Friday Rant
For most of you who don't know, I live in a small town that fancies itself to be a city. Or a city with a small-town mentality. "Town" is really Session Road, a stretch of hilly road reminiscent of San Francisco, without the trams. At the top of town is ShoeMart, this monstrosity of a mall that oddly enough, resembles a circus tent, without the jugglers and acrobats and human cannonballs. I spent most of my college life happily cutting class there.
Between SM and the market are several shops: like OMG, the vegetarian place (good food, bad coffee, but excellent dalandan and chow mein). There are the usual coffee places, fast food, Korean restaurants, Korean pizza (yes, an odd concept), the odd Mongolian grill and 24/7 convenience stores. There are salons, Trinity boutique for those who like well made jackets, the Filipino cell phone repair and e-load shop and of course, the billiard halls and carienderias. I recommend Manang Patz/Greenhouse on Assumption Road. Can’t miss it, best hepatitis-laden pork steak in town.
From central Session, roads branch out and upwards towards the schools. Here are the little shops: the tiny tattoo shop where I got my mermaid with System of a Down blasting from the radio, the karaoke/videoke places and in one notable area, a duckpin bowling alley. And of course, the computer shop where my friends and I waste our money and days playing Warcraft. The Shop, as none of us apparently know its name.
This is odd, since I know Session Road got its name from a session (har har) some dudes had about Baguio when the Americans decided to make this city a hill station. They liked the weather here, go figure. I don’t remember my history that well. But if you’re ever in Baguio, look by the old terminal near the top of Session Road. Past the markets is Baden-Powell Inn. You can’t miss it, there’s a gorgeous black Mini Coop there that I’ve been plotting to steal for the past three years. There’s a plaque there commemorating the event.
At the bottom of Session the road splits in half, spreading out towards the other smaller malls and City Hall, the fire station, the police station and a couple of hotels. Near the overpass is the market. You can find mostly anything there. Silver, Baguio’s famous brooms, peanut brittle, fresh herbs like basil, fish, clams in season, strawberries, fruit, mangosteens and my personal favorite: the rich dark Benguet coffee that you can have ground straight from the bean and take home in a paper bag.
From town the city spreads itself out into various “suburban” area with names ranging from City Camp and Navy Base (courtesy of the American occupation) and gems like Honeymoon Holyghost (the best name ever!) Of course, there are various secret places and secret restaurants like the long-mourned Salud Bistro that the locals prefer to keep to themselves, or only show to trusted friends who won’t wreak havoc by telling the poseur out of town crowd who’ll go because it’s “cool”. Do you disagree? Check out Nevada Square. It used to be the best place in town.
Anyway, why am I writing about Baguio? The small town mentality is kicking in, that’s why. The same mentality that prompts my father to ask the lineage of all my Baguio based friends.
“Who’s that?”
“My friend Etc.”
“I see, who’s Etc’s dad/mom/great grandfather/homo sapien ancestor?”
“So and so.”
“Ah, I know him. I used to (insert information that will shock and allure here) with him.”
Hence, as Lisa says, you have to breed at least three generations in this city before people know who you are. The problem with that is that people generally meddle in everybody’s affairs AND those who usually have the power maintain the power (what a fatalistic point of view, I know).
Hence we come to the point of this blog. Read Baguio Insider Someone is planning to build a a 200M parking lot in Burnham Park. Not that I like Burnham Park or anything. My heart pounds whenever the rare event of crossing it at night has to happen.
It’s nice and all, but the flowers look slightly urine colored and the smell coming from the lake is horrendous. Apparently most residents take it as their own free toilet/dump. I took a boat trip there once for a film assignment and counted 12 Red Horse bottles. How dare you defile Red Horse that way, you cretins! Kidding aside, that would be an obvious thing to do right? Clean it up? I don’t know. My mother would say, hello Rose, you can’t even clean your room. But at least people don’t walk around in my room on a regular basis.
I love this city, as much as I whine and complain that it’s too cold and boring but I’d rather have a nice pretty San Fran-reminiscent city that a city full of useless edifices. Come on, City Hall! What the hell are you thinking? I thought we were over this with Vergara! I heard rumors that your planning sessions included making Baguio cleaner, greener and more beautiful. Yey for you if this pushes through. Arroyo gives you government land and the City (not you specifically Mr. Mayor, as you are a mayor but not exactly Sauron ruling Mordor with an iron fist) the City decides to exploit it for a freaking parking lot. If traffic is such a bad thing, why don’t you check on taxi licenses and jeepney routes?
Parking lots, overpasses and executive orders that don’t last are not the way. You bureaucratic dim bulbs. It makes me sad to see the city treated this way. Just sad. As my father is fond of saying, “Fools!”
Between SM and the market are several shops: like OMG, the vegetarian place (good food, bad coffee, but excellent dalandan and chow mein). There are the usual coffee places, fast food, Korean restaurants, Korean pizza (yes, an odd concept), the odd Mongolian grill and 24/7 convenience stores. There are salons, Trinity boutique for those who like well made jackets, the Filipino cell phone repair and e-load shop and of course, the billiard halls and carienderias. I recommend Manang Patz/Greenhouse on Assumption Road. Can’t miss it, best hepatitis-laden pork steak in town.
From central Session, roads branch out and upwards towards the schools. Here are the little shops: the tiny tattoo shop where I got my mermaid with System of a Down blasting from the radio, the karaoke/videoke places and in one notable area, a duckpin bowling alley. And of course, the computer shop where my friends and I waste our money and days playing Warcraft. The Shop, as none of us apparently know its name.
This is odd, since I know Session Road got its name from a session (har har) some dudes had about Baguio when the Americans decided to make this city a hill station. They liked the weather here, go figure. I don’t remember my history that well. But if you’re ever in Baguio, look by the old terminal near the top of Session Road. Past the markets is Baden-Powell Inn. You can’t miss it, there’s a gorgeous black Mini Coop there that I’ve been plotting to steal for the past three years. There’s a plaque there commemorating the event.
At the bottom of Session the road splits in half, spreading out towards the other smaller malls and City Hall, the fire station, the police station and a couple of hotels. Near the overpass is the market. You can find mostly anything there. Silver, Baguio’s famous brooms, peanut brittle, fresh herbs like basil, fish, clams in season, strawberries, fruit, mangosteens and my personal favorite: the rich dark Benguet coffee that you can have ground straight from the bean and take home in a paper bag.
From town the city spreads itself out into various “suburban” area with names ranging from City Camp and Navy Base (courtesy of the American occupation) and gems like Honeymoon Holyghost (the best name ever!) Of course, there are various secret places and secret restaurants like the long-mourned Salud Bistro that the locals prefer to keep to themselves, or only show to trusted friends who won’t wreak havoc by telling the poseur out of town crowd who’ll go because it’s “cool”. Do you disagree? Check out Nevada Square. It used to be the best place in town.
Anyway, why am I writing about Baguio? The small town mentality is kicking in, that’s why. The same mentality that prompts my father to ask the lineage of all my Baguio based friends.
“Who’s that?”
“My friend Etc.”
“I see, who’s Etc’s dad/mom/great grandfather/homo sapien ancestor?”
“So and so.”
“Ah, I know him. I used to (insert information that will shock and allure here) with him.”
Hence, as Lisa says, you have to breed at least three generations in this city before people know who you are. The problem with that is that people generally meddle in everybody’s affairs AND those who usually have the power maintain the power (what a fatalistic point of view, I know).
Hence we come to the point of this blog. Read Baguio Insider Someone is planning to build a a 200M parking lot in Burnham Park. Not that I like Burnham Park or anything. My heart pounds whenever the rare event of crossing it at night has to happen.
It’s nice and all, but the flowers look slightly urine colored and the smell coming from the lake is horrendous. Apparently most residents take it as their own free toilet/dump. I took a boat trip there once for a film assignment and counted 12 Red Horse bottles. How dare you defile Red Horse that way, you cretins! Kidding aside, that would be an obvious thing to do right? Clean it up? I don’t know. My mother would say, hello Rose, you can’t even clean your room. But at least people don’t walk around in my room on a regular basis.
I love this city, as much as I whine and complain that it’s too cold and boring but I’d rather have a nice pretty San Fran-reminiscent city that a city full of useless edifices. Come on, City Hall! What the hell are you thinking? I thought we were over this with Vergara! I heard rumors that your planning sessions included making Baguio cleaner, greener and more beautiful. Yey for you if this pushes through. Arroyo gives you government land and the City (not you specifically Mr. Mayor, as you are a mayor but not exactly Sauron ruling Mordor with an iron fist) the City decides to exploit it for a freaking parking lot. If traffic is such a bad thing, why don’t you check on taxi licenses and jeepney routes?
Parking lots, overpasses and executive orders that don’t last are not the way. You bureaucratic dim bulbs. It makes me sad to see the city treated this way. Just sad. As my father is fond of saying, “Fools!”