malled city

The sign should have read "abandon hope all ye who enter here" in big neon letters - else i wouldn't have harbored the hopes of an exhilarating time as I entered the lift lobby of the latest gargantuan mall to open this side of the Pacific.

I should have known that I was in for a big headache as soon as I saw the complex -- a mall that was a city unto itself. It stood there like a humongous clown, arms open wide with a grin too big to be friendly.

At the center of the complex was another giant (as you may have noticed I've been describing the place in superlatives but I tell you I'm not exagerrating) -- a Universal-Studios-type of globe that changed colors like a chameleon. Cars, jeeps and buses (yes buses) went round the globe rotunda, dwarfed by the enormous monument to amplified consumerism.

I went there, hitching a ride with some friends, eager to sample what the new mall had to offer. We rode in two cars -- but as our mini-convoy went the way of the merry-go-round-globe-rotunda, we got separated.

We ended up parking in the South parking complex. I called the other group and found out that they were in the North parking complex on the other edge of the citadel-like mall.

We decided to just meet up somewhere, thinking it was a cinch, but boy were we wrong.

As my group went out of the elevator -- we were greeted by a maze of passageways and escalators, and most noticeably by the hot and humid air blowing from nearby Manila Bay.

I was sweating in seconds.

Daring the mass of people, we pushed our way upstairs and found ourselves in the entertainment center. A throbbing bass line was beating -- from the rehearsal of a television show that was to air the following day.

I dial the number of one of my friends from the other group -- but either the call wouldn't connect, or the number was busy.

So we stand there, contemplating what to do next.

A few minutes later-- a text message -- "Meet us at the skating rink".

But where the fork was it? "Its near this establishment".

We decide to look for a billboard, a computerized directory or a simple map -- but there was none in sight.

So we walked dazed and confused around the entertainment center, brows sticky from the humid air (where the heck is the skating rink and why isn't there any airconditioning???).

I try calling my friends cell again, but still no luck.

To make matters worse -- one of my group sneaked away to look for another friend. We lost him in minutes.

I was tired, I was hot, I was sweaty armpits and all. I told the others to go on ahead and look for the skating rink as I tried to locate the friend we lost.

In the background, a calm female voice announced, "Paging the parents of a lost boy wearing a red shirt and blue jeans". It was the third lost kid she announced in the short time I was there. I would have asked for the announcer's help had I known where the paging center was.

So I try the cellphone anew -- it rings -- my friend picks up -- but he couldn't hear me.

$$%%#$@!@!!! it!

I was fuming. What's with this place and cellphones anyway? I walk around again.

Finally I find the-friend-who-snuck-away in the place I last saw him. He found our other friend. We all looked like sloppy retards as our shirts clung to our backs like plastic wrap.

By the looks on their faces, I knew we were going home that very instant.

But the torture didn't end there.

It started raining as we walked the looooooong path to the puv station. We were already soaked when we got there, only to learn that there was no taxi bay.

So we went to the other side, near the globe rotunda, but the taxis there wouldn't take us home to QC ("Masyadong malayo, Baclaran lang ako", the drivers said).

We take the jeep instead hoping to get quickly to Malibay and hail a cab from there.

"Quickly" turned to "horrifically gridlocked in a jampacked jeepney".

I soon fell asleep in the jeep (thank god), and was only woken up by my friend when we got to Malibay. I check my watch - a good 20 minutes already passed us by from the mall to Malibay.

We quickly (and this time it was really quick) got a cab -- and as the airconditioning of the taxi cooled me down, I vowed never to return to the darned gargantuan mall ever again.

Well, at least until the new Superman movie gets shown on the giant movie theater that's part of the giant mall with the giant globe-chameleon-thingy.