(... Just got back from a 4 hours straight rigorous productions of products...)
....I found my table full of tiny red ants in procession, travelling from the foot of the table directly to my bag!... gosh, you'd think something died in there and the first step of decomposition, that is the ant scavengers are starting to do their work... I kept on thinking what would make them go for my table... hmm... must be the crumbs of my pandesal this morning... my breakfast and lunch....darn... :(

cleaning is not my thing, oh, shit, they got to my chair too.. and they bite like crazy...grr...

Anyway, i've been thinking about intramuros since sunday after my brother who's doing his ROTC -part of his college units went there to attend some tree planting activity.
He got me irritated by asking ( for the nth time!) the best commuting route to Manila Cathedral.
Later that day, he relayed what happened to his day. He said he have seen my former university and was delighted to see the old canyon ruins on the walls of intramuros. I told him, that the manila city hall have restored the Wall to it's former grandeur and was maintaining it at that as a sort of tourist attraction.
I remember when I was a freshman and we have a 4 hours break. We will spend ( me and my newfound peers then) our free time walking the length of the wall around the Intramuros passing by the expensive restaurants in pre-spanish era style. The walls itself is priceless. If you will walk inside the walls, you'll passed by some locked out arsenal that leads to dungeons where most of the captive Filipino patriots were kept and interrogated.
My favorite place there would be the Garden behind my University. At the center of the garden is a circling stone stairs that leads up to the wall. A few more steps and you will be able to see the ruins of the battle canyons. That place have been featured in some chick flick tagalog story movie. I forgot the title.
The garden have a water reservoir made up of stone. It is what you will see first if you climb the stairs. It looks more like a round well that is not built below ground but over it. It's huge. It also overlooks the golf courses and occasionally one can find golf balls lying somewhere.
Then there's Casa Manila- an old spanish house that is open for public viewing. Back then it was only Php 5 to be able to enter and see the house. The bathrooms are antique and made of dark hard wood. The grandiose master bedroom's bed is big enough for five people to sleep with. It also have the big fan made of carpet that I first saw in Rizal's house in Calamba. The ceiling is kinda creepy in a way that it has a concave shape and full of smiling angels with eyes that follows you everywhere. I don't wanna be left there when the lights is turned off. That house has been used in a lot of tagalog movies that has a spanish era theme.

In front of Casa Manila is the rich San Agustin Church. Inside it are priceless antiques of saints icon. The marble floor of that church is actually tombstones of various spanish and filipino bourgeious of 1800s. There is a hidden garden within that area that can only be seen if you went inside the tomb museum and looked out the veranda. I was not able to get there. :(

Manila Cathedral is a mere walking distance from it and is also grand on it's own but san Agustin have a much more mystique appeal.
My university also have it's share of "old pre-spanish buildings". We call it gusaling lacson. It's where the college of arts and sciences is located and where I have spent most of my college days. .
Beside my university is the DOLE blg ( where most labor rallies end) and beside that is the Manila Bulletin. My friends and I would usually walk all the way to the city hall from our school, where we can get a ride home, the lrt and buses.
I remember the nightly squid balls, kikiam, and hotdogs on stick snacks.. the ow-so-delicious kikiam sauces that is for me remains unbeatable.
The sago, gulaman and melon
The hash brown potatoes from the cariton
The Pansitan and six sex four carinderia...
The mango shakes with evaporated milk...
the wanton noodles with refillable broth right past phoenix bldg...
The endless laughters and pedicab rides...
hmm.