Tourista Tourista!

I was feeling a little gypped on this vacation. Everyone else was traveling and doing other exciting things, and I was nursing a flu-sick husband back to health (twice--can you say wussy?). So, inspiration struck--if you can't travel out of Manila, be a tourist IN Manila! Despite our active social life in the city, we really haven't done that much sightseeing around town yet. So I looked up the schedule of my friend, Carlos Celdran, owner and operator of Walk This Way. Carlos's tours are really one-man performance art that use the bricks and mortar of Manila to illustrate a thoughtful, multi-cultural perspective of this city's history. Here he is in his General MacArthur garb, ready to talk about World War II's impact on the people and city of Manila:
Intramuros truly is the heart and soul of Manila (which was one of the essential themes of Carlos's talk), and it has always been my favorite part of the city. Despite being repeatedly destroyed by earthquakes, fires, and heavy artillery, parts of the old city stubbornly remain, like San Augustin church, the only one of seven original churches built by the Spanish that still stands. Though it was Wednesday, our tour caught a wedding in progress. Yes, they eventually do let the bride inside.
Carlos opens your eyes to the beauty and tragedy of this city, and it's clearly a labor of love. The Cebu Pacific inflight magazine Smile wrote a great piece on how he is one of the local heroes of the Philippines. He's becoming a bit of a celebrity in his own right, even acting in a Nescafe ad. But I like best about Carlos is that he makes a love of history seem less geeky and more chic. If only I could pull that off...