Text 23665, 68 rader
Skriven 2015-02-04 03:45:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: latest trip 161
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Back to home base, walking via the Buendia train station
(filthy and chaotic - though I'd planned on using public
transport, it was agreed that we would take taxis instead),
Gil Puyat Avenue, Ayala Avenue, and the Sacred Heart
Cathedral, an early 21st-century monument in the faceless
modern Catholic architecture style.

Showers in the middle of the day are a good idea.

I had been given the impression that Lilli wanted to see the
Glorietta and Greenbelt mall complex, so I dragged her down
there (a bit over a mile down Ayala) only to find that what
she really wanted to see was the Ayala Museum.

On the way we passed a McDonalds, actually several of them.
Someone partook gratefully. A Big Mac costs almost what it
does in the US.

We walked around Glorietta a little and noted Mad Max's,
which is supposed to be one of the best spots for a
popular-priced steak. No wine and beer license, but a
corkage arrangement. We noted all this for later (but
ended up not coming back).

Interesting that whenever you walk into a bank, shopping
center, or public building, you get either a hand search
or metal detected. I wonder what the incidence of armed
crime is here (it is certainly high down south).

The Ayala Museum, as it turns out, is a pretty worthwhile
destination. You start at the top, with its famous funerary
gold collection and assorted Asian ceramics, then go down
stairs to the art galleries that feature works of apparently
influential local artists Juan Luna, Fernando Amorsolo, and
Fernando Zobel. Another flight down brings you to a set of
60 dioramas that give a Cliff's Notes version of Philippine
history. We spent a happy couple hours here; the admission
is relatively high, but we thought it worth the expense. It
closes at 6, so we had just time to hustle back to the hotel
while it was light enough to ensure I wouldn't fall into a
hole or ditch (of which there are many, even in this fairly
civilized part of town). Allow an hour; double that if you
want to do the diorama thing.

In looking for places to eat near the hotel, one in
particular caught my eye - TJ Grill, according to Google
about 3 blocks away. Looked like a good place to get roast
meat and beer, so we went off to where we thought it should
be. Not there. Just another block or two, we kept saying.
Eventually we met a guy closing his shop who said he knew
the place and pointed still further down the road, so we
kept slogging on. Next thing we knew, we were way off near
the Cruz train station, no restaurant. Nothing promising
even when we fanned a block in one direction or another.
Defeated, we returned to the hotel, where drinks beckoned.
For about five times the price of the delicious crispy sisig
at Cash & Carry, the hotel served us (me, actually, though I
picked out a few safe morsels for Lilli to taste) a totally
different sisig, this one more like what I'm accustomed to -
a hash of pig parts (liver, ears, snout, skin, blood, with
some shoulder) seasoned with vinegar and topped with an egg.
This was also delicious but not as delicious, and in a
totally different way. It was a serving enough for a main
dish for two, despite its being on the appetizer list. 

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