When A Mall Becomes a Tourist Attraction

Robinsons Place Tacloban, located at Tabuan, Marasbaras, Tacloban City, opened its doors to the public last June 11, 2009. To say that it was one monumental event for the city is an understatement. It eclipsed even the holding of the Palarong Pabansa held recently this year. A major traffic jam caused a slowdown of vehicles on the road approaching the mall and the people inside would put fish in the sardines to shame. It felt like one big fiesta as whole families from nearby towns came on jeeps chartered solely for the trip to the mall. Going to Robinsons was an excursion, a pleasure trip and to be "in" you just had to be there.

As for this blogger, it seemed like a trip down memory lane not too many years ago when I was just fresh from college and was job-a-hunting in Manila. Too while away the time, I spent many hours in between interviews at big malls there and the experience inside Robinsons was just de ja vu. However, unlike its counterparts in Manila, the Robinsons mall here still has many vacant stalls and stores. Perhaps some are taking the "wait-and-see" attitude before making that investment to open a branch or store. The few brave ones, though, judging from the constant ringing of their cash registers for the two days I visited, seems to have made the right decision to gamble on the buying power and habits of the people of Eastern Visayas. I just hope that their good luck continues and their sales does not peter out once the novelty of a new and first mall does. Some of these "brave ones" are: Shakeys Pizza, The Travel Club, Jollibee, GUESS, Levi's Store, National Bookstore, Tom's World, Kamiseta, Book Sale, Gustavio's, Pino Fine Dining, Children's Place and the home or organic stores of Robinsons like Handy Man and Robinsons Supermarket and Department Store.

I stayed for only an hour as the crowd was too much for my clautrophobic taste but I left knowing that now, more than public parks, families can enjoy bonding moments in the cool comforts of Robinsons mall.

Coming Very Soon..First True-blue Mall in Tacloban

Just three days more and Tacloban City, indeed the whole Eastern Visayas shall finally have its first honest-togoodness mall with the opening of Robinsons Place Tacloban on June 11, 2009. This has been a most awaited event in the city if not the whole region and malling is sure to become a family outing every weekends. For sure, this blogger will be there opening day to document everything for you and provide you with a first hand account...

Did She or Didn't She?

Not since the day waiting for the b_ _ results was I this anxious and apprehensive hoping intensely for a favorable result. Okay, you win, yup, I am exaggerating, but I was on needles and pins two days ago watching my B_ _ take her entrance exams for nursery in a prep school in the city. I was afraid she would flunk it, although the chance of that happening was two in a thousand. Really, now, entrance exams for nursery?

Before you go up and say, "Gee, that mom doesn't have much confidence in her daughter", let me tell you why I was afraid.

Work has kinda doubled these past few weeks and while I believe in tutoring my kid, I felt nursery was no more than play school and kids should not be pressured academically at this stage in their education. Besides, a colleague once confided to me, for as long as they are ready to sit on the potty, they are ready for prep. In other words, I had no time to prepare B_ _ for her entrance exams and was not that inclined to do so vis - a -vis my beliefs about nursery school. But while I sat comfortably ensconced in this thinking, a friend told me that the school actually flunks kids and deny them admission. God forbid, B_ _ was not gonna suffer the indignity of being denied admission, not while I can help it. So, a day before the exams (work would not make me do it any earlier) me and my daughter crammed lessons in colors, shapes, counting and the basic question and answer (e.g. What is your name?, How old are you?).

Come exam day, B_ _ was so excited, she was going to school, so I told her. She behaved so beautifully, no crying and doing everything the teacher-examiner asked her to do. She kinda stumbled on the colors and shapes part, mistaking blue for violet, and calling the oblong bunay(egg), but over-all, I felt she was gonna ace it.

And she did. A month from now, my B_ _ is going to school and Mama couldn't have been more prouder.

News from Home - the first

(Photo source)

When I started this blog I wanted it to be something for all the Waray-warays out there - "out" there being the big, big world of Cyberspace-. I did not consciously have the the overseas Waray as the target readers, just anyone who had the distinction of having ties and roots in the two islands of Samar and Leyte, of course, Biliran too, although they speak a different dialect altogether. But somewhere along the way, most of the feedback I got was from Waraynons now-based abroad. In their comments and e-mails I could clearly discern a deep longing for home and anything that reminds them of it. My entry on the flavors of Leyte and Samar had a Waraynon transplanted to the land of kiwis drooling as he recalled breakfasts of sapsap (native dried fish) dipped in coconut vinegar and a Fil-Am from Florida who stumbled upon this blog through Google search commented on how my teaser on the alat (basket carried on the back filled with fruits and vegetables) brought back memories of a childhood when the basket represented a means of livelihood. Homesickness indeed finds its cure in the familiar and I have hoped that in my own little way that through this blog I have helped eased that longing.

So it is with the Waraynon abroad in mind that I have started a regular feature of this blog, "News from Home" which will carry tidbits of news which will keep everyone abreast of development here in Waray country. I plan to have it on a bi-weekly basis but bear with me if I can't really keep up with that schedule (still got a day job to do). I will try to make the most of my free time and be a"Korinna Sanchez" on the side (minus of course her logistics). Now if I can only perfect that multitasking bit...

To be HUC or not

Today, registered voters of Tacloban City will decide whether they would want to be part of that elite group called highly urbanized cities. The ratification of the people in today's plebiscite by voting "Yes" to HUC-hood is the final act that would finally sever our ties with the province of Leyte and proclaim our independence as a highly urbanized city fit and ready to stand on our own.

Help Please...

We are in the process of painting our house and I would really, really appreciate some tips on sites to click on to get the perfect color. So, if anyone's watching, do drop me a line on my comments section and tell me where to go.

My Blue Ocean

I am a baby to the world of blogging having discovered the joys of "at-the-click-of-a-button" online publishing just this July. In the beginnng words like "html", "css", "widgets", "templates" were as comprehensible to me as French, meaning none at all. In time I could talk about them with the working knowledge of wannabe techie. I learned by assimilation and I learned by osmosis, visting other blogs and different help groups and fora. I posted my queries and got my answers in nanoseconds (a new kind of time division in the virtual world)

I started with a very personal blog, one that contained mostly musings, ramblings and occasional rantings. Then I made one that had a specific market in mind, a niche, you would call it, catering to people of my hometown who have gone on to search for the veritable greener pastures and have uprooted themselves from the place they called home. But then a technical glitch occured forcing me to make but yet another blog. Just in time as I came upon a discovery in my blog surfing, my niche was not a niche after all. So many blogs were made for the same purpose and contained similar posts that my site was drowning in the ocean of millions of blogs. It was time to create my blue ocean. My blue ocean in a sea of "waray waray" blogsites.

So what is to be expected from this blog? As its title suggests, it shall contain stories uniquely "waray-waray", of what makes him tick and what sets him apart from the rest. A post shall be a story in itself and, if time and inspiration permits, worth retelling. I do not have yet the means of how to achieve this, what I only have now is the vision. But as they say in the movies, "it started with a dream...".

HOme is Now Also Here...

Welcome to my new home... I decided to add this new blog as a technical glitch happened in my earlier blog.

I'll be building everything from scratch and the task is quite daunting. Stay with me as I still have to get my bearings. Just like moving out in real time and in the real world, moving in the virtual world means a lot of adjustments to make.

But I will continue to make posts in everything waray until waray in the city gains enough viewership. Just like a mother hen, the former will still be very much around until her chick, waray in the city, can cluck on her own. Or I might decide to continue maintaining both blogs so do visit both.

To all that have taken the effort to click on the link from everything waray, I'll endeavour to make this a better blog. Hope you return for more. Till my next post...