The Urban Roamer has always been an advocate of green spaces for the metropolis. Unfortunately, the metropolis doesn’t feel the same way, for the most part at least.
Truth be told, it’s frustrating to see over the past 10 years to see green spaces either disappearing and endangered at such a critical period in which they would have been beneficial in helping alleviate the effects of climate change. Fortunately, there are some spaces that have some greenery left, that is if you know where to look and how to get there. I’ll get to that point a bit later.
One of those spaces is a park located in Maybunga in the eastern fringes of Pasig and Metro Manila, the Pasig Rainforest Park. Surprisingly, this park has been around for a long time. In fact, it was first opened to the public back in 1977, just shortly after the inclusion of Pasig in the newly-created Metropolitan Manila region.
The originally 4.8-hectare park was initially conceived as a place of relaxation and refuge for the people of Pasig with a forest-like atmosphere, not to mention as a catalyst for the development of the then-municipality. Since then, the park underwent a number of changes over the years, one of them is the expansion in 1996 which added 2 hectares to the park. The most radical transformation though occurred in 2014 with the addition of new facilities and amenities. These additions also merited a rebrand of the park and it soon became known as RAVE or the Rainforest Adventure Experience….Rainforest Park. (bit of a redundancy there)
Now totaling 8 hectares in area, the Pasig Rainforest Park has a bit of everything to see. Not only one gets to see a lot of trees and plants in the park. There is also a zoo, a swimming pool, events venue, playground, adventure park facilities such as for rappelling and wall-climbing, vegetable garden, boating lagoon, chess area, ziplines, train rides, just to name a few.
Of course, you would have to pay separate fees to access many of the parks facilities. The good thing though is the admission to the park itself is free. So if you’re just looking just to visit the park and not, say, swim at the pool or go boating at the lagoon, you won’t have to spend anything.
If you think about it, it’s amazing they were able to fit all these facilities and amenities in one place. However, as the case of places that try to be “everything at once”, there are places in the park that feel “small” to one’s preference. But as a family getaway in the city and if you have small kids in tow, this place is a fine place to go to.
Transportation to get to the park though can be a hassle as there is no jeepney or bus that will pass by or drop off there. The best chance is to take a tricycle from Pasig city proper or from elsewhere in Pasig. Because of this, fares can get expensive, especially if you opt for taking the “special” fare, which means you will be the only passenger in the tricycle. Otherwise, there is Grab and Pasig has finally gotten rid of the stupid odd-even city scheme. (thanks Mayor Vico Sotto!)
Acknowledgements as well to Wikipedia and Megacitizens
