It was like passing through some alternate universe. I felt like I was almost in Greenbelt but I wasn’t. Guess where I was?

Greenhills.


It has been very long since I passed this old Mecca of mine and I begun to worry earlier at what would surprise me today. I didn’t expect Greenhills to expand this far, even reaching Virramall the once mighty tower of this complex. Now it is completely bathed in a drab blue sheet that it looked like on of those magic acts where a person is covered in a thin sheet and then disappears without a trace. Much could be said to Virramall, because like those stand up magicians in Las Vegas they were ready to get rid with the old and in with the new. I could only guess what would Virramall change too? I just hope like those magic acts it could be turned into something beautiful, like a white pidgeon.




But much of my time wasn’t solely concerned on looking at the renovation of Virramall, I came there for one thing- to eat. There was a whole bevy of restaurants, neatly placed on the corner of the roads. Ice Monsters, who call out to the busy pedestrians with their monstrous ice concoction, very tempting this summertime. There were also the typical yet irresistible fast-food chains, ranging from the jollycious Jollibee, scrumptious chickens of KFC and mouthwatering burgers of McDonald’s. And for the more affluent folks, there’s a whole line of “elite” dinners near Theater Mall.

But I wasn’t looking for these kinds of food; I was only after one thing- something oriental. And such was a perfect choice- it was a choice between Teriyaki Boy and Yoshinoya. I had doubts about Terriyaki Boy, since that story my friend told me about the shard of glass in her aunt’s meal and as much as I liked food I didn’t want to risk myself from that kind of service. So I opted to go to Yoshinoya, a chain that I would always eat at whenever I go out.



Ok, at first I thought my decision was correct, but when in fact I was wrong- I didn’t enjoy it as I expected. I don’t know the reason really. Probably I already got sick of the taste. Or maybe it was the environment, especially since there was this “thuggish looking guy” who seemed to eat like a barbarian.

But my trip to Greenhills wasn’t all about food. In fact I wanted to go on a new adventure. I wanted to be like Magellan’s crew who would circle the globe or at least in my case Greenhills and so I tried. It was a different kind of world- I had to rediscover Greenhills. Before I have already mastered the whole place but now everything has changed. I was like a foreigner on an alien land. It was weird. Something I have grown up with became a stranger.

Before Greenhills was the “family place”. The ever looming Sunday was the time when we would land our tiny feets on that ever so familiar place. It was smaller back then and as I grew up it begun to change as well. One of the significant changes where the destruction of the old theatre, now turning it into the more beautiful theatre mall. Then the second real big change was the burning of Virramall(which I believed happened many times already). One of the most familiar places back then was Viramall, 3rd floor. When the playstation was very, very powerful that greenhills became a Mecca for it. But soon the fire ravaged that floor to kingdom come, destroying Lucas Arts, the place which we would always go to buy CDs.

Now what the future holds is far different a more metropolitan Greenhills catering to people in a very classy way. I could only smile as I walked the familiar walkways of Greenhills, the usual lane that we would jog on every morning before, now replaced by a more ambient feeling though not that complete but its on its way to becoming something great.

But I sure miss those

DVD, X , DVD, X guys.

I did encountered one but without the X. I wonder what happened to their usual advertising shouts. I guess I really need to rediscover greenhills again.