Philippines Holiday

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Day 4

After breakfast, we were picked up by Lita's nephew Odie, to take us to the Green Hills Shopping Centre.

As usual, there is always much traffic, so progress was quite slow. In fact, one city street, which was really two-way, was fully taken up by traffic treating it as one-way, so we had to divert down a side street.

Once out of the Makati district, roads became narrower & buildings were much shabbier (than in the city). We passed through shopping areas, over the Pasig river (which seemed to have lots of green vegetation floating in it) & through the suburb of Mandaluyong.





We saw all types of housing on our journey ranging from Apartments, Slums to properties with very high fences (protected by barb wire or broken glass embedded in the walls).

There does not seem to be any real speed limits (the only exception appears to be around school zones).
To drive in Manila requires a grreat deal of Skill-I doubt whether even Sydney drivers could handle the conditions. Hazards abound when on the road - bicycles & tricycles, people walking beside or through traffic, jeepneys (stopping anywhere to pick up customers) & drivers not staying in their lane make it difficult.

Green Hills Shopping centre is like a gigantic version of Paddy's Market in Sydney with Market stalls & conventional shops.





The centre is well known for it's fake brands of popular merchandise. They sell all kinds of goods there from Shoes, Homewares, Food, Clothes, Plants, CD's, DVD's, Console & PC Games, Computers, Mobile Phones & other Electrical goods.

Halls (the size of a K-Mart), could be totally dedicated to one product i.e. Clothes or Mobile Phones.
The mobile phone hall must have had well over a 150 vendors, selling (& buying) phones & accessories, Ipod's, portable games etc.

All of us bought something - clothes, bags, wallets & even I bought a DVD movie (approx $A11).







We had a snack around 2:30 & then took a taxi back to Makati. Trying to hail a Taxi was difficult, but after about 15 minutes, Ruby was able to get one. The taxi driver, like most drivers, was a complete lunatic, squeezing into places in the traffic, that no Aussie driver would ever attempt. He must have beeped his horn at everything & anybody on or near the road.

In the afternoon I had a swim in the Pool, the afternoon was warm & sunny. I think, for the first time I could actually see over to the coast (most times because of the pollution & heavy clouds it was not visible).







In the evening, we had dinner at a Kenny Rogers Restaurant (themed after the singer of the same name).
On the way home, we bought a Apple coated with Marshmallow for dessert.





On the next day, Saturday, we move to our next Hotel.

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