Palawan: The Last Unspoiled Place in the Philippines

I saw a baby shark, a sea snake, a secret cave used by Japanese soldiers to hide Filipino POWs, and more.

aargh

it's 3:30 in the morning, we just got back from Saguijo, a hip little indie spot here in makati, where we saw a bunch of Pinay-fronted pop and indie bands tonight. we arrived in manila from palawan at 6:30pm. we're all packed and ready for boracay tomorrow morning, a week in aklan, and then ati-atihan.

i'll post pics and discuss palawan soon. it's almost too beautiful for words.

i'm so tired.

Cebu

Cebu was lovely. We went to Larsian, the famed (and DIRTY) barbecue pavilion, Basilica de Santo Nino, did a tour of the provinces, including Carcar, and Carbon, the famous and enormous outdoor market. Here are some highlights.



In Carcar, Roy the basketmaker tried to show me how to make one. I was really bad at it.
In Carcar's town center, a white American woman leads a Filipina (on her knees) to modernity. The statue was built in 1912 at the order of American officials.Larsian Fuente is an open-air barbecue market where dozens of family barbecue stalls try to win your business. You choose what you want, they finish cooking it, and you eat your bbq with rice, cooked in coconut leaves (aka hanging rice or puso in Cebuano). You get calamansi, sili, toyo, and Hep A on the side.
When I told my Uncle Beboy that we were having lunch there, he responded with a shocked silence. When we asked the Marriott front desk guy how to get there, he said, "Well, ma'am, you know, ahem, it's not, um, how do you say this, expensive?"

Dinner at Ayala Center with my Moreno relatives: Jaycel and her new baby Jaylyn, Auntie Jennie, Janelle, Uncle Beboy, and me. Uncle Beboy is my mom's first cousin.
Another reason to go to Cebu: torta. I ate about twenty. Okay, twelve.
Have you ever seen a mountain of dilis? We did at the Carbon Market, a historic, chaotic and beautiful mess in downtown Cebu.

Intramuros with Carlos Celdran

On January 3, Jesse, Ben and I took the Intramuros Deluxe Tour with Carlos Celdran, a Manila native who is a visual and performance artist, historian, historic preservationist, tour guide, and lover of all things Manila (celdrantours.blogspot.com). Celdran's three-hour walking tour of Intramuros was one of the most inspiring and mind-blowing educational experiences of my life. What is incredible is how he does so much with very little: Celdran hooks up a mini-mic to a tiny speaker, accessorizes according to theme (during the Spanish period, shown here on the right, he wears a top hat, and then dons an Uncle Sam hat during the American period, etc.). The tour encompasses major areas in Intramuros, the historic walled city built by the Spanish after Legazpi burnt to the ground the 10,000 strong city headed by Rajah Soliman at the head of the Pasig River. His breadth of knowledge about Manila and Philippine history is astounding, and love for his city is so inspiring. I also appreciated how he incorporated the newest historiography, including critical remarks on the invention of Rizal as the national hero by the American colonizers (and did you know Rizal was only 4'11"? That's what Carlos said). Imelda Marcos, Celdran notes, spearhead the restoration of Intramuros, which was mostly flattened by Americans during World War II, when much of the city was ravaged (Celdran agrees that the city -- once the most exciting, cosmopolitan and urbane in the world, has never truly recovered from the bombing). The tour included Fort Santiago (me and Jesse are in front of it), St. Agustin Church, the oldest in the Philippines, which was spared destruction during World War II because it was the Red Cross headquarters, and Casa Manila, a reproduction of a typical elite 19th century home in Manila, one of Imelda's pet projects. The tour also included a calesa ride (I think when the horse saw us three chubby Balikbayans coming, he started to cry silently inside). Through it all, Carlos didn't mince words, sparing no one from his criticism, skewering everyone from Legazpi to Rajah Soliman to Douglas MacArthur. A priest who was in the tour group was so offended by Carlos' very incisive criticism of friar abuse and excess that he left halfway through the tour. His moving tribute to all those killed in Manila during World War II, especially at the hands of ruthless Japanese soldiers, brought us all to tears. We gained a completely new appreciation for Intramuros and for our people, and a burning pride, really, at the risk of sounding corny, for all those who came before us. At the end of the tour, we gave Carlos a Little Manila 2008 calendar and I told him that we had a connection: he gives tours of big Manila, and I give tours of Little Manila. How corny, but true!













After the tour, we just had to go to Aristocrat restaurant in Malate and eat barbecue pork, pancit canton, laing, and fried rice, because, what else are you gonna do after learning so much history? You have to eat it to really digest it all.

Manila, My Manila

So we made it here on Wed. Jan. 2. We didn't have to put $5 in our passports like Grandma always does to grease the wheels. After we landed, it wasn't the melee I remember from 1997. Everything is much calmer -- they only allow airport personnel in arrival, so nobody is grabbing your bags screaming "Ma'am, Ma'am!" Official bag helpers in uniform stand there and only help if you ask. It was actually kind of quiet and boring -- SFO is even crazier. It was kind of a jarring reminder of who we were in the global economy to stand in the OFW/Balikbayan/Filipino Resident line (see pic). We checked into the luxurious Makati Shangri-La Hotel, this absolutely amazing place that has now forever spoiled us on anywhere else we could possibly stay. After hanging out for a minute and taking photos of the place before we made it messy, Jesse's mom and a driver picked us up to take the balikbayan boxes to her house in Marikina.
Honestly this room was so over the top, the service so unbelievable, the breakfast buffet so incredible, that we didn't want to leave. We had to, of course, to leave for Cebu. Breakfast buffet @ the Shang was more than words can even describe, and Jesse and I still think it's the best meal we've had so far. Imagine the Bellagio brunch buffet...and it's twenty times better and it's all Filipino. I ate bangus with garlic rice and egg, pan de sal, corned beef, potatoes, ube ensaymada, a tiny square of sweet biko with a complex salty sweet latik topping, juicy kuchinta and fresh mangoes...We actually called and took the later flight to Cebu on Friday just so we could eat there again.

The thing is, I'm beginning to really love this city and hate it the way people do who really care about a place. In 1997, we stayed not more than a minute, and connected immediately to Cebu. But this time, I'm experiencing the city as an adult -- without the neo-indigenous cultural nationalist pretensions of my 20s, and on my own schedule, and I feel like I see it with new eyes. Instead of deriding the malls, we've been having fun exploring all of them, especially Glorietta, Greenbelt, Market!Market! and Megamall (which is just hella, hella, big...so big for us today that we were just completely overwhelmed). It's this horrible, ugly, tragic, disgusting, beautiful, historic, and incredibly rich place that crackles with electricity. I have a completely new appreciation for this place and our people. Have you ever watched a barefoot toddler navigate traffic? Or watch six year olds push carts of bananas twenty times their weight? Or stood where Rajah Soliman once presided over a bamboo hut settlement 500 years ago? Or be surrounded by millions of people swirling all around you under flashing parols in the middle of a mall? Tatay said after his visit in 1999 that Manila should be carpet bombed back to antiquity and planners should start over, because the sprawl was horrible. Yes, I do see what he meant -- yet there is beauty in this here city all the same. Jesse's Manila has changed so much he's visiting a whole new city -- and realizing how American he really is. Now I'm here at 35, humbler, here to observe and learn more than judge, and feeling so at home here yet completely out of place.

In Cebu

We love it here. We haven't posted because we've been out all day and night having fun, going back home to the hotel late, and then waking up again, and internet is $20/day!

We're in Cebu right now @ the Marriott. We left Manila early Friday morning (hated to leave the Shangri-La in Makati...wish I could win the lotto to stay there the whole time). On our way now to downtown to Colon Street (oldest street in Asia) and the Lapu Lapu monument on Mactan island here. Last night, we had a great dinner with my mom's first cousin, Beboy Moreno, his wife Jenny and his daughters Jaycel and Janelle. We stayed with them in 97.

Tonight, we're heading back to Manila where we'll have broadband in our new hotel and not this horribly expensive by the hour internet here at Marriott that has prevented me from blogging.

More to come, soon, on malls in Manila, Intramuros, the Cebu southern towns and provinces, the Larsian barbecue market here in Cebu...

Coffin Ship to Asia

We are writing from the Hong Kong airport, waiting for our 8am connecting flight to Manila. I thought Cathay Pacific would be a bit more luxurious than PAL; we were so wrong. It was so cramped that I never even got into my backback for my reading material and my book manuscript draft to mark up: once the guy in front reclined, i hit my head on the mini TV monitor and couldn't even reach down past my knees to get under the seat. Smallest airplane bathroom ever, but we won't get into the gory details.

Anyway, we made it -- only my carryon was overweight. Auntie Addie and Uncle Mel brought us last night to SFO and here we are. Too bad none of the shops open until 7am...right now...ok, we're going to the duty free shop and change money.

We'll post again when we arrive in Manila!