I’m setting down an account of my journey through this virus era. I’m piecing it together as I go through photos, emails, messages, a very few journal entries I made, and my wife, Jill, and my recollections. This story began in the May 7, 2021 post.
The next day Jill found a breakfast diner that we could walk to; It was a mile away, but we had our phone maps for directions. We discovered our high-rise apartment complex didn’t quite fit into its surroundings. We were next to the river which was a concrete canal. All the buildings around ours were much older and limited to 3 stories. It was relatively early in the morning and the streets were pretty deserted. Our route took us mainly through these 3 story row houses. Everything was a little grey from the exhaust. I began wearing a carbon mask to filter some of the CO out. I carried around some carbon masks and a couple N95 masks from experience in Beijing and Shenzhen.
My breakfast was a greasy plate of eggs, rice, sausages, and amazing fried bananas. They were like eating candy. After this experience with Filipino bananas, I sought out bananas on this journey in whatever form I could get my hands on. The coffee was not so good but we held our noses and drank it. We wandered down a new route back to our apartment and discovered a lively street with some markets and junk shops. It was the weekend and families were outside. There were no front yards just doors, sidewalks, and dirty streets. People were outside in the sun washing things, and talking.
We went out to buy some new clothes for our surprise 3-week vacation, we walked over to a mall, there are many malls in Manila. I had identified some places to visit using the Maps.me app. We took a Grab car to the mall and decided we could walk back via a foot bridge over the river according to my map. The Grab app worked great with my new Filipino phone number. We were at the mall in no time. It was a mall like many others, there were people, escalators, promenades, and brand name stores.
We didn’t find anything we wanted at this mall. So, we started our journey home. We discovered that the bridge on the map didn’t exist anymore and a construction zone was in its place. We took another taxi back to our temporary home.
