Pinoy in Singapore

Singapore ranked 79th in the Top 100 World Destinations and 4th in the Top 25 Destinations for Asia according to the choices of members from TripAdvisor.com.

One member described Singapore as:

A land of diverse cultures and traditions, yet everything complements one another, making for a city that seems perfectly in balance.

.. and I agree. There are so many people of different races living in harmony in Singapore. It’s such a modern place with all the amenities and the buzz of a first world country yet one can still see traditions and culture alive.

Sadly, there is no Philippines anywhere on the list and I think that’s an outrage. Just last night, Mr. Tsiken and I was watching this show about Bangkok on Travel and Living and I asked him why don’t they do a similar feature on Manila.

It’s unfortunate how Bangkok could place 10th and Kuala Lumpur at 23rd and not a single place from the Philippines. I’ve been to both places and I wasn’t really that impressed. My first thought when I got to KL was it looks like Manila except they have better high ways. My first thought when I got to Bangkok was it looks like Maynila – like Quiapo, Manila and that song “One night in Bangkok makes a hard man crumble” kept playing in my mind.

They’re no more beautiful than Manila. There’s Greenhills and Tiendesitas for shopping and we even have the world’s biggest malls. We have a red light district in P. Burgos, Makati too. There’s a party hotspot at The Fort and in Makati. There used to be Intramuros and the Manila Bay area for tourists until Mayor Lim wanted to erase whatever has signs of Mayor Atienza. So now it’s just back to plain old Intramuros where you can’t even take pictures (last I heard).

I think Bangkok is just as “unsafe” for tourists, just as dirty, and traffic is just as congested as Manila is.

A couple of random cab drivers here in Singapore told me that Pagsanjan was beautiful, another said Baguio, though I think they were there during the 80′s and I was thinking to myself – that’s not even on my list.

We have so many beautiful beaches! Don’t they count at all? What about Tagaytay – a volcano within a volcano, Chocolate Hills, Hundred Islands, Palawan, Pagudpud, Whale watching in Bohol, Whale Shark interaction in Bicol… and the list goes on.

Our food, be it fine dining or street food, is muy bien. I love adobo, sisig, lechon, papaitan (specially my father-in-law’s papaitan – the best!), chicharon bulaklak, caldereta, sinigang na tyan at panga ng maya maya sa miso, (my mom’s) kare-kare! … (salivating)

It’s actually very distinct from the other Southeast Asian food because ours are sweet, sour, and salty (I have to stop myself from saying Nano, Nano…) compared to other Asian food that’s mostly spicy. And I really believe we speak better English than our Asian neighbors which should be an advantage for our country’s tourism.

There’s something for everyone – from posh travelers to backpackers.

Whatever happened to the “More than the Usual” ads. They were awesome and they captured our country well.

And there was this other nice video too where it starts with a shot of a stretch of really white sandbar against the pristine blue waters and then the caption said something like – Don’t like this one? … We have 7,106 more…

Hello??? Department of Tourism? Anyone home? I see so many tourism ads for other countries why haven’t I seen one for ours.