Binondo food trip

A few weeks ago, I couldn't stand the boredom that was my room. Most weekends, I would sleep the whole day. When I'm awake I'd check the net, facebook, emails then sleep again to make up for the sleep deprivation over the past work week.

For a change I decided to get out of my room and check what the world was like during the hours between 8am-5pm when I'm mostly at the office.

My travel plan wasn't anything grand or spectacular. I simply wanted to get my lazy butt of my room and go some place I have never been in a long while to exercise my mind and imagination that kinda stagnated with the monotony of work. I wanted to see and absorb things out of the usual so I could be more observant.

I know that going places not in your routine would do a lot to sharpen your memory. Traveling to and fro the office is routinary and doesn't quite jog your brain as much.

I had a short list of options. I could go to Los Banos, to UP for some nostalgia or I could go to Manila and just get to where my idle feet take me. I opted Manila cause it was much closer and I left the house late at around 2pm. Los Banos would have to wait another day when I leave the house a lot earlier.

So off to Manila I went. I would have wanted to ride a Lawton bus just like I did during College but it was a Saturday and there were very few buses plying that route especially around that time.

I took an EDSA bound bus and dropped at Magallanes then took the MRT to Taft and from there took the connecting bridge to ride the LRT.

Despite Manila being dirty and polluted and the crime rate, alarming, I still enjoy walking around its many streets and just absorbing the scenery. Of course I would have to always be on guard for pickpockets and snatchers more than I would, say in Makati but the local scene, the hustle and bustle, its old buildings dating way back from the American and Spanish colonizations are worth the extra effort to be mindful of the guy walking behind you :>.

I took the LRT and I must say there were quite some improvements in the coaches. When I was in college(early 90s) the coaches didn't change a lot from the time it opened operations in the early 80s. Now, I think it's slightly wider....say 20 percent and a little cleaner. The trains are now in Aluminum(paint maybe) unlike before when its body bore the beige and the characteristic orange srip.

Aside from the different route and the first letter of the acronym, what differentiates LRT from MRT are the type of passengers. MRT mostly caters to the working class, the yuppies. It's a mix of predominantly white collar and blue collar employees there. Only a few are students as there are very few colleges or universities along or near Edsa. I can name RTU, UP, Ateneo and that's probably the chunk of it. In LRT, most of the passengers are students as Taft avenue, the backbone of its route, the Edsa counterpart, is where most colleges and universities are. Aside from the students, the passengers are mostly Pasay, Manila, Caloocan residents. With the absence of a largely working class type it is not uncommon that you will see passengers wearing just slippers, shorts, and sandos. To put it bluntly, MRT passengers smell good while LRT passengers do have its stinkers.

I went to Robinsons Place in Pedro Gil as my first stop. This mall is fabulous. It's big and it looks pretty decent bordering to posh for a mall that is situated in Manila. The bigger and better malls are along Edsa but Robinsons Place in Manila will hold its own against them any time of the day.

I went to Healthway located inside the mall to have some skin irritation checked by a dermatologist. It so happened that the mall was the venue of the Party Poker Pool Championship which was televised live in ESPN. After going to the derma, I watched to catch a glimpse of some pool action. I was just whiling time away before I go to Binondo cause the heat of the sun was still heavy even at around 3pm. Close to 4pm I decided to head to Binondo. It was going to be a walkathon and 4pm was just the perfect time to explore the streets of Manila. I took a jeep and rode in front. I was supposed to drop in front of City Hall and take a Divisoria bound jeep from there but somehow, I opted to get off Quiapo. Perhaps I was still thinking of trying out Ma Mon Luk Mami and Siopao in Quiapo. But before I left home, I did my internet research and decided to going to Masuki(related to Ma Mon Luk as both were established in the 1930s and are both institutions). From the reviews Ma Mon Luk is quite dingy while Masuki is a tad better both hygiene and foodwise. When I alighted from the jeep I walked briskly as a deterrent to the pickpockets who mostly prey on onlookers and those who walk slow. I took the old overpass which was littered with vendors but they were orderly located in the middle serving as a boundary for two way traffic. I don't mostly stay long checking out what they are peddling cause I feel that in doing so, I am exposing myself to the pickpockets but I did catch a glimpse of an odd item, a vibrator. I wonder who buys these stuff. Talk about being non-discreet. It's so out in the open and the guy who sells it is so not apt for the job as he looked more like a perv than a deft salesman.

Had I taken the Divisoria bound jeep as initially planned, I could have dropped straight to Binondo church. Instead, I found myself having to take a longer route to get there. No, I didn't go to Ma Mon Luk so I guess my subconscious was just looking to punish my feet and knees more than it hinted that I check out first Ma Mon Luk to get an informed decision before trying out Masuki.

I walked along Raon and it gave me the " absorbing the scenery " high I was looking for. I remembered in college, we went there, to DEECO to buy electronic parts for our design. The place was busy everywhere you look at. It's an electronic bargain hunter's paradise. Raon is said to be the Akihabara of the Philippines although it's a very poor man's version of the famous electronic district in Japan. Stores in Akihabara sell branded items while Raon mostly sells electronic items cooked up by some ingenious Pinoy electronic enthusiast. Raon sells amplifiers and speakers, electronic guitar items and accessories, LED lights, streaming LED signages, unbranded MP3 players, china phones, portable DVDS. All dealing with electronics but not the branded personal electronic gadgets from Canon, Samsung, Nokia, Sony and the like.

Walking the whole Raon strip I found myself in Carriedo.