96. SinoPinas + Chemistea
What differs among Instameet and photowalks I’ve participated is the number of participants joined in SinoPinas, the first ever meetup of Instagram users for this series. We ganged and owned the streets and vicinities of Escolta, Binondo and Intramuros.
We started at the alley where old money are being sold and bought. Two of the notaphilists or banknote collectors in Manila were generous enough to showcase their collection when everyone else is curiously taking snapshots of those paper money.
We couldn’t believe that one million dollar exists in a single note
Restored buildings look really nice
If you’ve been following my Instagram feed, I’ve been creating #WallByMyself” self-portraits. With no assistance from anyone, I’m directing myself to pose like this.
Escolta is also a street of symmetries
The good thing about these Instagrammers is they make simple backgrounds, just like this gate, to be worth-liking in the feed. And we’re not being judged doing these things during instameet.
And chances are we also stumbled upon love in a hopeless place
A parking meter installation in the street
Look at that block of Instagram users
A man doing some patchwork in this city of black spaghetti
Will you be part of a movement to save the under-appreciated El Hogar building or just let the past go and be forgotten?
From Escolta, we took our lunch in Binondo. Food in Estero is delicious and cheap! We then continued photo-walking until we reached the walled city of Intramuros.
The Intendencia Building which could house the future National Archives
I really got excited with this wall. So I waited for the rest of the gang to finish their things before I did mine. I just had to redo several self-portrait shots though.
I wanted to try something new so I headed to Quezon City straight from Manila to experiment on some chemical drinks. It is called Chemistea, a tea shop with chemistry theme.
The lab where the Chemisteas are made
Post-it notes become a staple section of recent milk tea shops
Aside from the obvious scientific theme of the shop, the geek vibes are more echoed with the board games you can played with.
First time to see a Monopoly board with Filipino theme
Cold milk teas are served in Erlenmeyer flasks
You can also spend some time reading non-chemistry books too
Game master is on the house to teach the visitors with unfamiliar board games
Some scientific trivia bits about the drinks they’re offering
So that’s a rundown of how my 96th weekend went. You can follow SinoPinas and Chemistea through the links of their Facebook pages respectively: Sino Pinas and Chemistea Cafe.
Sino Pinas
Chemistea