Four Girls and a Dude

The other Saturday, the girls got fed up with the heat at home that they declared a "Girls Day Out". Since they've just completed a short summer remedial program and were holed up at home these past few days, I succumbed to their wish. Of course, Kuya Jules will never allow himself to be left behind (lest he misses out on some cool shopping spots we might pass), so Saturday became technically a "Three Girls and A Boy Day Out" (four, if you count the yaya, Olive; and two boys for half a day, if you count Mel, who ate lunch with us before going to work).

Instead of spending the whole day doing a Star Wars marathon -- as we originally planned -- we began our no-plans-no-direction gimmick in Salcedo Park, where I introduced them to the barbecue and fruit shakes I used to enjoy with my GS friends. (In fact, I suddenly missed everyone who did overtime with me on Saturdays many years back -- Emper, Jason, Melanie, Lynnie, Cecile, Marco, Monch, Rose, Rech, Deepa, etc.) The number of stalls has increased and the parket is now a lot more crowded than it used to be, but I still get excited over hunting for something unique to buy.

Unfortunately, there wasn't time to buy anything as we arrived there about 12:30pm. Just one and a half hour more and the parket will be packing up. So we just decided to have lunch (chicken barbecue, grilled tuna belly and shakes) and go. After some deliberation, we decided to check out the A. Venue Mall in Makati Avenue. Mel drove us to the place and proceeded to his office.

A. Venue is virtually a ghost mall. Have you ever watched that Japanese animated film Spirited Away? That scene when the young lead Chihiro and her parents entered the abandoned recreation park at dusk and the whole place was deserted? That was how we felt when we entered A. Venue. It's as if the mall was meant to thrive at night, but remains "asleep" most of the day. Kinda like that spirit spa in Spirited Away. After visiting the restrooms (which had more people than the mall itself), and buying a cologne each for the girls in Savemore, we left A. Venue and took a cab to Greenbelt 5.

And the fun begins. There isn't really anything you can buy in GB5, you know, so we expected to just roam around and end up in Starbucks Greenbelt 3 later. Then we passed by Timezone and the kid in me led the way. I loaded up my card P200 worth of games; luckily, they have a student discount and I paid only P150 for it. We made the rounds of the games, favoring the basketball and ball-throwing the most. We did several cycles of those. We found the shooting games lame, but the videoke booth witnessed how off-key we could get and that made it the more fun. The girls enjoyed themselves, and so did Kuya Jules.

Finally, we ran out of load. That's when we decided to go to Starbucks. But Starbucks was full in and out, and so was Seattle's Best. So we ended up in Coffee Bean, where the lattes tasted like water with a drop of milk. Too much ice. They didn't like it. But I loved the Pink Guava juice, which the girls finished. As for Kuya, as soon as we settled in Coffee Bean, he ran off to Cotton On and bought two shirts for P800. Cotton On always has a buy-one-take-one promo for that price or higher.

After finishing our "water-like drinks", we went up to exchange the Timezone tickets we won. On the way, we saw Joem Bascon having his picture taken with some girls. We almost had ours taken, too, but we were too slow and he found the chance to duck into Guess before any more camera-bearing starry-eyed lass approaches him. We exchanged our tickets for, ehem, a watermelon sharpener and a glow-in-the-dark room decor (all those effort for only that?!).

Just kidding; the girls didn't mind getting mini prizes, and so didn't I. I had a grand time with the girls and the dude. Looking forward to another day of this kind.