New Year's Eve in Manila

This year, for the first time, we spent New Year's Eve in Manila. The last three years we have been away at this time, the first year to Victoria, the second to Laos and last year to Viet Nam. This year, our last in Manila, we wanted to be here to see The Show.

We were told that the fireworks displays, all over the city were something worth seeing. Fireworks are popular here. All through the year, every night somewhere in the city, there are fireworks. However, on New Year's Eve it is completely over the top.

Child buying firecrackers Source

Everyone seems to get in on it and there are a lot of really dangerous firecrackers sold on the streets in the weeks leading up to New Year's. There was a lot in the press about firecrackers. Every year people are maimed and sometimes killed from these things (as well as from guns being fired in the air). The group most affected and most likely to be injured are the male 10-20 goofball cohort, but also much younger children are often hurt. The press was all over it in the weeks before, urging people to be careful and printing gory pictures of maimed hands and fingers as warnings. Also there were articles about how to keep your pets safe that night when the noise is so extreme. Asthmatics, forget it, leave town.

The police also paraded their directives to the rank and file on TV and in the newspapers. Police were required to tape their guns closed in order to discourage the practice of shooting one's firearms into the air. The police. This is one of the more retarded things I've heard since I've been here and believe me there have been many. This may take the prize.

I particularly wanted to spend New Year's at our own home, which I felt would be the best front row seats in the city. We are on the 30th floor (more or less, it's kind of hard to tell with all the missing floors to accommodate one superstition or another). Our apartment building is shaped like a butterfly, or so the marketing materials say, and we have an unobstructed 180 degree, view over Manila and way beyond. Way across Manila Bay on a good day to the mountains in Bataan and out to the island of Corregidor. There are huge windows all the way around and the view is spectacular.

Here's an image of the floor plan of our place showing all those windows that I found on the building's website when searching for a photo of the building and views.

Photos taken from our windows:

What a night it turned out to be! In Manila the fireworks don't just go off at midnight as is the custom in some places. Here they started about 7:00 when it got dark and from our windows we could see little pops of sparkling color going off constantly all over the place, way way out in the distance, miles away.

By 11:00 after watching Martin Scorsese's concert documentary of the Rolling Stones, and afterwards listening to old Stones music CD's full blast, the outside show was intensifying so we took our, uh, bottles in hand (I was drinking virginal champagne cocktails, meaning no brandy) and set up the Sunset Viewing Chairs in the bedroom which has the best panoramic view of the city.  It was unbelievable, I can't begin to describe it properly. The noise and lights and colors went on and on at full intensity all over the city for about an hour and a half. The Polo Club as well as the "rich folk" neighborhood below us set off amazing professional displays that were going off right at eye level in front of us. For awhile I took pictures with my little Canon through the window and was amazed later at the results...

It was so exciting, a thrilling sight and will be forever a memorable New Year's Eve memory.

Postcript: The fireworks were more or less over by about 12:30. By 1:20 I started to sneeze and had to go get an antihistamine as the smoke and fumes had apparently seeped through our always closed windows. When dawn broke, the sight of the settled smoke blanketing the entire city was quite something. No energy to go get the camera, I wonder why.

Purgatory

Last night I set up a deck of cards and played solitaire. Not computer solitaire, rather a real game with a real cards. I had to take a break and I needed something that was pretty mindless, completely non-technical and also something tactile. Love this image by Nickolas Muray of a woman in jail playing solitaire. Hard time.

'Cause that's just what this feels like. For the last week, with more to come, I'm in computer hell.

I bought a new computer on January 3rd to replace my dead machine. I find that some things never change. It's as much a pain to set up a new computer now as it was 10 years ago or more. Nothing seems to be going easily, not everything was backed up properly, things need to be found or recreated, I've installed new, unfamiliar software to learn and all and all I expect it will be quite some time before I've settled in. Perhaps even in my lifetime...

I don't need to explain (complain) anymore - I know I'm preaching to the choir.