How to: Look for a place in Metro Manila

Looking for a good place to live in Metro Manila is a pain in the ass.

I've been sharing a condo with a good hearted landlady who charges me half the worth of that piece of real estate -- that's a furnished room with air conditioner; my rent for more than a year is Php4,000/month including the utilities. Granted it's a tiny, tiny room but it's my room where I, and my things, are safe and comfortable.

But now she's very nicely, politely kicking me out because she'll be utilizing the whole 3-bedroom condominium unit for personal reasons. I won't bore you.

So I was given a month's notice to find a new place. And by gad did I see how hellish it is to find one. You know how badly it turned out? I couldn't find one. It's only by God's grace that my cousin in the states just finished paying for a condo unit and my dad will be taking care of the turnover and she said I can use for a while until I find my own (semi-permanent) place.

That offer saved me from having to resort to signing a bedspace contract: that means paying to share a room with people you don't know and having a very, very, very limited space for your clothes and shoes and never having the peace of mind that your expensive gadgets like your laptop are safe or that none of your roommates secretly use your toiletries and well you get the picture.

The best bedspace option I found is a Php4,500 monthly stay in a condominium, sharing one room and one bathroom with three other people. Unfortunately, the landlady cannot guarantee a gender exclusive unit but she doesn't hide that fact (unlike a certain fruit-named Cityland Pasong Tamo illegal subleaser who crams six people in a tiny ass room and makes a dozen of them share one bathroom, purposefully hiding the actual living conditions just to get a hold of the advance payment which she'd never surrender back when you suddenly realize you've been duped and decide to move out. Did I mention she claims to accept only female tenants but she lies about that as well?). And it's a somewhat decent sized room for four people.

My ideal bedspace criteria (actually I call it room-rent)

• air conditioned (it's Metro Manila, well ventilated places are rare)
• single beds instead of double decks
• maximum of 2 people in a room
• maximum of 3 people sharing a bathroom
• safe (that's why condo's are often preferred; 24-hour security)
• enough space for my clothes [you can't expect me to fit all of my working clothes + gym clothes + pajamas (+dirty laundry) + paraphernalia in one orocan cabinet]
• house/condo/apartment is conveniently located (the nearer to EDSA the better)
• maximum of 6k rent if I can get the room for myself, all in (including utilities and whatever other fees the landlady can think of)
• maximum of 5k rent if I have to share it with one other person

but that's nearly impossible to find based on my month-long search. I primarily used the following sites, ordered by importance:

1. Sulit (http://www.sulit.com.ph) - ad filtering system is convenient; too bad you can't exclude certain search results but that's something all the sites don't have, Sulit is just nearer to getting that right
2. OLX (http://www.olx.com.ph) - does not display post's year and there are tons of inactive ads in there
3. Move In The City (http://www.moveinthecity.com) - can display ads by categories, but that's it. Also has tons of inactive ads.
4. Craiglist (http://manila.craigslist.com.ph) - difficult to navigate

There are similar, and sometimes more specialized, sites out there but their search systems are crap.

As I said, I am now able to extend my search for a couple of months. I have decided to expand it in the realms of rent-to-own's and studio-units-for-rent's. That means also searching for a credible housemate.

Wish me luck!

And if you have tips to share, they're more than welcome.

UCC Desserts

My first time in UCC.

Bliss.

Agave Mexican Cantina on High Street

The flavored margaritas were wunderbar!

We ordered pitchers to share instead of a glass each, which was one of the only two good moves we did that night. The second was getting the nachos. It's exactly what you expect it they'd serve you which is great.

What wasn't great: their set meals. Too expensive, too small servings. It looked like a sample dish. I suggest you get separate orders each to avoid any disaster.

Toblerone Cake

I don't know what the frozen strawberry is for. It's crap and since it's frozen, it already lost all of its taste.

But everything underneat it? That's three layers of chocolate with real Toblerone chunks inside.

Everything else on Osonho's menu was (too) expensive for the serving although they were obviously prepared with care and with skill. But if I'm looking for a good place to hang out and enjoy food/dessert, I can do better.

Oh wow, I'm on a food trip roll!

P.S. Osonho serves Portuguese food, NOT Japanese as some people tend to assume.

TGIF's Ice Cream Cake is purrrfect

Dessert ice cream cake. I don't even know what it is properly called because I didn't have enough consciousness to remember.

They chocolate syrup is warm, helping you melt the ice cream... I mean the cake.... it's not entirely clear which is dominant so I don't know. Whatever. It's heavenly.

You know how Red Ribbon's Chocolate Heaven sounds so good? I actually find it too sweet and too thick. THIS dessert cake from TGIF is PURRRFECT.

I can't even describe how good it tastes because my mind keeps on wandering back to how good I felt eating it. You want comfort food? You found it.