Finding a piece of Christmas in an old amusement park
On slow, weekday high noons, the Fiesta Carnival amusement park—once a beloved entertainment destination that helped define the landscape of old Cubao—is neither festive nor carnivalesque.
If you enter through the main entrance, you will be welcomed not by the guards’ cheery greetings, but the dull clicking noises of their old-fashioned tally counters. On the left side of the foyer is a blown-up image of a flyer showing the holiday season schedule for the year 1980. Beside it are photos of the place’s glorious days of yore, well before its magic waned, snuffed out by the eventual rise of spanking new malls and bigger theme parks.
If you’re coming from the parking space on the second level, the first thing you will see as you descend the walkalator is a row of massage chairs occupied by middle-aged guests. Seeing them wearing sanitary hair nets and falling in and out of sleep, I’m tickled at the thought of them being unsuspecting astronauts about to get catapulted into space.
There are a few people grabbing a quick a bite at the stalls offering typical food court fare. It’s also not uncommon to see loiterers, and random passersby lugging around big bags or boxes—passengers, most likely, seeking respite from the scorching heat while waiting for their bus at the terminal outside.
Beyond that, foot traffic is sparse and there’s hardly any activity. And it’s perfectly understandable: the kids are in school; the grownups, hard at work. But still, there’s something so eerily forlorn about the sight of a sprawling room full of rides sitting idly amid the droning bleeps of the nearby gaming arcade.
This building on Gen. Aguinaldo Avenue, which sits just right across the Araneta Coliseum, was the Fiesta Carnival’s original site when it first opened back in 1971. In the early 2000s, after the amusement center’s closure, the structure was repurposed, and later gave way to the hypermarket Shopwise.
Now, Fiesta Carnival is back home. But while efforts were made to spruce up its warehouse-like interiors, the building reveals its age sooner or later, one way or another. “Clink!” goes the cracked tiles shifting under my feet. The place is still lit like an old grocery store—a little dim, a little cold—and it makes the white carousel (save for a single horse) starker than it already is.
And in the absence of people, the place, from certain spots and angles, looks like a liminal space, where the line between past and present is blurred.
As a reporter covering the lifestyle and showbiz beats, Cubao—with its various live music venues and establishments fit for media events—inevitably became one of my stomping grounds. But while I often walk past Fiesta Carnival’s facade and its yellow welcome sign that reads, “Come One Come All,” I never had the slightest urge to take a peek behind its doors, not even once since it reopened to the public in December 2023—some 20 years after the facility’s all but certain demise.
Earlier this year, however, this wannabe bicycle commuter’s go-to racks at the Big Dome’s south gate were moved to the Fiesta Carnival’s parking area. Suddenly, this storied place has become a personal transit hub of sorts, a familiar sight in the (almost) daily grind. And in the past couple of months, I have grown fond of the place’s timeworn charm, and the odd mix of comfort and melancholy it evokes during daytime.
Inspiring nostalgia
But one rainy Sunday evening this month, I arrived to a much different Fiesta Carnival.
The parking floor was filled with thick smoke wafting from the outdoor food market at the back. Great. I wasn’t only sweaty, I also smelled like barbecued pork skewers. And I saw, as I was going down, that the massage-loving titos and titas were still there, but I could also hear joyful screaming and infectious laughter from a distance.
I had never seen the place with this many people. At the entrance, three men dressed as Deadpool, Spider-Man and Wolverine welcomed guests with enthusiastic high fives. There were entire families, groups of friends, and even young lovers—all giddy to take a ride on the mini-Viking or the bumper cars, or have a go at the obstacle course.
Kids wearing glittery red reindeer headbands were scampering about, running and bumping into people’s legs. Others played ring toss and fished out little ducks from a mini pool. Moms giddily took photos of their tiny tots wearing their Sunday best while posing atop walking dinosaurs. The dads, on the other hand, started off teaching their kids how to shoot hoops—only for them to end up playing the game by themselves.
I had about an hour before my coverage, so I decided to laze on one of those perforated steel benches. I never had the chance to set foot inside the Fiesta Carnival in its first incarnation, so I don’t have actual childhood memories of this place—save for the music video of the Eraserheads holiday hit “Fruitcake.”
But somehow, the scenes in this resurrected amusement park still inspire nostalgia. And there’s something about seeing children in their new Christmas outfits and playing with their parents that makes me feel strangely wistful. Soon, I came to realize that it had unwittingly tapped my earliest recollection of Christmas—a seldom revisited memory that also involves dressing up and amusement parks.
Disneyland
Like many kids, I once dreamed of going to Disneyland, which I used to believe was perched up in the sky. And when I was about 4 or 5 years old, one Christmas season in the early 1990s, I got the surprise of my life when my parents told me that we were going, and that I was finally going to see that famous blue and white castle.
But first, I had to look the part. For some reason, I used to love suspenders when I was young; some of my childhood photos show me wearing them. For this special occasion, however, my mom got me an equally special set of suspenders—one with a cute teddy bear head at the back. And to go with it, she made me wear a red shirt, denim shorts and white sneakers.
All set! Now, how do we get to Disneyland? Surely by plane, I thought? Much to my confusion, I found myself in a jeepney with my parents. And when I asked them where the clouds were, my dad—just as the vehicle sped off—pointed at the smoke billowing out of the exhaust and said, “Ayan!” This was the same man who convinced me that the truck with concrete mixer had seats inside that rotated its passengers like rotisserie chicken.
Good enough
The “Disneyland” they were raving about, as I would find out later in life, was the Payanig sa Pasig—a famous outdoor perya mounted on a piece of land now occupied by the Metrowalk Complex.
It wasn’t exactly the Disneyland I had in mind. But I don’t remember myself being disappointed, either. Hey, the place still looked quite festive with its red Christmas lanterns hanging from the lamp posts. My mom and I rode a green miniature train. We hopped on the carousel and ate cotton candy. And my dad made sure to document those moments.
They did have something that resembled a castle, though—only its walls were made of sheets of wood painted to look like bricks. Around the wooden castle was a wooden fence on which I was propped for yet another photo. It wasn’t remotely close to the actual thing, but it was good enough. And I was happy. Or maybe I was just too oblivious while digging into my bag of popcorn.
I stopped caring about my birthday after high school, and Christmas, not too long after. These days, the occasion is just like any other passing day. Maybe it’s true what elders say about Christmas being just for kids. Because as I sat there, killing time and people-watching at an amusement park that I wouldn’t have associated with the holidays, I might have very well found a piece of Christmas that had long eluded me—from a childhood memory of when Christmas still felt like Christmas.
