Ayala and Sunset over Manila Bay.

I woke the next morning, packed up my bag and checked out, leaving my bag with the others in the hall. I've been testing the notion that Asia is incredibly free of crime throughout my time here, and so far it seems to be holding, even in places like Manila, where the taxi drivers lock their doors between fares.

I headed out to the local grocery store (PureGold) and there bought water, a cheese spread called Eden, and a snack cracker sort of thing. The cheese spread wasn't too bad, imagine a cross between laughing cow and velveeta, but the snack cracker had a filling that was "hot dog and cheese flavoured" and was one of the most horrible things I've tasted. Imagine one part bad 'cheez' from American snack crackers, one part poorly made liverwurst, and one part honey, and you've got the idea. It was wretched. I threw the rest of them away, and forgot to get a picture first, unfortunately. So it's difficult for me to warn the rest of you using a photograph with the giant international NO symbol stamped over it.

Anyway, I spent the entire afternoon at the Ayala Museum. Created as a combination of art, cultural, and historical museum for the Filipino people, it is, of course, in a mall.

Since I arrived during lunch, I decided to catch the Lunchtime Mass at the nearby Church-in-the-Mall that you might remember from my previous writings. Here's a different view of it. The mass was pretty much identical to all the others I've attended throughout the world, save that half the hymns were in Tagalog and the homily's English was heavily accented, not with the Polish softness I've become accustomed to, but instead the Philippine's curious and unique lilt. The best I can call it is the audio equivalent of an entire meal of Tapas wrapped in an egg-roll.

Anyway, Mass completed, I was off to Ayala museum.

The museum spans four floors, with the top currently being information about ceramics, gold, and native fabric. Apparently the Philippine people were importing Chinese ceramics long before the Spanish arrived, their clothing was already fairly sophisticated, and they were wearing gold adornments that involved basic smelting and some advanced metalwork. I saw four kilograms of gold woven into a chain (likely a ceremonial sash-style holster for a weapon) and it made your mouth turn to ash just to stare at it. Here was almost ten pounds of gold, strictly for decoration. Remarkable stuff really.

The third floor was work from the Philippine artist Zeldo, and it was some of the more compelling abstract work I've seen--really different use of textures and lines that he developed originally through a series of experimental paintings made using hypodermic needles. Cool stuff, in the end.

The second floor was where things got really interesting. There was the Ayala Diorama collection, 60 tiny scenes from Philippine history chronicling the story from early hunter-gatherer groups all the way up to the 1940s when the US finally restored freedom to the Philippine nation.

There was an audio guide that went along with it that gave great detail and insight, and I spent almost three hours in this part of the museum, pouring over each scene and listening to the stories. It's a remarkable tale of oppression by Spaniard, Catholic, British and Yankee alike, and by the time you reach the scenes near the end showing the combat between US soldiers and Philippine guerilla's, it's hard not to root for your own men to be shot down, retroactively.

When my visit there was over, I took LRT back to Taft Ave and then walked to the Mall of Asia. I was under the impression this would only be a kilometer, but it seemed to be about three, and took me more time than I expected.

I walked there because it had one of the best views of the Bay of Manila, which officially I hadn't seen yet. The sun was just setting, but the cloudcover was thick and a haze had settled on the city. Visibility was low, and there was no real hope for a good view, so I didn't bother with my camera. In all, it felt like a summary of my entire experience with Manila--beautiful and haunting, but also less than it really should have been.

Perhaps next time I can manage to avoid being there while I'm sick, and there is a Typhoon on.

I caught a taxi to my hotel, and another from hotel to Airport, and managed to walk almost directly onto the plane. I had cut it quite fine because I hadn't assumed there would be much traffic on the road, but it all turned out ok, and I arrived in Singapore around midnight and found another taxi (much more expensive--welcome back to the first world) to take me to a hostel. I'm staying in the Little India district, an I think I might spend some time walking around this afternoon and then attempt a visit to the Night Zoo, which is supposed to be one of Singapore's more interesting attractions. We'll see.