Rediscovering Reinvented Cubao

I had spent my early childhood in San Juan, where we lived with the rest of my single titos and titas in a house that was owned by my paternal grandfather’s brother. I remember that my second brother (because my youngest brother was not born yet) and I would always look forward to visiting Cubao after hearing mass at Mt. Carmel every Sunday (after we relentlessly prod our parents to do so, or else we would only end-up eating at the nearby Broadway Centrum). Cubao was every middle-class family’s perfect getaway, which has everything the family needs. Dads could bowl or watch movies with the family at Ali-Mall (named after boxing legend Muhammad Ali). Moms could shop for almost everything at SM Cubao and the rest of the malls in the area. And kids dreamed of always going to the famous Fiesta Carnival. Before Time Zone, Worlds of Fun and Enchanted Kingdom, every kid in my generation had always wanted to visit the Fiesta Carnival. Cubao was always the place to be, especially during Christmas. Not only that you could find the best bargains in the area. In fact, Cubao is a crowd drawer during the Yuletide. Who could forget the Christmas shows at COD? Christmas seemed to incomplete if you had not watched a single Christmas Show at COD. For the younger generation, this the show that you can presently watch at the Greenhills Shopping Center. Who could miss the lighting of the Giant Christmas Tree at the Araneta Coliseum? Most of all, who among you have not looked forward to watch Disney on Ice every December also at Araneta Coliseum?
But with the advent of bigger malls, in Ortigas and Makati, Cubao seemed to have lost its glory. I have not really visited Cubao that often since we transferred to Cainta. In fact, the last time that I have been in Cubao was one year ago, April 30, 2004 to be exact. when I trooped the Araneta Coliseum to watch The Voice’s- Andrea Bocelli’s concert.
So it was a sort of a trip down to memory lane when I visited Cubao last Friday. It was like visiting an old friend that I have not seen for so long. Being in Cubao was like being in a familiar territory again. I went to the place with Dezza, my new-found friend that my friend Kim introduced to me one sad and dateless Valentine’s Day via the Yahoo Messenger (thank, God, there’s Yahoo!). We became instant chat mates and friends and have been constantly chatting for about three months now. Though we have already seen how each of us look like through modern technology, meeting each other in person was one thing that I looked forward to. We were supposed to meet up a number of times before, but something always gets in the way. Prior commitments, busy and conflicting schedules, and my graduate school work, among others always hindered us to plan and go on with our first meeting. It was a good thing that we were both free last Friday and we decided that it was the perfect time to meet up (because it was also a payday, hence we have money!). We agreed that the Gateway Mall was the best place to meet since it was accessible for the both of us. She lives in Las Piñas and Cubao was her usual route when she goes home. Likewise, I could easily ride an FX or jeep to Cainta from Cubao.
After seeing the Gateway Mall, Cubao seems to be bent on restoring, slowly but surely, its old glory. The mall connects all the important establishments in Cubao in a one big complex! It offers world-class amenities- fine restaurants, hip bars, really good movie houses, among others- that rival those of the leading supermalls in Metro Manila. One thing that I really liked about Cubao is that the place is somewhere people from all walks of life could go to. Kay coño, jologs o nasa gitna ka, ang Cubao ay para sa iyo (okay, this is too much advertising and the Aranetas should pay me here…a one-night stand with Bianca will do).
Dezza and I initially planned to eat at either Italianni's or Pizza Hut Bistro, as suggested by my good friend Jenny, who seems to really know the place. but decided to watch a movie first since we just both came from a small office gathering. After checking the movie schedules, we chose to watch Debra Messing’s and Dermot Mulroney’s "The Wedding Date", which is a nice movie to watch after a day’s hard work. In the movie, Kat (Messing) needs to attend the wedding of her spoiled half-sister where her ex-fiancé, that dumped her, is the best man. So as not to appear that she has not moved on, she hires the services of professional escort Nick (Mulroney) to act as her significant other. She instantly becomes a hit in her family and friends, not to mention someone that everybody is envious of, when she introduces Nick to her family and friends. And like any other romantic movie, what started as a purely professional relationship develops into a romantic one- and the two falls for each other. We enjoyed the movie as much as we enjoyed our two seatmates (two middle-aged women), on our left, who seemed to be really very happy with the movie- they were giggling (very loudly) at almost every scene.
Two scenes from the movie really struck me (yes, I make mental notes when I watch movies). First is what Nick told Kat when Kat was too afraid to let Nick love her. And Nick told her that "The hardest part of love isn’t loving someone, by having the courage to let them love you back." And the other one is when Nick left and Kat was so confused if she should go after him and tell her what she really felt. And then his stepfather said, "Since childhood, you were always trying to do what other people expected you to do. It’s time that you do what your heart tells you" (or something to that effect). Maybe, in the future, I should write about why these scenes and movie dialogues have really affected me.
After the movie, we decided to eat at the Pizza Hut Bistro, since both if us have not tried that restaurant yet. The restaurant was, in every way, like your ordinary Pizza Hut- only that it served pasta (not just Fettuccine Alfredo). An attendant led us to a very good table, located near the window from where we could see all the bright lights of Cubao. Since we were not that hungry, we just shared the Penne with Tomato Sauce and the New Orleans Chicken that we ordered.
Meeting Dezza was something that I have always looked forward to. With the YM chats that we usually have, I just figured out that we have many things in common. And true enough, it seemed that we never ran out of stories to tell and topics to talk about last Friday. It helped that we shared common friends and acquaintances and are from the same college of the same university. You could say that we "talked" the night away and before we knew it, it was already a few minutes past 11 PM. The waiter asked us if we already asked for the bill, when in it was very obvious that we still have not. Wow, I guess that was a polite way of saying that they were already closing shop and that we already need to go. After being "forcibly" cast-off from the restaurant, we decided to end the night, I walked her where she could get a bus to Las Piñas and I then went home straight to Cainta. Well, it was just another wonderful evening.