SM Annex, SM North EDSA

I’m beginning to like the place. Yesterday, we went to SM North explicitly to go to Camera Haus for a lens. We parked in the annex building parking lot after two attempts to park at the disabled parking at the back of the old building and at parking in The Block’s parking building. We’d have had space in the latter except that it was “full” so that no one was let in. If it was fully, why did we want to park there? There were two slots for disabled parking but we couldn’t get through/past the cars in front of us. So off we went to the Annex.

First level was full, so we went to the next, more or less. Please keep this info in mind. From the parking lot, I saw stairs and was wondering why there was a disabled sign on the parking slot. Guess what, there was an elevator that led us to the floor where Krispy Kreme was. We had asked the elevator girl what floor the tube was leading to the main building. She said “ano yun?” Lucky for us, a curious young man was eavesdropping (I do that a lot) and answered “second”. Bear thsi info in mind too. We clean forgot later.

It was the first time I ever saw a Krispy Kreme outlet that wasn’t too full and the aroma was enticing. The outlet in Serendra intimidates me by its sheer size. So we stepped in and looked at the choices. Then I asked husband if we should eat. That was around 3:30. He said okay. Ordered New York cheescake, he had oreo. He ordered cappucino, I had cold, cold water (how refreshing) served in paper cups. Wow, this reminded me of PAL flights when water and juice and anything liquid were served in paper cups. I digress. After a satisfying merienda with very friendly food servers, we left for the tube. Oh, and by the way, I took 3 sips of my husband’s black cappucino. I’m not a coffee drinker but the sweetness of the donut somehow made the coffee palatable, just right even.

TO the tube. As we wheeled, I saw this young man, maybe in his early 20s, in front of us. Maybe a meter or so away. His eyes looked strange, no not physiologically, not something inborn, but maybe, drugged? And his eyes were looking at me and he had this smile that didnt’ seem quite right. I thought he was after my bag or something so I hugged my bag tight. Then before I knew it, he touched my head. Uggghhhhhh. I felt so violated. To be touched by a stranger who looked like that. I inclined my head to shake his hand off. Husband didn’t say anything.

Later, when I looked back, a couple were looking back at the man and the girl was saying “hinawakan niya ang ulo.” I wonder now if he thought he was a healer? I didn’t feel healed. He looked not at all holy, so… I wanted to report him to the guard but my husband wasn’t saying anything and I felt too stunned to take it up with the guard myself. Scary really.

At SM North we went to Camera Haus  and got the lens. Then we went back to the annex, this time taking a different route. We went through the alley that had food stalls.

The first stall had tokneneng and kwekkwek. Also day old chicks. All fried, deep fried in orange batter. If I am not mistaken, the tokneneng was the balut, the kwekkwek the balut. But it may be the other way around. I didn’t try that.

We moved on to the next stall and got RL Lapid’s chicharon laman. A bit pricy at P170 for 200 grams. But as usual, very tasty. Yum. HAd that at home.

Moving farther, we saw Marina. What grabbed my interest was that it said “Iloilo” and offered pancit molo. I suddenly felt nostalgic and asked if we could have another merienda. He agreed and so we went in. The waiter enticing people outside was from Iloilo.

The waiter inside wasn’t too helpful. When I asked what was good, all he suggested was the seafood soup. When I asked if the pancit molo was good, he was hesitant to say anything — about the pancit molo and everything else.

But I was determined, so I ordered the pancit molo. I also saw dinuguan and puto. Husband ordered lumpia sariwa. I asked what were in it (it might have cabbage or togue which is bad for husband) but the waiter couldn’t answer us. So I just prayed.

Verdict: pancit molo was okay, it had shrimps in the broth. Not bad at all, but it was not the pancit molo I knew. The dinuguan had generous portions of pork and entrails. The sauce was the type that one would say “gumuguhit” so that I almost coughed. But it was okay too. Not the dinuguan of my youth, but better than Red Ribbon’s in terms of quantity of meat. Taste wise, though, RR’s is better. The lumpia was swimming in sauce. Think infinity pool. Think surface tension.

Minus sides aside from the waiter – flies, at least one huge one.

Plus sides – it was peopled so perhaps we just didn’t ordered the right dishes? The next table had crab. I think they ordered the soup. And Mike Guevara, the saxophonist of Boy Katindig was there with his family. No gig that early, I assume. No day job either?

After the second merienda, I resolved not to eat dinner. We went around the annex. Fifth floor – computer shops galore. Stand alone stores of Acer, Toshiba, Power Mac, Sony Vaio, etc. Even MSI I think. Villman was there too, PC Depot, etc. And some stalls that sold Golla type products for cell phones and laptops. A lot cheaper – same designs and structure. Trust Filipinos. A cellphone older that sells for almost 600 for Golla, only P175 there.

On the fourth floor there were cell phone stores, a lot of them. And there were a Globe outlet, a Fuji Film outlet, etc. In one of the two floors there was a gaming center – mostly peopled by men playing NBA Live, boxing games, etc. A Canon store too. The lady who attended to us was very gracious. Tall and fair. Such a contrast to the people in Fuji. Husband was asking about processing for Fuji chrome. They said they didn’t know. And to think that months back, he called their outlet in Sto. Domingo and was told he could just bring it to anywhere Fuji. But he got shakes of the head from the girls. My husband was insistent. They said to wait for the manager who was chatting away on the phone. When she finally finished, she gave the same answer anyway.

In another store, I forgot which, the guy who could answer us was also on the phone. What’s with the people working in the Annex? Is business so slack that they just yak away on the phones?

Third floor – there was a salon, some dress shops. Was it here I saw LOALDE? That’s owned by an Aldeguer in Bacolod and I went in because my sister has been raving about it. But I was not in the mood to buy clothing yesterday so I just looked. Also went to Collezione but thee aren’t too many choices in the sense that most shirts now have PHilippine maps: hoodies, dresses, shirts. One of these days, I’ll get a hoodie yet. Haha, feeling young.

Then we decided time to go home after going to Krispy kreme for donuts for the son. The food servers remembered us and they were smiling. From there we proceeded to the elevator outside recalling that that was the elevator we had used to get in. Okay, so we had gone up to get to the mall. So now we had to go down.

UG, the elevator man suggested. We stepped out at UG. No car. Oops, was our car napped again? Greenhills 1994 our old Galant was. When the elevator passed, we rode. LG. Oops, this didn’t look quite like it. We saw grocery carts.

Then the man said “baka sa 2M”. Oh yes, I remembered, we’d seen a 2M. And voila, the car was there.

What an experience.