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P. Burgos Street (Bel-Air Village)

Posted on July 26, 2008

Hunting down my neighbors on spontaneous lomocrawls is a challenging task. My neighbors are of… how shall I put this… the shady kind. They are creatures of the night, especially wary of the intrusive attempts of a probing camera lens.  No, I don’t live by a night safari, but a furtive glance away from P. Burgos Street a red-light jungle tucked away in the northern fringe of Makati City: a glitzy strip of nightclubs and snazzy hotels where feline streetwalkersRead More→

Paco Park & Cemetery

Posted on April 20, 2008

Green parks are a rarity in the megasprawl of concrete, metal and asphalt that we love-hatingly call Manila. Paco Park is affirmatively an oasis in the metropolis. Built during the 1700s as the municipal cemetery for aristocratic families, you will see rows of empty niches along its concentric walls shaded by old acacia and frangipani trees where cooing pigeons perch and prosper. Later on, this small cemetery became a quarantine for victims of a cholera epidemic and a storage place forRead More→

Manila Baywalk Sunset

Posted on March 3, 2008

Manila Baywalk is a bit rundown nowadays, but the world-famous sunset (allegedly the best among the world’s cities according to Lonely Planet’s ‘The Cities Book’ due to the air pollution that enhances the display)–is the daily spectacle that redeems the messy urban sprawl of all its noise, sleaze and taxi drivers from hell. On Sundays, it’s a leisurely place to seek respite, basking in the orange haze of nature’s light show with peanuts and fishballs for popcorn. Just make sure toRead More→