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! =)

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!