First Impressions

Manila is quite different from what I had imagined it to be.

Based on the second- and third-hand information I had from family and friends - a typical conversation would go “Well, I heard it from Sheetal, who says her friend dated someone who had heard of the Philippines from his roommate who had a Lonely Planet guidebook to the Philippines” - I had expected it to be either:

(a) Squalid and unsafe, full of slums and corruption where the common man keeps body and soul together by playing guitar and dancing the Salsa or

(b) A happening expat hotspot with glass and steel skyscrapers reaching for the skies, apartments the size of football fields and a nightlife that refuses to end (work being a recreational activity)

Having spent a few days here, I can now say with authority that it is:

(c) Mumbai

(Come to think of it, the flight from Singapore does seem to make an unusually prolonged turn to get to a place that is effectively on a straight line path from there. Am I missing something here...?)

Are we in the Matrix?