many lighted places anyway.
the trip took longer than i expected because the boat was running slower than its maximum speed of 17 knots. the officer i spoke to said that it's due to the speed requirement when plying the river--to make way for the other barges as well as to prevent creating large waves that might cause the smaller boats to capsize.
out of the six stations from guadalupe to escolta, four are already operational: guadalupe, hulo, sta. ana and escolta. the other two--lambingan and pureza will open mid-2007. hopefully the ones extending up to the marikina river will open at the end of this year or early next year.
the trip from escolta to guadalupe took 55 minutes. it's quite longer than i expected, but then it was a good experience. there were only a few passengers (8 in all) so it wasn't like rush hour at all. it was actually like mrt and lrt2 when they first opened. i sincerely hope that this river scheme would click with the commuters.

SHANGRI-LA MALL
heidz and i separated at mrt shaw and i met up with my family at shangri-la. where was my family eating dinner? mong kok express!