Makati City: A Rough Guide to the Urban Jungle
Makati City as many would probably already know, is the business capital of Metro Manila. It is also home to a large recreational area filled with shopping malls, restaurant arcades and sprawling hotels. It is easily digested and you would probably know your way around in as little as a month, but for the real novice, this rough guide is for you.
Makati City is basically a pulsing city with Ayala Avenue as its main artery. Intercepting this highway are three other major roads, Paseo de Roxas, Makati Avenue and Buendia Road. Ayala Avenue starts from the national highway EDSA and ends just past Buendia Road.
At the EDSA end, you will see many landmarks, starting from the Hotel Intercontinental which straddles the national highway. Further on is a cluster of malls, namely SM, which connects to Glorietta, which connects to Landmark, which connects to Greenbelt. Somewhere in between these malls lie the Shangri-La Hotel and The Peninsula Manila.
SM, Glorietta and Landmark are retail paradise, and is a great place to do moderate-budget shopping in. Glorietta has many familiar foreign brands such as Marks and Spencer, Nine West, Zara, Mango and so on. SM and Landmark are department stores that specialize more on local merchandise, and likewise lower in price. If you’re looking to shop for stuff to take back home to your folks, this is the budget-friendly places to be. If you’re looking for high-end shopping with brands such as Bulgari, Gucci, Burberry and the lot, Greenbelt is for you. Greenbelt is also great as it houses everything: shopping areas, coffee shops, restaurants, parks, and in the middle, there’s even a church. If you still haven’t quite had the mall rush in here, a fifty peso cab ride will take you to Rockwell, another high end mall a few minutes away that is also surrounded by businesses, condos and restaurants.
Makati City is flanked by some of the most exclusive villages in the metro, such as Urdaneta, San Lorenzo, Bel-air, and so on. It’s also bordered by tall condominiums that house the few Filipinos who can afford them, and the fair share of expats. Makati city, however, stretches far beyond the affluence of this district, and has a fair share of real-Manila, which can be a culture shock to some. Traveling outside the comforts of the business district of Makati requires a seasoned veteran, and is not recommended for the first timers.
But should you venture out into the relatively friendly back streets of Makati (not deep into its bowels though), you might stumble into some great finds. Notable places are: Saguijo, a house converted into a bar that features homegrown rock music; Soms, a huble Thai restaurant that serves mean cuisine, owned by a Thai businessman and his Filipina wife; Min Sok, a no-nonsense Korean Restaurant owned by a friendly Korean Family.
Going one by one will take a guidebook, but at least you already have some references to start with. Makati is a paradox in the sense that in some places it is more urban than a jungle, but in most it is more of a jungle. But get to know her and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t mind getting a bit lost.
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