METRO MANILA: The Shopping Mecca of the Philippines

I always look forward when summer vacation is almost over.  Weird, right?  I mean, most kids would have loved to extend the summer for another month of beach frolicking and lazing around.  But, hey, this is just me.  It’s not that I love school so much that I’d like to spend my entire year in it.  What I love about this time is we could finally take our family vacation.  While everyone else were nursing hangovers from their summer vacation, my family are still packing to take our own vacation.  Another thing that makes me so excited aside from flying off to somewhere is the moment when we are going to buy school supplies.  Geeky thing, but truly one of my favorite moments way back, this is because I get to buy my school stuff away from my hometown which again, makes all my stuff more special than the rest of my would be classmates, or so I think.

Back in the mid-1980’s  my hometown is not that blessed yet with malls equipped with a wide variety of school supplies.  So for those who want to stand out among the crowd in owning the only Princess Jasmin pencil case, you have to buy your stuff somewhere else.  And I’m lucky enough to have that opportunity.  And yes, I was the only one with a Princess Jasmin pencil case back then.  So where do we usually buy our “special” school supplies?  Where else? But Metro Manila.

Hi!  I have moved this post here.  See you there!

My First Take-Off

I was 7 years old when I had my first airplane ride.  We were on our way to visit our cousins in Silay City, Negros Occidental, Philippines - the city of smiles.

All of us kids, were ecstatic to be going somewhere far and riding the airplane.  We were composed of 3 families with 5 adults and 6 kids.  Imagine the headache we were causing our parents when we decided to 'bond' during the flight.  Our first stop was Cebu City.

Cebu City is famous for being the city discovered by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 and the Sinulog Festival.  In his search for the Spice Islands now known as Indonesia, his ship accidentally veered further west thus landed him in Homonhon Island in the Philippines.  This started the colorful history of Spain in the Philippines which lasted for 300 years.

Since Cebu city is a city that holds quite a number of historical landmarks, we did what most tourists do.  Paid it a visit to the nearest ones and had our go with the picture taking activities.  Actually, the cross displayed is just the wooden casing of the original cross.  This cross is not where Magellan met his demise, but, this is the cross that symbolizes Spain's biggest contribution to the Philippines - Christianity. 

The cross is located inside a small building near the Basilica Minore del Santo Nino.  Back then, we were not really that interested of these things.  We ran around the cobbled path of the area from the chapel to the main Sto. Nino Church.  

click here to continue reading..