I’ll never get bored of this view from my office building, more to it when the sun set’s on the horizon. Well you see, in the city of Makati which is categorized as the financial center of the Philippines, it has the highest concentration of multinational and local corporations in the country. As one would see, skyscrapers are everywhere. The image above was shot from 52/53 floor of PBCom tower; officially ranked as the 3rd tallest building in the Philippines.
It’s all a typical day-to-day in the office until our floor start to shake at 5.11pm local time on 22 April 2019. It is totally not great to be so up high when the Richter scale registered a magnitude of 6.1 quake. Everyone in the office was running towards the Emergency Exit stairs. As the building was still violently shaking, the situation in the emergency exit was completely havoc. The building was housing multiple tenant so as I make haste from the 52nd floor, human traffic completely slowed down to a body to body push between 19th floor to Ground level. Almost everyone was on the phone, and just not moving fast enough. I’m sorry as I don’t have photos to proof how it was like inside. I prayed you don’t have to go through one of these situation ever. Experiencing the wrath of mother nature is like a thing you~~-want~~-and-don’t-want to strike off from your life checklist.
Yeah,after all the running and shocks, finally got to fill up my stomach for dinner. As per Chinese customs, if you die hungry, you would turn into a hungry ghost that roam the streets. Waking up the next day and as I usually walk to the office, both of my leg’s hurts badly; knee pain, muscle pain, ankle pain… goshhhh. You don’t get precursor to when the nature will strikes and prepare for a 10 minutes warm up. Every colleague was feeling it too. Eventually the pain subsides 3-4 days later. I got myself thinking since Philippines is in the Pacific Ring of Fire, the phenomenon will reoccur again and I don’t wish to feel the same pain again. So I plan to prepare myself by doing jogs at parks nearby. All the pain will not have happen if I exercise regularly. As a local guide, I couldn’t stop myself from sharing with others a place that is useful and easy to access like a park.
I’m staying at KL Serviced Residence Makati and so there’s a few park nearby to accomplish my goal. A lot of expatriate and locals was living nearby and I hope to share this piece of information so we can be more ready. All I could was to be ready for it when it happens again. If it was meant to happen, there’s no running away from it.
This park was just 20 steps away when you exited from the main entrance of KL Serviced Residence. Being where it is, this will be where I’ll jog most of the time. The park is always open and it gets lively in the evening with people coming alone, partners or families for a good time.
With the vicinity, amenities and great atmosphere, I can start off from here training my stamina or a short session of warm up. If you look at the above image, opposite this park lies another park which is bigger and that’s Washington Sycip Park.
This park was dedicated and named after Mr Washington Sycip, a Filipino accountant in his honour on the occasion of his 85th birthday.
< As i walk across this sculpture, I cannot think of any usage aside from just a decoration for the park. It’s colorful enough to attract children to play around it but to tall for them to climb abroad.
This root is really beautiful. Time really do make wonders. I hope my this new found passion to exercise will bear fruit. Although this how-to guide is not a conventional one like to hide under a table, stay away from windows, checks for and extinguish small fires.
Aside from flora in this park, there’s fauna too found in this large man-made pond. Fish es and tadpoles. People were busy taking photos over this bridge.
For my readers, if the above 2 park was not enough, let’s jog to Ayala Triangle Gardens which is the spot majority of people took cover after exiting our office. Earthquake tip #101: Find a clear spot and stay away from buildings.
This park feature a 2-hectare triangular landscaped urban park in the heart of Makati city.
This cocoons shaped was actually lanterns that will illuminate the park. It nicely hang on the branches and when lit, it’s a mood enhancer. Below was a photo taken during the evening after the quake and around 7pm local time.
Doing a lap at this park is really exhausting, such a long stretch of pavement.
The perimeter of the park was all tall high rises be it office building or hotels. So it is really crowded when a disaster happened. In the evening, people usually hide under the shades or lie halfway down resting just to past time.
Another attraction during the jog was this arch of Ayala Gardens. Did you know the catenary arch is regarded as the strongest arch in supporting itself? Glad that this structure still remain intact after the quake. With this 3 parks nearby, I hope to inspire myself and others nearby to stay fit and healthy to be more well prepared next time around in the emergency exit stairs and post-recovery of the event.