During the last decade of the 19th century, in 1896, a Spaniard by the name of Pertierra, prepared to launch his first movie show in Manila at Christmas Time. The venue was to be at Salon de Pertierra, which he established nine months earlier as the Phonograph Parlor on the ground floor of the Casino Espanol at Calle Perez, off the Escolta. But for some reasons still unknown to this writing, Pertierra failed to make his presentation despite several published announcements to this effect. The show kept being postponed until the New Year.

Finally, on January 1, 1897, the first four movies namely, Un Homme Au Chapeau (Man with a Hat), Une scene de danse Japonaise (Scene from a Japanese Dance), Les Boxers (The Boxers), and La Place de L’ Opera (The Place L’ Opera), were shown via 60mm Gaumont Chrono-photograph projector at the Salon de Pertierra at no. 12 Escolta.

Other countries, such as France, England, and Germany have their claims to the introduction of publicly projected motion picture but the corresponding credit should have been given to Mr. Pertierra and the centennial anniversary of the first movie shown in the Philippines should have been commemorated on January 1, 1997

Manila has a lot of stories to tell. From the little girl who sells sampagita along Quezon Ave. to the old man overlooking the metro from his Makati penthouse, there is no shortage of interesting characters in Manila, each with his own story to tell.

City Lights, a collection of short narratives, attemps to capture the colorful stories of seemingly familiar people residing in Manila. While fictional, each character’s story is brought to life so potently you’d swear you must have bumped into this person at least once in your Manila life. There are stories of strangers in transit, salesladies from department stores, old beggars — perhaps you’ll find part of your life’s story in the book too.
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Reports say that last Monday, one of the bumper cars from Star City’s Kiddie Bumper Ride “emitted sparks and smoke.” No one was hurt, but the bump car accident did trigger panic among the parents of the three-year-old passenger. It was also reported that the Star City staff did not immediately respond to the crisis. The park has been ordered to close down temporarily for maintenance checks. More here.

Techie Metrobloggers will be glad to get the heads up on the latest look you can get for your babies (Ah, yes. Techies treat their gadgets as if these are their offsprings).

Malling is not entirely useless after all. I was window shopping last Saturday and discovered GMask Bauty Wrap. It’s a store that specializes in giving your gadgets a new look (a beauty wrap), and protection to boot.

The store gives all sorts of gadgets (cellphones, mp3 players, pocket PCs, and laptops) a new look. It works this way: you choose the design of the wrap that you want, you let them estimate how much of the wrap your gadget will need, and you wait for them to jazz it up. The wraps are made from Japan and are available in many designs.

I visited the GMask shop in Greenbelt 1 to just ask around. I was astonished by the look of the laptop they wrapped they have on display. It was freakin freezing. The photo I took was of their shop in Glorietta in front of Bench. I took it before I noticed the sign on their booth saying that photos were not allowed. Yaiiks.

Where in Metro Manila can you still find public utility kalesas? Not counting the kalesas in Intramuros and Luneta which are basically for tourist sight-seeing, authentic kalesas that you can hire to take you to where you want go ply CM Recto Avenue going to Divisoria.
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apple has released the new iPod Nano. it comes in 5 colors; it differs from the old one because, according to apple, it has a brighter screen and up to 24-hour battery. i want one…can someone send me one? hehehe. joke. i have the old 20gb iPod and it’s still reliable…right now, i have 3,728 songs stored in the gadget that can have a continuous playback of 10.2 days. i have everything there, marketing/business podcasts, songs (inc. paris hilton’s “stars are blind” - hehehe), learning mandarin, etc. so you, what do you have in your iPod? how often do you use yours?

PS: i’m not really a writer. so forgive me for my grammatical errors! :-)

If you do a lot of standing around and walking in Metrowalk, you’ll understand the need for that foot massage. Or maybe after a heavy meal in one of their many restaurants, you’d want to relax and get a body massage. I’ve seen The Metrowalk Spa lots of times but always passed by it because of its uninviting exterior.

I’ll tell you right away that it doesn’t look like much on the outside. It looks more like a hospital clinic than it does a spa. Even the lobby leaves much to be desired. The receptionist, while looking very clean and pretty in her silk kimono, was impatiently whining on the phone about being alone at the front desk. My husband and I wondered if we were doing the right thing, wanting to get a foot massage there in Metrowalk.
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There’s an obscure fine restaurant at one of the side streets by Gilmore Avenue in New Manila called The Big Little Store. Seemingly lost in the hub of IT shops and computer centers, there is (paradoxically) a local feel to their mostly inexpensive Korean, Chinese and Japanese dishes.

I spent less than an hour during my first dining adventure there yesterday, but it was long enough to ascertain that I’ll be back. The carenderia-type food counter from which you can order features a wide mix of courses (spicy adobo, spicy sautéed pork chops, sushi/ maki, kikiam, siomai in perhaps the only perfect chili sauce I’ve known), and among these you must simply try the lumpia shanghai. There are also tasty alternatives served in healthy servings: miki soup, fish ball soup, crab egg, quail eggs, (huge!) tofu, and an assortment of mixed vegetables you’d be hard-pressed to simply call “chopseuy”.

All right, maybe the glimpse I’ve offered of the menu isn’t that special, but rest assured, The Big Little Store is not your ordinary oriental cuisine restaurant. And it’s far more than an authentic street food store. It’s an Asian market, in every sense - I felt as if I was in one among a row of Japanese bistros. There are Aji Ichiban-type stalls and racks from which you could bring home the perfect pasalubong (even though I was unable to decipher the scrawls on the packages): haw flakes, imported green tea, hopia, all sorts of Chinese cooking ingredients, bottles of wines and spirits, and other such things you wouldn’t find in your local palengke.

Careful on the appropriately detoxifying green tea, though. It kept me up all night.

For more information, please call 723-6881.

The Development Bank of the Philippines is launching an Interisland Race to promote domestic tourism via Ro-Ro.

Ro-Ro, which stands for Roll-on Roll-off vessel, is a cheap alternative to getting from one island to another. Of course, it takes a lot more time to get from Point A to Point B and we all know how wonderful our local ships are, but heck, that’s all part of the thrill, right? Right.
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Have you been to Little Tokyo? Situated right across Makati Cinema Square’s Plaza Fair is a quaint little set of Japanese restaurants. You can easily miss it if you’re driving, so keep your eyes peeled for that red structure with the silver letters. You can park by their Pasong Tamo entrance, or you can park in MCS and go shopping after. Here’s a glimpse of Little Tokyo.
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