Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Out and about ...

... or "third time lucky". I have finally managed to see a little more of Manila than the inside of the office or the route from the hotel to the office. (I'm not counting the forays we made out to restaurants during previous visits as they were in the dark!)Today (Monday) I managed to fit in a 4-hour city tour of Manila - finally giving Chaim and 7 something to feast their collective lenses on - and it was good. The other tourists were Americans - three from one firm, two from another - and they were decent company, especially as most of them had a functioning sense of humour. The itinerary - in no particular order: Pacific Plaza (home of Imelda Marcos - where she lives on Level 43 because 7 is (we were told by our Guide) her lucky number; the American military cemetery; the Mall of Asia (biggest in Asia and third largest in the world); Intramuso - the walled city; the son of the Sultan of Brunei's humble house (re-defining the meaning of double storey) - which I have since been informed (through a curtain of giggles) is the Sultan's mistress' abode. And I also finally managed to get to see the Bay - although I'm fairly sure there are two of them - but that's another story. We parked across the road from the Film Centre - scene of a horrific building accident while it was under construction - with a scheduled build of only 77 days ("lucky" number). There are apparently a few buildings around Metro Manila which had a build date of 77 days including the Philippines Convention Centre. But only the Film Centre is said to be haunted - as the story goes, once the building had collapsed, Imelda Marcos arrived on the scene and offered each of the families 1 million pesos if they agreed that a rescue effort not be mounted. The country was under martial law at the time so it probably would have been difficult to refuse the offer. No-one did; and new concrete was poured over the top of the collapsed structure and building recommenced. The version the tour guide told had workers able to hear the screams of the victims as they built. Not surprisingly, and the amount of time has been verified by in-country colleagues, the Department of Finance that moved into the finished building stayed there only two months before the "disturbances" aka hauntings, drove them away.

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