Shopping in Makati first time in 2 years

   So, here's the only reason I had to go to Rustan's Makati.

   Rustan's ATC had no booster car seat for the 3 year old (15kg) and above, and the sales lady wasn't interested in helping further after finding zero stock in the stockroom. After all, everything they had was for infants. Phone calls to SM Megamall and the Landmark, Mothercare Shangri-la and Greenbelt, and desperately, to the distributor Europlay, Inc/Richwell brought me back to my 7th pregnancy month of "Graco Pack and Play" adventures. Apparently, the car seat choices I Googled are not available anymore and even the distributors are never sure what they're gonna get/when the next shipment will be.  

  An hour later, after dining at the Via Mare Landmark (where I was surprised/comforted? to find the same tall waiter Larry still serving), I saw the same model upstairs.  But since nobody was interested in selling it to me there, in contrast to Jerome and Vincent of Rustan's, I went back to Rustan's for it.  Well, okay also because that's where we parked.  Anyway, I was led to Rustan's Makati after calling and having Jerome confirm that Chicco Ultrafit was gone a long time ago; that I might be interested in the Graco Logico LX Comfort.   

  Ay, wait.  This doesn't belong in THIS blog. I have yet to start posting on my other one, Manila Older Mother.  I am sooo delayed.  Well, will move to that one and say more there...about my initial preference for Britax or Chicco; and this one being a good quality low to mid-priced option. Yada yada yada.

  I do have a lot to talk about there; and I am certain there are pregnant women or first-time mothers just Googling away for info.  I know many blogging mothers have helped me with their posts.  I'm giving back! Soon! I've started the mom blog...

Makiling versus Makati

   I hate to be redundant...but today was one of those achingly bright, blue, sunny, beautiful days.  And as with many photo-perfect days, I did not have a better camera with me than the phone's. This view from Kingbee is still, thankfully there. But for how long? If you can ignore the power post and lines, and try to imagine what the camera could not capture, there is Makiling, ridges visible, and the mountain verdant. verde. green.
   It was around 3pm but the usual line up of vehicles coming down from Tagaytay was to arrive around an hour later.

   I spent the past week, day and night, in Paranaque City.  I went to the Glorietta mall in Makati on Thursday, and I have to say, I was overwhelmed.  By the stuffy, crowded air, the crowds, period, and the "noise and haste".  You see, I had not been there in two years.  Prior to that, the place was like a second home, being ten-fifteen minutes from home.  I could navigate its confusing zones, knew by heart which streets in Salcedo and Legaspi Villages were "One Way" only. 

   I knew Glorietta when it was still the center open 'stage' area of the QUAD arcade.  As a child in the '70s, I shopped in the first, small, shoes-only Shoemart (SM).  Our suki ice cream parlor and its coiffed owners were comfort places, and we watched movies in the Rizal Theater (now where the Shangri-la hotel stands).  There's more, I can go on...

   But I'll just say--not being OA ha, it's for real--I felt like a true probinsiyana or country bumpkin emerging from Rustan's Supermarket to face a solid mall building I confused with..6750? What on earth was here before? Where's the Starbucks?  My mother helped shake my brain...that was the parking lot, between here and The Intercontinental! The rush of cars and people; wind from moving cars and not from grassy fields just screamed CITY. As in New York City (for some reason); the gray new building, Singapore, maybe. OA, I know.  Just try it though...live in Santa Rosa for two years without ever going to the Makati Commercial Area.  Then go one day. Things can happen to you like,

   Having sensory overload from all the shopping choices.  We have SM, we have Alabang, but really, the pickings are slim in these parts, of many non-essentials. Nice to haves, like toys, clothes, shoes!

   Catching a cold, getting dirty toenails and skin from the pollution there. 

   Possibly wanting things you can live without again.

   Realizing how much you have not really missed, how few are the things you actually need to live.

Solenad 2 NOT an outlet mall

Solenad 2 shops facing Solenad 1. Beaming along Nuvali road and the highway.

Just a quick note, my husband gasped wondering at the prices in one of the shops there.  He asked, "these are outlet prices?".  The sales associate clarified that these shops are BRANCH stores and not outlets.

Remember, outlet stores are in Paseo de Santa Rosa, run by Greenfield Development. Solenad 2 of Ayala Land, which also has Bench stores, Payless, Nine West, and some others that are in Paseo, is not meant to be an "outlet" shopping mall.

Just gets a bit confusing because the outlets in Paseo generally display their merchandise in 'regular store' fashion. Except I guess in places like the Bench Depot where Charles &Keith shoes are in bins and piled on the floor; Brand Smart, where clothes tags are trimmed but are obviously Zara brands (and possibly knock-offs, really); and where discounted prices are boldly displayed on shelves.

All this info isn't really essential to life; just fun I guess.  And forgive my husband for his retail ignorance.  He's a simple man who isn't aware of retail merchandising.  Can't quite make the link between a display that looks expensive marketing-wise, fashion seasons, and price. The bottom line is what speaks to him of course. 

LZM Restaurant Solenad 2

Ack! What an irresponsible/impulsive/slow blogger am I.  I posted on "Solenad 2" that the restaurants there are "the usual".   I said something to the effect of not having any unique fare in the area like "Kanin Club's". I KNEW I saw a packed "LZM Restaurant" the two times I was at Army Navy burger...I KNEW I saw photos of Filipino food somehow. 

It took FOOD magazine's October issue to correct my Solenad 2 dining impression.

In it is a photo of what they deem to be their favorite daing na bangus.
I recalled LZM were the initials on that Filipino restaurant's sign.  He would not believe my saying he didn't have to go to the Tagaytay nor Silang branches, as it was right there in Solenad 2.

My husband quickly called the number listed and voila LZM is indeed in Solenad 2.

We didn't have to, but Googling LZM just makes me wonder where we have been in the Tagaytay dining scene. Turns out LZM in Silang and Tagaytay are "hidden" holes-in-the-wall type of places famous people like Marketman of Marketmanila love.  I read a 2007 post that said theirs was his favorite daing na bangus.

When we arrived early last night, the only customers happened to be---a cousin of mine and his colleague.  HE had known this "secret" in Tagaytay all along, and has been having his bulalo dinner regularly in this Solenad branch ever since it opened.  They work in Batangas and travel this route thrice weekly.  He says they prefer this bulalo over Rose & Grace's (located across Paseo), which doesn't have as much gulay.

Anyway...again, I'm no food blogger.  I'll just say, the bangus is extra large, plump, light and very very very delicious. It was rainy last night, and the sinampalukang manok was both comforting and tasty.  I try not to eat bulalo, I'll take my cousin's word for it.

This daing na bangus is also sold marinated frozen, for frying at home.  Basta, I can't describe it...it's just good. And LZM is dangerously going to become our next special lutong bahay place to eat or order from, just a few minutes from home.  The owners were there, and I wonder if they know how this early, their investment will surely pay off.  There still are other imported franchises out there playing it safe--Chicken places, pizza joints...   I wonder if they'll ever come.

along the Laguna Lake



Laguna Lake on road coming from Paete, Pila and Caliraya

     Laguna province is large, and there is so much to see and visit.  We visited Pila for the first time, and Paete for a third in over a decade.  Paete was sad. More on that on another post.

My Provincial Life

   ...really ísn't very "provincial" anymore.  It's just that "parang probinsiya" is what we, family and friends used to sigh when we first started out here a mere two years ago.  Recalling how we spent the first six years of our married lives with the black soot of Makati near EDSA daily blanketing our things, furniture, skin, and "immunizing" our lungs makes me envy my friends who have been living here for 10-12 years average.  Their secret is out though, and things are becoming less ''probinsiya" like lately.  Come to think of it, I haven't heard any roosters at dawn, the various birds we used to see in the garden have been absent, and I haven't seen any fireflies since mid-2009. (This is getting depressing).   When the Nuvali road was built where a cogon field once was, huge snakes slithered out to the villages and birds lost their habitat.  There really is more cost than we can imagine.
  
   My husband now works in Quezon City, and comes home weekends to what he feels is a 'resort'. Note we are not even in a resort-like home, just a simple small one. The air alone is enough to recharge him. We are wondering if the air isn't the variable keeping him sniffle-free despite lack of sleep and fatigue amongst sick colleagues and family members (in the QC house) rather than just his daily intake of orange juice.



Mt. Makiling view outside two Santa Rosa Estates villages. I dread it being blocked a few years from now.

    I also quote "My provincial life" from my toddler, who had an earlier obssession with Belle of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, who sang "I want much more than this provincial life", referring to her provencal life in a leetel veelage om France.  She has aptly sung this while running across Nuvali fields, or even on the grass in the village park.  She has also happily declared "This is not my provincial life!" on her rare visits to Alabang where she stares in awe at buildings that are not even too high-rise.  This and her "probinsiyana" make up are to be blogged about in my other "mothering" site as soon as I get over raving about living in Sta. Rosa, technopark side.


Bench Depot on the left. Inside, Charles&Keith, Lyn and Pedro shoes on discount

   For now, forgive me for not getting over it. I will not get over the air over here, for as long as the views remain the same.  I can tell you it will not be long. Paseo the shopping center is shaping up to be an Alabang Town Center in design.  The grassy strips we used to run through over there, are no more. To be sure, it is a pleasant area where families frolic. While pleasantly strolling though, I feel dread, with 24 hour construction of new shops still ongoing.  So there's a Charles & Keith and Lyn's shoes discount store in the Bench Depot, but I will have to give up the view of Mt. Makiling.

Avida Estates banners, side road by Kingbee

   For now, I will remain simple and silly, laughing at my "Avida" life.  Years before we even considered moving here, possibly around 2006,  my husband and I giggled watching the "Avida" tv commercial in the cinema. It was our first time to see it, a long, computer animated ad, capturing exactly what Avida was meant to be.  A man was driving home from the office, entered his Avida village, waved at neighbors who were outside their home standing by a grill! This image just seemed funny to us at the time--so contrived, so unreal it seemed, so Stepford (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stepford_Wives). Here we are now, sharing food with neighbors, waving at friends on the street...living in an Avida tv ad!
 
   That's part of what the "probinsiya" life is like. I am sure I've mentioned this in a past post...but it's not completely a Pilipino probinsiya life, but semi-probinsiya. And it's just as good.

Solenad 2

     The landscape is changing fast.  I'm ambivalent about seeing the same retailers along the Sta. Rosa-Tagaytay highway, as those in Metro Manila. On the one hand, they are known brands whose displays are more appealing than the small boutique type shops in Paseo.  Now we really don't have to go all the way to Metro Manila for them (as if we even still do).  Even Paseo 4 is obviously occupied by Stores Specialist Inc. shops.

    On the other, well, what's so unique about this area anymore. The only difference now I guess is that Solenad 2's layout resembles shopping arcades in suburban America with its open design similar to Bonifacio High Street's.  It would have been interesting to have more "Kanin Club" type places---destinations unique to the "South".  Don't get me wrong, I welcome the Pancake House/Max's/Brothers Burger/Army Navy Burger/Contís et al presence.  I suppose it is just that I get disappointed when one town is simply a clone of the rest of the Metro. It's like having the golden arches (or the bee for that matter) towering over a town's central area like a beacon to all.  Welcome, welcome to your shopping and dining comfort zone. Boring. Safe. Economically sound, to be sure. Just frighteningly unimaginative. Welcome, to anywhere shopping Metro Manila.