October 2019 [by Bill]
This afternoon, October 8th, I left Koto Kinabula, Malaysia and flew to Manila, in the Philippines (130th country visited, so far). The plane was maybe 10% of its seating capacity.
I’ll be in Manila for 5-days, before taking a 7 day/6 night tour of the Palawan Islands, which are southwest of Manila (I’ve heard about these islands from fellow travelers for several years, so I’m looking forward to checking them out).
Wikipedia note about Manila (these population stats sound crazy):
The city of Manila has a population of 1.78 million, according to census data. Manila is the world’s most densely populated city with 42,857 people per square kilometer, or 111,002 people per square mile.
On my first full day in Manila, I hadn’t slept well last night, and spent much of the morning just hanging out at the apartment I’m staying at, called the Flair Towers.
I’m on the 37th floor (40 floors in total) of a 2-tower apartment complex. Lots of amenities at this facility, including 3 swimming pools, tennis court, basketball court, weight room, several restaurants, and a roof top bar, which has nice views of downtown Manila.
Around noon, I walked on one of the major streets for about a mile, and boy o’ boy, sensory overload, as the streets of Manila are loud, lots and lots of people walking around, lots of traffic, cars and buses zipping by, often honking their horns for no apparent reason (sometimes no cars in front of them, but they still give a quick honk), all while the temperature was a steamy 90 degrees, mostly bright sunshine with an occasional cloud, and very high humidity (kinda standard course for this part of the world at this time of year).
I walked into the SM MEGA MALL, which in this case is no exaggeration, it’s huge, and very confusing to walk through. I’d guess it’s several city blocks wide and deep, has 5 floors in total, plus a basement area as well. Each floor has a large number of restaurants, plus on a couple of floors, there’s an amazing food court, but not like the ones in the US, with 10 or so food court restaurants, but each of these food courts have 30-50 different restaurants, with just an over the top variety of international food options (I really wish I was a foodie).
I decided to try “Dads Buffet”, a stand alone restaurant, which seems to seat well over a few hundred people at any one time. They feature, well about 8 or so sections of regional foods (Japanese, Korean, Thai, Western, European..), with each section having 15-25 different types of these regional foods. They also have several desert sections, drink section, plus they have a roaming mini band playing top 40 hits (they were actually pretty decent, and not overly loud). The food was delicious, as I tried a tiny morsel from many of the different food sections. Total cost was USD $13, which I thought was reasonable, but I think it’s pricey here.
After lunch I tried to navigate the endless corridors of the SM MEGA MALL, but to be honest, it’s just plain confusing. I did find a number of interesting stores while walking around, including an archery store, bowling alley, ice skating rink, movie multiplex, VR store, escape room experience, lazer arena, bingo pallor, plus in the basement were a wide variety of over the top kid and teenager arcades and entertainment centers.
I also found 3 different comic book specialty retailers, a couple of hobby gaming retailers, one of the smaller Fully Booked bookstores (my friend Kenny at Kino said their main Fully Booked retail store is a must visit place, and I hope to meet up with Jamie, who I’ve meet over the decades at comic book trade shows events in the US).
I picked up groceries at the crazy large supermarket inside the same mall, and walked back to the apartment.
A weird way to spend a day, as I normally do not go into malls, but have found myself going into them to take a break from the heat and humidity.
Small Wide World 