characteristic of a lot of countries i have seen:
1. an 80 floor bldg with a viewing tower at the top
2. a nice zoo (ala singapore or san diego)
3. a chinese garden
4. a japanese garden
5. an embarcadero (basically a port area shopping/entertainment area)
6. garden for large sculptures
7. museum of natural history,
8. museum of contemporary art
9. museum of art
10. national museum
11. a pleasant farmer's market (ala pike place in seattle or the one in L.A.)
ryan's suggestions for giving it a distinctly "philippine flavor"
1. balinese garden (yes i know it's indonesian)
2. more open spaces/plazas. use pools and water installations to cool down the place and relax the eye
3. have a more dynamic opera/theater/ballet with flyers and stuff
4. an equivalent of 'zagat'
5. tree lined boulevard for beaches (and everything actually). why is there no shade anyway?
6. 'fun' festivals like thailand's full moon party or oktoberfest. it has to be authentic though. think "ateneo/lasalle rivalry" that everybody can rally behind rather than some slick marketing gimmick. you can't just setup something like a lambanog festival.
7. masterplan an area and designate it a strictly electric car area.
8. renovate luneta park. the statues are uninspired. it's just not postcard pretty enough. it needs some zing.
9. the zoo can showcase local animals instead of all the usual ones.
10. require roofs to be the ones with grass on top, to ease storm drain runoff (and prevent flooding)
how to make the experience better for travellers:
a. better roads
b. construct national highways to bypass traffic areas
c. purify gas better
d. clear out philippine customs personnel and make the experience completely transparent.
e. require catalyst converters on all cars. (maybe work with the DoH on this one)
f. put all government services on the web (decongest roads)
g. share currency with other asian countries.
h. create a special gov't agency to better streamline 'the customer experience'
i. put road & street name signs everywhere (prohibit changing the names of streets)
j. increase the pedestrain walkway size.
k. have the MRT/LRT connect to the airport
l. naia 1 needs a facelift
m. expand the MRT to be as complicated as what you can see in tokyo or mexico city.
where the money will come from:
create chaebols that will make the philippine's own
boats/cars/tvs/radios/cellphones/etc.
create industry
develop farming (mango, banana, guava, seafood, etc)
