Binondo

It's Chinese New Year tomorrow so my friends and I went to Binondo to have even a glimpse of this Chinese festivity. The traffic was bearable but when we arrived, the streets of Binondo are already crowded. It's actually my first time to visit this place and Chinese feels are really engulfing over me. It's like I am in another country because even the establishments are written in Chinese alphabet. Binondo Church was the first thing that attracted me. I also saw "Kalesas" but we were not able to ride. We went walking to explore the place and to find a good restaurant to satisfy our hunger. On the streets we saw charms, fruits, figurines and lots of Tikoy. Dragons, big or small are also everywhere. One was dancing in front of a store and another one was doing the same on the other store. I thought that this could be a ritual to attract good luck for the business. We were able to reach Manila China Town and even more people, some are Chinese, some are half and still many are Filipinos, welcomed us there. Some stores were full of people and vendors are everywhere. We searched for a restaurant, particularly Wai Ying as it was recommended to us by a friend.

Wai Ying was also full of people. We did not even found a vacant table and seat right away. But after a few minutes, we were able to settle down  and read the menu. Their menu was quite new to us and the food are expensive. We don't usually eat at a Chinese restaurant and we are not very familiar with their menu so we asked for assistance but no one attended to us until our second call. Moreover, when we asked the crew about the food, he could not answer us. He told us that he's just new in the place. Therefore, we resorted to just picking anything that looks familiar. When the order came to us, we were quite disappointed because they are not the actual thing we have in mind. Anyway, we just ate them all up although we were not really satisfied. I also do not know if I'm just not used to eating a Chinese restaurant or the food is not really delicious. The service was also lame. The utensils given to us were not complete and orders were not recorded properly. We did not have a good time in Wai Ying but we enjoyed the Binondo experience. We would definitely go back to Binondo and will probably not consider Wai Ying anymore.