In Manila we walked for hours around cities as if we had just grown legs and feet.

We walked together with the Friday morning Makati rush, the drones of people converging from out of jeeps and taxis, the underpasses and the train station. They were dressed in long sleeved shirts and pencil skirts and they had faces that forgot to smile. They did not smile even if the sun was shining.

We walked for hours around the Mall of Asia, in and around it, along the boulevard where the sun was setting. The last few rays of that day, together with the chatter of people and the joyous sounds of children made the world seem like a Sepia photograph.

In the evening we saw a steakhouse where the people wore cowboy hats and tall boots. At a corner a lone guitarist sang folk and country and every now and then you could hear him hum as if he wished to make everybody sit still and listen.

In Malate there were fancy bars with fancy girls and posturing men in black and crisp white fliers that said: “Live Band, No Entrance Fee”. We didn’t go into any of them because I guess we didn’t want to sit around, we just wanted to walk. And we walked around and followed all the bright lights, we saw a few strip clubs and places where people played poker. We walked across the playground and saw chalk written on the pavement, marked for that game we used to play when we were children, marked with the names of the children that were playing the game tonight.

On the second day we found ourselves walking along the sunken garden in UP Diliman and discovered Chocolate Kiss, a wonderful little restaurant tucked in the alumni building. We shuffled through the crowded streets of Quiapo, through Hidalgo where vendors sold flowers and camera equipment. We walked around Luneta and around the National Museum to admire the Spoliarium. We got to Serendra, Bonifacio’s most beautiful commercial strip, and went up and down a few times, stopping only to whisper in the pipe sculptures and to buy boxes of Sonja’s cupcakes.



We walked and walked until our feet became sore. It was a great yet momentary escape.