It's hard to romanticize about this city, yet the tourists flock here by the thousands. Everywhere you look, concrete sprouts from the ground like trees, because there aren't any real trees. The only things moving are the vehicles belching smoke on the roads, and the people walking because they can't afford to use them.

Half the time the sun is hidden from view, because the haze over the city shrouds the blue sky from the mortals earthbound. The other half of the time, the clouds would move in, and the rain will fall. Yet the sound that the rain makes is not familiar, not like it used to be. No, it's masked by the million sounds abound here, from jackhammers to cab drivers honking for prosperity.

Today, a friend of mine brought me to a place on the south shore, where an uninhabited island juts out to the sea, connected by a tiny pedestrian bridge. It's beautiful, he said, but all I saw was this big rock, waves crashing upon it, bringing with them more garbage piling up in the crevices. I didn't want to walk across that bridge, I just stood there, thinking how much I dislike this place.

And I was born here, it is destiny that brought me back, after all these years. It used to be beautiful, it used to be me, my home. All I do now is turn on the television, and watch programs in a language totally foreign to me. It never used to be like this. Progress, they said, inevitable tide of change that will bring this city into the next century.

I can only look towards the past, and dream of my future in the last century...