Real Living Space

During the second part of the tour, we ventured into the armpit of Binondo—its labyrinthine streets whose names I do not remember. Along the way, I spotted more rundown but fab buildings. I love standing in the LRT because I enjoy seeing old buildings like these. Take a look at the super-retro façade of Ansons…

…and the art deco façade of the famous President’s restaurant. If you take a look at the rectangular panels, it has those trademark deco swirls and flowers.

We stopped by Salazar Street for amazing fried siopao. They also make extra-crisp bicho-bicho, which I totally enjoyed.

Then it was off to my favorite place in the tour, the Uy Su Bin building, site of the New Po Heng Lumpia House. It stands on a street that was one of the few places in Manila that wasn’t carpet-bombed during the Liberation, so everything’s original art deco.

Don’t you just love the building’s door? Check out the Streamline Moderne railings! It looks like a New York apartment entrance.

Here’s their famed lumpia. It tastes much better than it looks in the photo, promise. It’s packed to the gills with veggies, peanuts, ground meat.

Uy Su Bin building used to be a hotel in its heyday. I can imagine that, because it has a quaint courtyard with fountain (which I didn’t shoot because they had doormats drying on top of it), and high ceilings with vintage ceiling fans that stirred the air. Very much like those small, shophouse-style hotels in pre-war Singapore.

And the capitals of their columns are fab!

Terrie and I wanted to explore the area further, but the sky looked like it was ready to pour. Meanwhile, check out the other tours at www.oldmanilawalks.com. It’s totally worth it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 2:57 pm and is filed under Arts And Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.