Wanders
Manila Trip - Day 2
(June 5, Friday)
Two traffic-filled hours and rain-flooded highways later, we reach the Sampaloc apartments. The kids are bouncing off the sofas and climbing up the walls, and Yaya Rose is at her wits' end. We console them with our 168 loot, and Yaya Rose proudly struts around in the blouses we bought for her.
In the evening, we are scheduled to attend Wanders, an international-class extravaganza at the PAGCOR casino in Paranaque. Inday is the physician-retainer at their branch back home, and she has scored a total of 10 complimentary tickets. We are excited despite our exhaustion, panting to attend a show with free tickets that the casino has been selling to the public for 3,000pesos each.
By popular demand, and because we are loathed to repeat our sweaty public jeepney experience in the smog and rain, Atch heads off to Pasay City to borrow my uncle's car while the rest of us spoiled mortals put up our feet and snooze.
By 5pm, Atch textes us to grouch that he is still stuck in traffic. To save time, all eight of us pile sardine-like into a cab to PAGCOR Paranaque. We make plans to meet up with Atch there, as well as Nat's husband Eric, who has flown in from Bacolod that noon.
Two hours later, we are wedged in horrendous traffic in the pouring rain. The kids have thankfully buried their collective heads in various cellphone games, while Yaya Rose moans fretfully into a paper bag
"Mapatay ko! Indi na ko magliwat di!" *
in one of her bouts of car-sickness.
We are provincial hicks who have forgotten that this is Manila. It is the weekend. And the rain is drumming us out of our minds.
It is a quarter of 9 in the evening when we finally reach our destination. We shudder into the arctic air conditioning of the Philippine government's answer to the rich and pseudo-rich's quest for gaming and gambling amusements.
The government monopoly on the millions of pesos sucked each day into this nation-wide gambling franchise doesn't solve any of the country's economic problems or endear its public officials to the poor and working classes. We shamelessly venture into the casino anyway: wide-eyed with wonder and eager to experience what well-heeled gambling enthusiasts see, hear, taste and smell on a daily basis.
We buy hundred-plus peso club sandwiches (they are the cheapest food items we could find) in the luxuriously appointed lounge, and duly present our tickets to the tuxedo-clad ticket inspectors at the entrance to the casino's auditorium, where the musical circus is set to take place at 8pm, or so our tickets say. However, once inside, we are bombarded with socio-political advertisements in large screen format for more than an hour, as the show's organizers wait for the rest of their 3,000-peso and 5,000-peso ticket crowd to make it in from the traffic and the rain.
It is in the middle of this maddening lull that Atch and Eric, waterlogged and rush-hour cranky, finally arrive to help us calm the restless kids, who are themselves cranky with the stupendous wait. It is 10pm and they have watered every stall in the restrooms with their urea-filled impatience.
The show finally starts with sudden darkness and the earth-trembling vibration of drums. The thundering progress of acrobats across raised wooden platforms startle us, and we surrender ourselves to the sights and sounds of people twirling on ribbons in the air right above us; natives in loin-cloths brandishing clubs, their heads bristling in feathers; the sun, the moon, and bird people in flight; punk kids playing synchronized basketball; ballerinas piled on bicycles, and the story of birth, growth, and decline presented in a musical score ranging from primordial chants to full-blown arias.
Our chests resound with the beat of drums and the clash of cymbals, and our feet chatter on the floor in time to sambas and rumbas and the rapid-fire skipping of steel-toed tap dancers on the wooden stage.
That we have waited for centuries and missed our dinner has become irrelevant. Even Yaya Rose has forgotten her nausea and is hard-pressed to keep drool from escaping her gaping mouth. A free pass to a world-class show will do that to anyone.
The show finally ends past midnight, and Inday and Sam hoist a sleeping Ia in their arms, while Woog and Eli scamper amongst the feet of the departing audience, picking up the colorful metallic streamers that have rained from the sky at closing.
I pay a jaw-clenching 100pesos to have our picture taken with the cast, wishing I had surreptitiously taken a few prohibited shots during the show with my camera phone.
The international cast of Wanders, with Yaya Rose, Atch & Eli, Woog & Mom
We finally make our way out of the casino, suddenly realizing we are ravenously hungry. Thankfully, we have my uncle's car that Atch has so painstakingly braved traffic for, a thousand eons ago it seems when he went off to get it earlier that afternoon. We grab a midnight snack at a McDonald's in Makati, and make our way home to bed in Sampaloc, still in midst of a thrall.
Smiling in the aftermath: Eric, Nat with Woog, Yaya Rose with Eli, Sam & Inday carrying Ia
______________________________
* I'm going to die! I'm never going back here again!
(June 5, Friday)
Two traffic-filled hours and rain-flooded highways later, we reach the Sampaloc apartments. The kids are bouncing off the sofas and climbing up the walls, and Yaya Rose is at her wits' end. We console them with our 168 loot, and Yaya Rose proudly struts around in the blouses we bought for her.
In the evening, we are scheduled to attend Wanders, an international-class extravaganza at the PAGCOR casino in Paranaque. Inday is the physician-retainer at their branch back home, and she has scored a total of 10 complimentary tickets. We are excited despite our exhaustion, panting to attend a show with free tickets that the casino has been selling to the public for 3,000pesos each.
By popular demand, and because we are loathed to repeat our sweaty public jeepney experience in the smog and rain, Atch heads off to Pasay City to borrow my uncle's car while the rest of us spoiled mortals put up our feet and snooze.
By 5pm, Atch textes us to grouch that he is still stuck in traffic. To save time, all eight of us pile sardine-like into a cab to PAGCOR Paranaque. We make plans to meet up with Atch there, as well as Nat's husband Eric, who has flown in from Bacolod that noon.
Two hours later, we are wedged in horrendous traffic in the pouring rain. The kids have thankfully buried their collective heads in various cellphone games, while Yaya Rose moans fretfully into a paper bag
"Mapatay ko! Indi na ko magliwat di!" *
in one of her bouts of car-sickness.
We are provincial hicks who have forgotten that this is Manila. It is the weekend. And the rain is drumming us out of our minds.
It is a quarter of 9 in the evening when we finally reach our destination. We shudder into the arctic air conditioning of the Philippine government's answer to the rich and pseudo-rich's quest for gaming and gambling amusements.
The government monopoly on the millions of pesos sucked each day into this nation-wide gambling franchise doesn't solve any of the country's economic problems or endear its public officials to the poor and working classes. We shamelessly venture into the casino anyway: wide-eyed with wonder and eager to experience what well-heeled gambling enthusiasts see, hear, taste and smell on a daily basis.
We buy hundred-plus peso club sandwiches (they are the cheapest food items we could find) in the luxuriously appointed lounge, and duly present our tickets to the tuxedo-clad ticket inspectors at the entrance to the casino's auditorium, where the musical circus is set to take place at 8pm, or so our tickets say. However, once inside, we are bombarded with socio-political advertisements in large screen format for more than an hour, as the show's organizers wait for the rest of their 3,000-peso and 5,000-peso ticket crowd to make it in from the traffic and the rain.
It is in the middle of this maddening lull that Atch and Eric, waterlogged and rush-hour cranky, finally arrive to help us calm the restless kids, who are themselves cranky with the stupendous wait. It is 10pm and they have watered every stall in the restrooms with their urea-filled impatience.
The show finally starts with sudden darkness and the earth-trembling vibration of drums. The thundering progress of acrobats across raised wooden platforms startle us, and we surrender ourselves to the sights and sounds of people twirling on ribbons in the air right above us; natives in loin-cloths brandishing clubs, their heads bristling in feathers; the sun, the moon, and bird people in flight; punk kids playing synchronized basketball; ballerinas piled on bicycles, and the story of birth, growth, and decline presented in a musical score ranging from primordial chants to full-blown arias.
Our chests resound with the beat of drums and the clash of cymbals, and our feet chatter on the floor in time to sambas and rumbas and the rapid-fire skipping of steel-toed tap dancers on the wooden stage.
That we have waited for centuries and missed our dinner has become irrelevant. Even Yaya Rose has forgotten her nausea and is hard-pressed to keep drool from escaping her gaping mouth. A free pass to a world-class show will do that to anyone.
The show finally ends past midnight, and Inday and Sam hoist a sleeping Ia in their arms, while Woog and Eli scamper amongst the feet of the departing audience, picking up the colorful metallic streamers that have rained from the sky at closing.
I pay a jaw-clenching 100pesos to have our picture taken with the cast, wishing I had surreptitiously taken a few prohibited shots during the show with my camera phone.
The international cast of Wanders, with Yaya Rose, Atch & Eli, Woog & MomWe finally make our way out of the casino, suddenly realizing we are ravenously hungry. Thankfully, we have my uncle's car that Atch has so painstakingly braved traffic for, a thousand eons ago it seems when he went off to get it earlier that afternoon. We grab a midnight snack at a McDonald's in Makati, and make our way home to bed in Sampaloc, still in midst of a thrall.
Smiling in the aftermath: Eric, Nat with Woog, Yaya Rose with Eli, Sam & Inday carrying Ia* I'm going to die! I'm never going back here again!
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