Today, if I still have your attention, is all about why Baguio & Manila, Mexico and New York are my next stops.
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Baguio & Manila
I'm actually cheating here, because while Baguio is always great place for people like myself who melt upon exposure to heat, I really want to go to Baguio and Manila circa 1980s. -You know before the major earthquake that struck the Philippines. If you've seen Mike de Leon's Kung Mangarap Ka't Magising, Elwood Perez' Diborsyada, then you might have a pretty good idea of what the old Baguio was like, with the Hyatt Terraces Hotel still standing, the mini-golf course still pretty clean, and the crowds not as suffocating as they are now. I believe I mentioned this in an earlier entry.
I've also spoken about the old Manila, with its uncluttered skylines with accompanying blue skies. And the fun park inside the Greenhills, which the characters in the 1984 movie Tender Age visit. Read more about it here : Pop! Someone's been watching Pinoy Klassiks Rewind again!
I also give the movie Pare Ko points for capturing the quintessence of the early to mid-1990s Manila for middle class youths. While I was younger than the characters of the film when it came out, I could somehow relate because I had an older brother and cousins who were the same age as Claudine Barretto and Jao Mapa at the time. I'd love to go back to Manila of the 1990s when plaid and Doc Martens were fashionable.
Mexico
Now, If I only had the Speedy Gonzales cartoons to go on, Mexico wouldn't be on my list at all. Mexico, if the cartoons are to believed, is HOT and DUSTY and pretty much just that. Plus, Mexican mice could run faster than the Mach 5. No thanks. I'd rather have my bubonic plague served late and cold.
But, when I discovered Mexican cuisine via an episode of Two Hot Tamales on the iChannel which had the girls cooking a quail with roses, and through the 2001 film Tortilla Soup (incidentally, the Two Hot Tamales, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger did the food styling for this film), and Laura Esquivel's fantastic novel Like Water for Chocolate, my mind was changed.
One just cannot go through the show, movie and book without coming out salivating for any of the dishes featured within. It is because of these mouth-watering delicacies from south of the border (the US-Mexico border, of course) that I was obsessed with the idea of going to Mexico to learn how to cook. I would've gone even if I had to go busking. (Which, in hindsight, is totally retarded because I'm maarte.)
While I haven't given up on mastering how to prepare the cuisine and inf fact, I'm still hoping to master the molé soon, I've decided I'm not going to be a street performer where it's hot. (This is beside the fact that I have no performing talent whatsoever.)
New York
I've been to New York once but, save for the fact that I was able to see Rent playing at the Nederlander Theatre with Mel B (aka Scary Spice) as Mimi, it was a bit of a mess. -The MoMA was closed for repairs and we couldn't, for the life of us, find Isamu Noguchi's garden.
That said, I still haven't completely given up hope that New York City is one of my spiritual homes. The concept of having all that art, culture, and cuisine within one's reach makes my head spin with excitement.
I'm not daft though, I realize that to be able to properly enjoy that city, I'd probably have to be as rich as the characters in Everyone Says I Love You who lived in a Manhattan penthouse and had the luxury to shuffle back-and-forth from NYC to Paris or Venice. (It would probably be fun to live in THEIR New York, where people just randomly broke into song.)
Or you know, according to Dora Diamond (Mena Suvari) from the 2000 film, Loser, it's quite possible to have fun in the Big Apple without having to spend so much with tricks like sneaking into the second act of Broadway shows when the smokers who step out of the theatre go back in, or getting free coffee in Central Park.
It'd probably also be nice to be a kid in New York, if the city's depiction in Little Manhattan or Home Alone 2 is to be trusted. Okay, maybe the latter is a dream come true, being stuck in FAO Schwarz and having all those toys at my disposal would be awesome (I can easily say so now, too) as would beating up robbers with Rube Goldberg-like contraptions. Little Manhattan's portrayal of a child falling in love for the first time in a city as large as Manhattan is more realistic and precious.
Speaking of falling in love in New York, this is a theme put to good use by tour guide-writer-performance artist Timothy "Speed" Levitch in the documentary film "Live in Shiva's Dancefloor", and in Richard Linklater's animated movie "Waking Life". In both movies, Levitch speaks of his love for the city and life but while Live speaks of New York directly, I only assume that Levitch's scene in Waking Life was filmed on the Brooklyn Bridge. It seems apt, anyway, as Speed is a known denizen of the Big Apple.
In any case, although I may not understand a lot of Speed's philobabble (I say this with all due respect, sir), his enthusiasm excites me and makes me want to make the trip back to his beloved city.
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To conclude : Japan. (And I'll see if I can come up with something else.)
