Day 8: Lost In Manila

If anyone knows me then you know that I have no sense of direction. I walked out of my hotel today looking for the Mega Mall of Manila. This mall was once the biggest mall in Manila before the Mall of Asia was built (Which is the biggest mall in Asia). I was following a map that the hotel provided me and the map wasn't very good. So as I was walking down the street I started to ask people where my destination was. The first person I asked turned out to be looking for the same mall. The ironic thing was she had a map that she was following that wasn't very good too. What are the odds? Two people trying to find the same place; at the same time; with two different bad maps; how funny. The mall was ridiculously big. It was 4 stories high and about 4 to 5 blocks long. To think that there is a mall bigger than this one in the same city is incomprehensible. I couldn't really do much at the mall because I didn't have any cash and there aren't many places in Manila, or in the Philippines for that matter, that take American credit cards. So I cut the visit to the Mega Mall short and started walking back. The only problem was, like I said before; no sense of direction. To make a long story short it took me a good hour and a half to get back to my hotel. But it was okay that was my plan. To get lost in a city of a new country that I've never been before. Being lost gave me the opportunity to see the city during it's business hours. Manila reminds me a lot of San Francisco. It's fast pace; it's busy streets; it's beautiful big buildings and it's traffic mirrors that of San Francisco. Not only that but its pretty expensive in Manila; which only adds to the similarities with Frisco. Tomorrow I plan on going to another mall called the Greenbelt Mall and an open air market that is known for it's great street food and being jam-packed with people. Can't wait to take pictures of it.