Today I’m in an interesting mood. As the day started, I had only two vague plans: to buy some Philippine food items requested by Luis, and to visit his tatay (father) one more time. I managed to get the food but everyone I know here was busy, so I will do the family visit bukas (tomorrow).
After a long afternoon nap (my first in weeks), I wandered down to the Baywalk just in time to catch the crimson sunset. One of the first things I noticed, as dusk transitioned into night, is just how well my eyes are working. No kidding, it was a surreal experience: looking at my surroundings on the Manila skyline, everything seemed to be in sharper focus than I can recall in years. That feeling persisted even as I wandered into the shopping mall to buy some videoke (local word for karaoke) discs that I plan to use for learning Tagalog. (Regular DVDs almost never have closed-caption titles in Tagalog, for some reason. But every videoke disc does.) Looking at the shelves of merchandise, my usual feeling of visual overwhelm-ment was gone. How bizarre!
I made a couple of notes about the Baywalk that might be helpful for future visitors:
- The Mall of Asia (opened 2 years ago) has fireworks every Fri/Sat night, if you are standing near the Aristocrat restaurant, they are visible over a Sofitel hotel around 7pm
- The restaurants set up and tear down performance stages on the Baywalk every day; live performances start around 6:45 or 7pm. (Some of the acts are amazing; I watched covers of Queen, Van Halen, and Donna Summer this evening. The first performance sounded like a CD of the original music from my college freshman year!)
- Don’t forget to avail yourself of those masseurs by the fountain on Remedios St – they start work just after dusk and stay until the fountain is shut off sometime around 11.
Well I’m posting this from a Netopia cafe in the shopping mall, they gave a 5-minute warning so I’ll sign off from now and encourage you to read on about my alluring adventure in Sabang! I’ll never get that excursion out of my head!