Scenic dining

Harbour Square is a dining promenade located across the Cultural Center of the Philippines right beside Manila Bay. It has more than a dozen restaurants and cafés, and this is where my husband and I have an early dinner when we watch performances at the CCP. The three young ladies in black are waitresses, holding out menus and encouraging people to try whatever restaurant they're working for. Harbour Square is also where I've taken all my photos of Manila Bay so far. This was around 5:00 in the afternoon and the boat for the sunset cruise hadn't left yet.

The eve of Jesus' birth

Tonight, thousands of Filipinos will gather in churches for the Christmas Eve Mass, the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. When I was a child, I remember that it was truly a midnight Mass; nowadays, most churches celebrate it at 10:00pm. The cribs in nativity scenes in churches have remained empty throughout the Advent season, and it will be during tonight's Mass that the image of the baby Jesus will be installed. The custom used to be widespread in homes too, but no longer, as it means having to create a little ceremony for it. This almost life-size nativity scene, or part of it rather, is in Harbour Square beside Manila Bay.


In case we all get too busy tomorrow, I would like to greet you all now a blessed Christmas!

Night creatures

Personally, I like Harbour Square even more after the sun sets. The trunks of the coconut trees are wrapped in lights the whole year round, not just during the Christmas season.

Japanese again

Yet another photo of a restaurant's interior without a photo of the food. Lyra's going to wring my neck one of these days. I can't help it—I like looking at how interiors are designed, whether they be restaurants, offices or homes. Food, I care about the taste, and if the presentation is good too then that's just a bonus. Anyone who knows Filipino cooking also knows that that's the reason why there aren't many Filipino restaurants in the world—our food tastes great but there's hardly any way to present it prettily or appetizingly. But that's finally changing with young chefs and their fusion Filipino cuisine. Anyway, I digress. This is the Rai Rai Ken Ramen House and Sushi Bar in Harbour Square, where we ate just before we watched a play at the Cultural Center of the Philippines—the reason why I managed to take some photos of Manila Bay, three of which you've already seen. Eki asked if this is the one that Imelda Marcos built and if I had photos. Yes, she had it built but no, unfortunately I wasn't able to take photos of it. We usually take the side entrance because it's nearer the parking lot and that looks like nothing. One of these days… Again, I digress. Rai Rai Ken is considered Japanese fastfood, and is not a fine dining, 'authentic' Japanese restaurant. I don't think fine dining restaurants are franchised, are they? You can tell just based on the loud photo mural, similar to the one in Kitaro which I posted in June. So, which of the two interiors do you like better?

Luxury jeep

Metro Manila's king of the road, the jeepney, is open and sits about 14 people—two in front beside the driver and six on each side at the back. I saw this large, colorful jeep parked near Harbour Square one night and wondered about it. I knew that WOW Philippines is the flagship project of our Department of Tourism and it took a little web search to find out what this was. Basically, it's an air-conditioned jeepney—with more comfortable seats, I assume—specially made for tours of Metro Manila. There are several tour packages available, one of which brings you to the nearby province of Pampanga, but you can also buy a hop-on-hop-off ticket from hotel kiosks or from the tour facilitator inside the jeep. Jeepney Tours has a website which lists and describes all the stops and packages available. Though most of the hop-on-hop-off stops are in the cities of Makati and Manila only, one of these days I'll just hop on one of these jeeps and be a tourist for a day in my own metro.

Find more Odd Shots—or post your own—at Katney's Kaboodle.

Split hull

I do not know anything about this boat, even its name, which was just a string of numbers that my brain refused to remember. I just like how catamarans look. It was docked near Harbour Square last weekend when we went to the Cultural Center of the Philippines to watch The Nutcracker performed by Ballet Philippines and accompanied by the Manila Symphony Orchestra.

Corregidor: The tour facilities

The best way to tour Corregidor Island on your first visit is to take one of the packaged tours of Sun Cruises. The day tour only costs Php 2,150 (US$ 45) per person and that includes the two-way ferry trip, guided tour, buffet lunch and Malinta Tunnel show. Going through the guided tour even just once will make the experience of the island so much richer. The ferry station in Manila is beside Harbour Square in the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex and the ferry most often used by Sun Cruises for the Corregidor trip is the M/V Sun Cruiser II. It takes the ferry about an hour and fifteen minutes to cover the 26.6 km distance between Manila and Corregidor.



Nothing fancy inside the ferry, just seats for 285 people in two air-conditioned levels. There's a snack counter and an open area on the upper deck. The three rows in front of us were all Japanese tourists and there were also a lot of Americans (some of whom were in the U.S. Armed Forces), a Spanish family and a few other Europeans.



Lunch is served at the Corregidor Inn, the only hotel on the island. This is also where you stay if you decide to take the overnight package.



The bus which takes you on the guided tour is designed to look like the electric trams that were used extensively on the island during the American period. Malinta Tunnel still has the trolley line's double tracks and you can glimpse what remains of the tracks beside the roads and under the vegetation all over the island.



CORREGIDOR ISLAND SERIES #6 OF 7

Who's shooting whom?

I wasn't the only one taking pictures at the harbor last Saturday evening. I saw these three with their big cameras and fancy lenses and couldn't resist taking their photo with my itsy-bitsy camera. [No, I am not dissing it—I love my itsy-bitsy camera! I always bring it with me and it fits in the pocket of my tightest jeans and I can hide it in my palm.] We were all at the baywalk beside Harbour Square, a row of restaurants and cafés beside the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The boats behind them are the ferries which go to Corregidor Island, which was an important naval defense base during WWII and is now an historical and tourist site.

Live to dive

The Oceana Maria Scuba (OMS) is a live-aboard dive boat that can accommodate up to ten people in five cabins, aside from the captain, crew and divemasters. I guess it's the only way to go to dive spots that are not accessible by any other means, especially in the vast emptiness of the Pacific Ocean. Caught empty of divers and crew while docked beside Harbour Square in Manila Bay.

Floating fish

We saw a new restaurant in Harbour Square during our last visit, but afloat on Manila Bay rather than being a part of the complex. Does it look like it can actually sail? Even if it doesn't, if the dining area overlooks the bay, it might still be worth trying out. Mahi-mahi (Coryphaena hippurus) is a large fish found in warm seas; its flesh is firm, white and very tasty.

See what's reflecting what at James' Weekend Reflections.

Ramen

We've eaten at Rai Rai Ken Ramen House and Sushi Bar in Harbour Square so many times yet it was only during our last visit there that I noticed that their chairs are carved with their logo. Duh.

Shopping tour

I first posted a photo of this big, colorful, airconditioned jeepney in December 2008. I've seen it several times since then but only late at night, parked at the end of its tours in Harbour Square. I finally saw it in use at Bonifacio High Street. Apparently, the hop-on-hop-off route of Jeepney Tours includes many of the major shopping and dining centers of Metro Manila.

Land under construction

THEME DAY: UNDER CONSTRUCTION • The Cultural Center of the Philippines (including Sofitel Manila and Harbour Square which are in the same complex), SM Mall of Asia (currently the 4th largest mall in the world), and many of the luxury residential condominium buildings in Pasay City with fantastic views of Manila Bay and its gorgeous sunsets, all stand on land reclaimed from the sea. And it looks as if the sea is still trying to get some of it back.




What is man constructing all over the world? Let City Daily Photo bloggers show you. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.