I'm on a Boat

Just a short post this week: on Saturday evening I went for a little dinner cruise around Manila Bay, which provided a good occasion for some pictures of the Manila skyline, albeit at night. (I should highlight just how huge Manila is: Metro Manila has about 12.9 million people, according to 2015 numbers -- http://www.nso-ncr.ph/. That puts Manila on par with cities like Kolkata/Calcutta, Lagos, and Los Angeles. The Metro Manila area includes about 15 separate municipalities.)

Here is the aforementioned boat, where dinner was served:

One of the passengers was celebrating a birthday, which the crew and the musicians announced at least 10 times. It made me think of my dad, because of how much he loves that.

But here is seaside Manila at twilight:

The pier from which we left is off a small peninsula which juts out into the bay off the city, which stretches up and down the coast, and then continues inland. Here's that peninsula, which has casinos, a large mall (more on that in a bit), and hotels.

And, they just happened to do a little fireworks show--just for me, I'm sure.

So, back to malls. Manila, and the Philippines as a whole, is mall-crazy. Right on the peninsula with the pier is a gigantic mall, the Mall of Asia. (I think there should be a World Series of Malls, with the Mall of Asia vs. the Mall of America.) I just have a small piece of it here; just imagine this, but continuing forever.

This is terrible, but whenever I'm near a mall, I can't help but think of the Blues Brothers, and thus I will leave you with that edifying question, "Yes, do you have a Miss Piggy?"