Many assume that the entirety of Metro Manila is the same. But living in the part of the region that isn't either an urban metropolis or a poverty documentary hotspot, the sorts of places you get in a lifestyle magazine are a ways (and means) from me. Funny then that I start like this when I'm just going to do a quick update on a dental visit.

Manila is a city that's grown on itself as time passes, and it shows with its old buildings still standing aloft the new ones being made next to them. Residents live amongst pieces of history as they carve their own in this place that has been messy even before Legazpi staked his claim.

Last January 20, my family paid a visit to a dentist who's more or less family (they're second cousins). The car trip involves a transition from the loud and modern bustle of Quezon City to the aged streets of Manila, stuck in time yet it moves along. 

We arrived at the office over at Lacson Avenue, which is just a walk from my university. The place itself looks like a living room that someone rearranged into a dental clinic. The front lobby is about 2 feet by 5 feet large with a TV next to a fridge. Separated by glass is the clinic proper, inside is a desk and two chairs, one awfully close to the door. There is air conditioning but it's hard to notice. I had some time to kill before my turn so I did a bit of a stroll to the old road where I'd get a bit to eat in my college days, Dapitan Street. Some of the old buildings still stand, but there were new faces made and old faces being torn down, the area around the university still prone to change as ever.

I had no time to enter the university proper but the differences in the street I regularly walked for years from a decade ago and now are noticeable.

As for my teeth, I had a cleaning and a rather deep filling, there will be a return visit, maybe I'll actually jot down something for another piece; our attempt at trying out a famous eatery ended on a closed shop.