adventures in shopping!

i was craving some plain old home comfort food.  here's how that went.

you see the chips, whose package looks really familiar, but tasted very papery and odd.

you see the tuna, which was fabulous.

you see the sandwich spread, (ladies choice, hello 1950!) which i was hoping tasted like miracle whip, and it was pretty darn close except it had some kind of green bits in it, which i'm pretending were pickles, heh.

and then there is the teeny-tiny little jar of sweet pickle relish, which i found in the 'international' aisle at the grocery store.  and it tasted fabulous.

so here is the final product, it looks humble, but it was a very wonderful tuna sandwich lunch - seriously, it was fantastic. with grape tang. yum!

i found myself with the luxury of a ride to and from the grocery, so i decided to buy some ground beef and make a meatloaf.  been hesitant to buy meat because it's very hot here and taking public transportation or 'public' as they say, can take a while and ends with a long hot walk to get up the hill and back home.

anyway, i got all excited at the prospect and decided to make meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  when i got everything out to start cooking, it dawned on me that i don't have an oven.  ha.  no microwave either.  we have a 2 burner propane cooktop and a little toaster oven.  hmmmm.  no pan that fits the toaster.  so, i decided to make meatloaf meatballs, because we do have a frying pan!  

these are our two pans.

i started peeling potatoes, and about halfway thru the first one, the peeler came off its handle.  no problem.  after i had them boiling away, i realized there is no masher. when they were done cooking, i tried smashing them with a wooden spoon. uhhh, nope.  i ended up mashing them with a fork, yeah, that took forever, but it did work just fine.  and they were terrific.  and meatloaf meatballs are pretty
terrific, too!

 here are some other random goofy grocery pics.

this next pic is to let anita wiltse know that she could survive living in the philippines.

isabell, who is german, had a friend from germany who came to visit. her name is lilly, she is fabulous.  she is living in tei pei taiwan, and needed to leave for a bit to meet visa requirements. she had a friend named christina, also from germany, also fabulous, who was visiting her and came with.

they wanted to do some fabric shopping, so we went to taytay.

one street was filled with fabric, zippers, threads, etc., with fabric sold by the kilo or some by the yard - all sold very cheaply.   isabell purchased fabric to make slipcovers for her sofa.  gorgeous vera bradley fabric, 45" wide, P55 per yard.  like $1.20.

anyway here are some random shots from that trip.

 i took this because of the cool little cross made from a couple of sticks.  but, when i looked at it, it is a good example of the general chaos of the shops.  and the philippines.

this guy was parked in front of the school as it let out, and was doing a booming business.

this is the market at tickling, which we walk to at the bottom of our hill.  we went down so christina could try some coconut water.  like the shop above, i'm taken by how much drearier it seems in these photos.  there is also a small, but modern drug store here (remember my popsicle) and a couple of fast food places.  isabell is really good about always taking one of the kids with us so they get used to the world, but then we are the only white people at the market, and we have a filipino baby or two.  we get some strange looks and some crazy questions.

so this lady hacks the coconut and puts in a straw.  then you take a piece of the shell and scoop out the meat.  you can also just buy a baggie of the juice, which you see here in the jugs on the table.

i have gotten veggies here and eggs, which you buy singly and also bread and lemonade and fried bananas on a stick, treats and such.

this is where we catch a trike, and here is one we saw the other day.

this is also where you catch a jeepny, and here we are in one, returning from the mall. the trip was maybe a couple miles and cost P18.50, about 42¢.  the jeepny is the most common form of transport here, and the bane of my existence.  they are small and crowded, my head touches the ceiling, and getting on and off i always step on everyone and generally sit on someone when i find a seat.  there is no personal space here, but on a jeepny i pretty much feel like i'm channeling fiona.  once, my shirt got caught on a screw on the ceiling and i had to be freed by a fellow passenger.  yeah, it was delightful.  plus, as you see, i have to hunch over to look out the window so i'm never sure where we are and when to get off.  sigh.  but, a girl's gotta get out, so jeepny here i come.

here are the girls at starbucks, heh, so you see there are a wide range of shopping choices!  which makes it a very odd existence, with the humble market, the mall and the fancy coffee shop all visited during a single shopping trip.

it's pretty great.

it's also pretty surprising to me, what you can get used to, and how quickly.

i was reading in bed the other night, and a big daddy long leg type spider walked across the mattress in front of me. i smashed him with the book, brushed him off the bed, and kept reading.  i was washing dishes (cold water - remember no water heaters) and a spider came by and similarly i just squished him with the dishrag and kept washing.  not that i enjoy it, or always do well, but i am getting somewhat used to the critters.

no trash cans and you throw your trash down because if you didn't, then what would the guy do who gets paid to pick up trash.  or the lady who walks the neighborhood and gathers up all the plastic straws and does who knows what with them.

we pulled out of a parking spot the other day and jorge gave a guy some money out the car window.  i asked him why.  he said, because the guy was helping me to back out into traffic. i said, but you didn't really need it.  he said, he helps people, we give him a little money, and he does a little job and isn't out robbing people to get by.

:o)

xo   jo