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Old Posted Apr 16, 2013, 7:47 PM
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sabotai sabotai is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: brooklyn
Posts: 469
Thanks everyone!

Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisLA View Post
One colleague said drivers are so bad that when she visit her family there she won't risk her life and refuse to drive.

Again thanks for the up close view of this city.
Drivers are pretty insane and no one wears seat belts. Eventually I gave up on trying to dig them out of the taxi back seats.

Quote:
Originally Posted by KOTH
impeccably done. i have several friends and extended family members from the city. nice to finally see it here. did you try any of the street mangos? or jollibee?
I did have some mango, along with other street foods like kwek-kwek, corn, pork kebabs, banana cue, etc. --but no balut! Jollibee and Chow-king are also good.

Quote:
Originally Posted by destroycreate
I think this is truly one of the best photo threads I've ever seen on this forum. WHAT A TREAT! How rare we get to see this kind of a thread of Manila.

A couple of thoughts:
- First of all, I traveled extensively through the Philippines in 2008 (namely Palawan--one of the most beautiful places on Earth) and absolutely loved it. In general it definitely felt much poorer than Thailand, but I don't remember Manila looking this rough. I mean quite a few of these shots are reminiscent of the streets in India. What were the areas in which you stayed?
- People often hate on Manila and talk about how ugly/scary/chaotic it is, but I never really felt that way. Everybody was so friendly and open. I stayed at a hostel in Malate/Ermita (which I know if the more touristy area) , and while it wasn't exactly pretty, I was surprised by how relatively tranquil the streets were. For being the supposed downtown of Manila, it didn't really strike me as the epicenter of a city of 12 million. I also visited several other areas of the city, and didn't find it to be as traffic-choked /busy as say Bangkok.
- No matter how much I try to this day, I still can't get myself to be excited over Filipino cuisine (esp. because there are too few vegetables!). How did you find the food just out of curiosity? I was frustrated by how difficult it seemed to be to find Filipino restaurants.
I stayed at Friendly's in Malate and your perspective is interesting, because I feel like I feel like I failed to capture a lot of human density and chaos of the city. I'd say the metro feels extremely decentralized with Quezon City as the largest city and Manila representing only 14% of the total population. Although I didn't get over to QC much, Makati seemed like the biggest business district. On the bus from Pasay to Baguio, it took over 2 hours just to get past Quezon City and the density feels pretty evenly spread.

I can understand it being too simple for many, but I love Filipino food (although I'm a meat-lover and no fan of vegetables). I also grew up eating adobo and lumpia, so I'm probably biased in that regard. Filipino food is everywhere, but maybe less common in the fancier places with aircon and menus.
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