Whenever someone asked what they can do when they visit the Philippines, I always tell them to skip Manila and head to the provinces. While this is true most of the time, there are still pockets of interesting stuff that can be had here in the capital city of the Philippines. The National Capital Region is a sprawling metropolis of more than 10 million people. It is composed of several individual cities of which Manila is one of them. Probably among all the cities in the National Capital Region, Manila probably has the more interesting sights, most of them historical.
The seat of government of the city of Manila is naturally Manila City Hall in what has become and extremely congested area. The main feature of Manila City Hall is the clock tower which is sort Manila’s answer to Big Ben. I am not aware of any name given to the clock tower though. It seems that the clock tower has undergone renovation and it looks brand new after it was given a fresh coat of paint.
The clock tower has four faces which all tell the same time, at least most of the time. Probably part of the restoration done was that the clock tower actually tolls now, indicating the number of hours every hour on the hour. It was nice to see the structure finally restored to full operating capacity. However, with the huge number vehicles which pass by Manila City Hall, it won’t be long before it succumbs to pollution and another fresh coat of paint is needed to spruce up the entire building.
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