This past October, I won a chance to fly to Oman, courtesy of Oman Tourism. This wasn’t an invite per se, but a contest win. Indiblogger.in held a contest sponsored by Oman Tourism a few months back and my submission was chosen as one among the three best. Three bloggers won the chance to visit Oman on an all expenses paid guided tour of Oman.
The flight was, of course, by Oman Air.
My flight was early morning and Bangalore was cold and foggyBut it was all sunny and fine above the cloudsSoon after take off, we were served breakfast.After a nap, I woke up to the sight of OmanTwo things Oman is famous for: clear blue seas & rocky landscapesVery mountainous countryCan’t imagine life in the middle of all this… but there isWe were about to land at Muscat airport
All my major travel objectives on this 2014 excursion across Philippines was over. Now it was time to wind down a bit and just enjoy my last few days in Manila.
For lunch today, Gale took to me to Little Tokyo, located on Chino Roces Avenue, Makati City. When she told me about Little Tokyo, I thought it was going to be like an entire area dominated by Japanese establishments, like Chinatowns elsewhere in the world.
Little Tokyo turned out to be a privately run complex housing many Japanese eateriesChino Roces Avenue has a few Japanese supermarkets tooWe went in and checked out the restaurants insideQuite a few choices — some exclusive ramen shops, some sushi bars — but mostly restaurants serving allWe came back out and sat at the more popular Shinjuku restaurantI had Tenshindon, rice topped with fried egg and crab meat gravyGale had a bowl of ramen and Kani salad (pictured above) — which was very nice!
You can check out the Shinjuku menu on its Zomato page.
Date: May 17th 2014
In my quest to see more attractions within Manila or close to it, I decided to visit the Marikina Shoe Museum today. It houses a large collection of shoes owned by the infamous Imelda Marcos, widow of the former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Aside from the many allegations of amassing immense illicit wealth, Imelda Marcos was infamous for possessing a collection of over a thousand pairs of shoes — most of it from expensive fashion brands. Some of those pairs are now housed inside the Marikina Shoe Museum.
Fortunately being the weekend, my friend Gale accompanied me today.
We took the train to Santolan
From Santolan station, we took a taxi to get to Marikina.
Marikina is dubbed the “Shoe Capital of the Philippines” because of the many shoe production houses in the districtThe Marikina Shoe Museum is right by Rizal Street and is a small building right in the heart of MarikinaThere is an entry fee of ₱50 (₹71/$1/€0.90)Filipino Shoes of Fame(?)Photography is restricted and I couldn’t take close ups of the shoes, especially those belonging to Imelda MarcosThis is my friend posing in front of a portrait of Imelda Marcos (when she was younger)Besides housing Imelda Marcos’ shoes, the museum also houses shoes from famous Filipino personalitiesVenus Raj is a Filipino beauty pageant queenThis is a collection of shoes donated to the museum from a former mayor of MarikinaThere are some art decor aroundWooden shoe moulds line the pillarThe collection of Imelda Marcos’ shoes is on display both downstairs and upstairs. We went upstairs next.They had photos of Imelda Marcos with all the famous leaders and personalities she met the world over. That’s Imelda Marcos meeting Indira Gandhi.I couldn’t take close up shots of the shoes because it’s not allowed, but you will see all sorts of high end brands of shoes here : Pierre Cardin, Chanel, Louis Vuitton and such
And that was it. We were in and out in just 30 minutes. The Marikina Shoe Museum does not house every single pair of shoe owned by Imelda Marcos, only a handful. But still, I didn’t mind. Manila doesn’t offer too many attractions and coming to Marikina by public transportation isn’t that expensive, so I would say Marikina Shoe Museum is worth a quick look.
Shoes of all shapes and sizes, all around MarikinaWe went in here nextThis was like a promotion facility for the shoe makers of the region. They had a showroom in the front, and at the back was a workshop with all the tools and material used in making shoes.I asked them where the leather comes from and a worker there told me it’s mostly from Taiwan and some sourced from across Philippines.Cafe Kapitan restaurantOur Lady of the Abandoned Parish ChurchWe didn’t go inside as there was a mourning going onMarikina seemed very clean and well maintained
It was a nice visit to Marikina. Feels like a nice neighbourhood to live in, to get away from the chaos of Manila.
Tonight was actually my last night in Manila, and if there was one thing I wanted to do in Philippines but hadn’t yet tried, it was karaoke! Like at a proper karaoke bar. Karaoke is probably the national past time in Philippines, especially given every Filipino sings in some shape or form
So Gale took me to Trinoma Mall in the evening.
First we had dinner at Fish & Co. This was a pretty good value meal: fries, crisps, 3 fish fillets and 3 beef sliders… for about ₱350? I forgot.Then Gale suggested Red Box for karaoke. Being a Saturday night, we had to wait a bit for our room.
Red Box is a popular chain of karaoke lounge bars in Manila. It’s clean, reasonably priced — I believe it was ₱100 an hour for a room, and they had a great library of songs across genres.
*Clearly* the most popular song of the year but not something I was ever going to singInstead, I loved Westlife’s singles from their first three albums. Such good sing-along songs. So I sang them… all of them! I wasn’t as good a singer as Gale was, but it was fun. I mean that’s the whole point of karaoke anyway.
We ended up singing for 2 hours. She chose her classic favourites, I chose “Easy Lover” by Phil Collins and so on. We could have hung around longer, but it was getting late.
I’m glad Gale took me to Red Box. I didn’t know about the place and was instead thinking of hitting the many dingy karaoke bars that line Manila’s city streets.
May 19th 2014
I left Manila feeling sad that my trip was over. My 2014 trip to Philippines was better than my 2013 trip, but still not as great as my 2011 trip was. But I doubt I’ll ever enjoy quite the experience of that first trip. This time around I finally got to visit Oslob and have a proper whaleshark experience to make up for the disappointment at Donsol. I finally did the Mt. Pinatubo trek which was awesome and thanks to Gale, got to know about other festivals and places to check out.
But after three trips, I still couldn’t go to Batanes, which is still far beyond my reach (literally). There are places like Vigan I feel I should check out, but I like to think for an Indian tourist, I have covered Philippines pretty damn well. Would be nice to be recognized by the tourism board of Philippines and invited back (for free), but that remains a dream too.
It was late in the evening when my flight took off from Manila
I landed in Hong Kong on time but my connecting Dragon Air flight to Bangalore was delayed because the plane coming from China was late.
Spotted an A380 for the first time. You wouldn’t get an idea of just how big this airplane is until you see it parked next to an A320 or something smaller.I landed back in India later than scheduled but the worse part was this queue at immigration. Fancy new extension and they still couldn’t get enough officers to man the counters.
It took me an hour to get out of the airport. My younger brother picked me up and I spent the night at his place because it was too late to head back to my apartment.
As I slept that night… I was already missing Philippines. The whalesharks, the natural but now familiar beauty, Gale, karaoke, the friendly people, jeepney rides, errr… the food not too much. (Sorry :P)
Until next time Philippines. Whenever that may be.
I was invited for a blogger gathering at the invitation of Amrut Distilleries, makers of the renowned Amrut Single Malt whisky. I had heard of the brand, but never knew much about it nor had I ever tasted it. It’s not easy to find it in liquor stores and I think I have seen their whiskys more at airport duty frees. Amrut XXX rum on the other hand, that’s far more common. None the less, we were asked to come for a tasting session to be held at The Glass House on Lavelle Road.
There was a bit of space across from The Glass House to park my bikeThis was my first time at The Glass House, and first impressions: “Wow!”
