Standing outside my condo balcony overlooking the city, you can see the poolside water mirroring the blue sky. Piercing high-rise buildings and condominium complexes are sprouting over the horizon.
The heat is tempered by the rain showering the city instantaneously—until the sun shines brightly again.
In exploring some of the city sights, palm-tree lined streets in high end hot spots like Greenbelt, Bonifacio High Street and Eastwood Plaza glittered with luxurious boutique stores and open concept resto-bars and lounges make you think you’re in LA, or as some would even compare it to Singapore.
Maynila is not just a city, rather a conglomerate of cities composed of many districts each with their own personalities and colour. But one thing is for sure: Malls are the life of the city. I live across Shangri-La Mall Plaza, that’s right next to SM Mega Mall, dwarfed by Mall of Asia, the third largest mall in Asia. Of course, these giants are surrounded by a clutter of smaller malls. Small by Philippine standards.
But plunked next to those places brimming with wealth and opulence are the nitty gritty informal settlements peppered across the city…mostly growing along the Pasig River. This is not uncommon in developing countries, as the disparity between the rich and poor get wider, grow starker, and where economic growth does not necessarily translate to better quality of life for the lower-income groups/neighbourhoods.
The crazy traffic, noise level, hustle and bustle of people filtering through the streets, cab drivers winding across unfamiliar roads, gigantic malls sprawling at every corner felt like going through this odd a sense of familiarity and strange newness of things. Although, I was born and raised here, sometimes seeing what has changed, and what hasn’t, is still a change for me, and adjustments have to be made.
