Conclusion: Hizon’s Bakery: Where it all began

The final part of the series Nostalgic in Ermita

Down the road from the Midtown Inn is the old Hizon’s bakery on Jorge Bocobo. Now of all the places in Ermita, this one is the most successful, having branched out to other places and having become a somewhat commercial venture.

Hizon’s was the place where I would occasionally get French bread from in the morning if I felt like biking a few blocks down from Malate. That was when I rode an old Japanese messenger bike with a little basket in front. I would take the bike down through this elevator in my building with an accordion steel door. Ride out in the early morning traffic and grab a loaf of bread.

I used to stare at the ladies on the other side of the window with their neat little baker’s outfits and hairnets as they handed my order through the counter. Hizon’s is actually more famous for their ensaimadas, a Filipino pastry which I would occasionally come down in their diner for along with a cup of coffee.

I didn't have time to do this as my wife and kids needed to be picked up at the nearby refurbished Robinson's Place which had been there since the early-80s I believe. It wasn't until the late-90s that this mall was expanded. It formed a complex with the Midtown Hotel. The hotel has now been turned into residential units to feed the property boom fed by overseas remittances of migrant Filipinos.

I kept walking down Jorge Bocobo to Hotel Soriente where I had our driver park the car after dropping me off at Solidaridad. Hotel Soriente started out as a pensione in the early-80s. A little disclosure is warranted here. My mother's family actually owns it. It used to have a small coffee shop on the ground floor along with a family grocery store. It is now occupied by a convenience store a la 7-11 and a discount retailer.

Just like the rest of Ermita, part of it has changed, part of it stayed the same. I spoke for a while with Larry the guard who remembered me from way back when. I also spoke to the hotel manager, Aurora or Au as we called her who started out as a checkout girl at the supermarket and worked her way up.

After briefly exchanging niceties with them, I bid them adieu anxious that I would not make it to Robinson's at the appointed time. These days, as you might surmise I don't travel alone. Ermita was only a side-trip in actual fact to our visit to the newly opened Manila Ocean Park by the Bay near the former US Army Navy Club and Manila Hotel where Gen Douglas McArthur was billeted before the War.

All in all it was a wonderful day. I got to wax nostalgic about the old neighborhood I grew up in while at the same time enjoyed the best of what new sites the city had to offer. During the time I lived there, Malate gained prominence as the bohemian side of town. But for me, it is actually Ermita with its seedy past and its quaint little spots that has endured the test of time.