holiday madness ramblings

nope, it's not christmas as the title might imply. yesterday was a holiday (national heroes' day) and it was... mad. because the boss let us off work earlier than usual, i followed my friends heidz and lay to quiapo, where they're shopping for prizes for the linggo ng wika festivities in their school this week.

carriedo, quiapo:
the ride to quiapo from megamall was a bit surreal. after waiting for passengers for the longest time over at shangri-la, the driver finally drove off. i fully expected the senseless traffic jam once we neared legarda, but wonder of wonders! the fx sailed through the flyover to legarda without the hassle of almost-empty jeepneys that clog the narrow street every single day. i got to quiapo in no time at all. there weren't that many people around too, so it was easy to get around. hooray for holidays!

i met up with heidz and lay over at jollibee carriedo where they planned what prizes to give their students--purses, pens, keychains, etc. i just kept quiet most of the time as i was absorbed in finishing my spaghetti, only giving suggestions when they ask for it. anyway after much deliberation, they settled on native candy instead. yeah, baby! =)

of course a day in the old manila area isn't complete without food. so after buying the candy, we went straight to ongpin... somehow.

ongpin, binondo:
now, i consider myself to be pretty good in directions, but somehow my sense of direction gets muddled whenever i'm in the quiapo/binondo area. maybe it's because of the narrow alleyways that look the same and the throng of people that never seems to disappear but then again, quiapo won't be quiapo without the crowded narrow alleyways. so when lay asked me how long it would take us to walk over to ongpin, i said it would take us about 20 minutes if we walk through escolta.

since none of us wanted to lug the heavy bags for that long, we took a taxi instead which brought us around plaza sta. cruz no more than five minutes and--- surprise, surprise! the gate to binondo suddenly loomed right in front of us. even if we walked along plaza sta. cruz instead of along escolta, it would still have taken us less than 20 minutes. heck, less than 10 minutes! it was a very good thing that the taxi driver was very nice about it and even laughed along with us (AT me and my very excellent sense of direction, to be exact). never mind the P32.50 that we paid.

so we walked along ongpin and entered the new eastern garden restaurant, home of the best fresh lumpia since 1950. one can get a small but filling fresh lumpia for only Php28. the lumpia was good, but it would be tastier had it more peanuts and garlic. (at least, according to my ever-dependable tastebuds)

turistas to the core! heidz and me eating the fresh lumpia

of course, one small fresh lumpia won't satisfy our cravings, so we walked a little further up over to tasty dumplings, which was actually on the other end of ongpin, just on the side of binondo church. this wasn't my and heidz's first time to eat here, but it is for lay. we weren't worried that lay might be disappointed if the dumplings aren't as tasty as the name implies, because the dumplings ARE tasty. and yes, she wasn't disappointed.

kuchay dumplings

fried dumplings (the empty plate beside it was the one with the kuchay dumplings)

tsay ma pao

after. ;-)

we were supposed to order a noodle soup but we were already full. ;)

postscript:
i am so glad i followed the girls to quiapo after work, or else i would have bored my brains out if i went home right away. but i did not go with them to sm centerpoint anymore after binondo as i wanted to rest already. good thing i did, because when i got home the lavandera told me the washing machine just quit running. but that's another story. btw, the pics are courtesy of lay. thanks girl! =)