Day 2
Part 1: Market Day

Date: 16th May 06

Woke up to the spartan outdoors of the TLDC and witnessed the early morning sights of the philippines. It was beautiful, for once there were no highrise buildings around. It also meant that other than the four walls of the TLDC, there were no where else to go.

Morning is very early in phil - the sun rises at 0600 exactly and the cockerel makes its morning song about then. Thought i wouldn't make it for breakfast but got blinded by the sun's rays at 0600. man, i thought it was already 0800. breakfast was simple and consisted of rice, scrambled eggs, bacon, about that. quite salty and filling.

surrounding the TLDC was the Manuel E Torres Sports Centre, some stadium-like thingy. I should think it's the only one in Bago City, i've never seen any other stadium since. there's a running track, soccer pitch and all the exercise/training stations like pullup bar. there was also this women's and children's nutrition centre or what, i didn't really know.

after breakfast we were to unpack all our donations as ordered by meishan and sort them out into clothes, books, toys, and other paraphenelia. halfway through i got dragged off by ms to "procuere supplies" for the group, i.e. soap, toilet paper, detergent, etc.










Market scene in Bago City. Lots of tricycles that gave you a ride for 6 pesos (P6) x number of stops.

went with mama remia and brenda to the nearby (ok, about 1 km away) bago city market. the place wasn't big, with a collection of stores for about 2-3 streets selling all kinds of stuff from chicken lassos to drugs (pharmacies), phil handphone top-up cards and cakes. Went to their wet market, same smell as the wet market here. Basically it felt like mum bringing me and my little sister out to the jurong east market, heh, only thing was i had one eye on my two companions and two eyes on my wallet. yes, i had to pay first.

went to this place called Ding's minimart and bought stuff like toilet paper, bottled water, soap, extra toiletries, some wash-basins for washing clothes, detergent, etc. something like your NTUC minimart, only more run-down. noticed that they sore stuff differently here - they sell in much more smaller packets, as described in the marketing lectures for those not-so-affulent countries. Ice is sold as well, like water, in waterbomb-sized packets. They sell sugar in brown and white forms, except that the packaging doesn't really look like much, one single transparent packet, and well to the analytical chemist's eye it looks like...











Brenda and Mama Remia (covered partly) buying tape for wrapping the Mayor's present.

Despite the backwardness of it all, i found out that they have a wide assortment of snacks and biscuits that everyone loves, we bought some - and a wide assortment of alcohol too - the local Tanduay Rum and other products. In fact when we were at the checkout counter the local women were buying like 5-6 bottles of rum (250ml) at one shot. Either they have a serious alcoholic problem here, or they might be selling the stuff.

We went to the market too for other stuff like getting top-up cards: in phil to call anywhere using your hp without a plan (who has a plan for 18 days?!?) you use top-up cards, which are worth P300 ($10). these stuff are hot cakes, wenyi was asking for one today, and another the next (heh. bfs) - apparently they last only only about 10-15 minutes for overseas calls.

I got myself a pair of slippers, but they were too small, i found that out when i reached the TLDC. so the driver jun had to fetch me and poor mama reima back to change the slipper. so paiseh.

enjoyed shooting away with my digital camera at their market scenes, there's a lot of visuals around, much to the amusement (and annoyance) of mama reima and brenda.