A Morning at the Market

It’s five oclock in the morning. (Literally. )We wipe the sleep from our eyes as we crawl into a jeepney headed for Carbon Market. Would you like to come along? All you need is yourself, maybe a few pesos, and a hearty tolerance for interesting smells.

After about 20 minutes we yell “lugar lang palihug,” the driver stops, and we get off at the Carbon flower market. The streets are lined with buckets and containers full of daisy’s and roses and many exotic flowers. It is very fragrant and colourful. Don’t worry about all these people trying to tell you to buy their flowers. Or all the people who want to know what your name is. Just smile. You get used to it.

We now take a short cut along a very narrow path through a covered section of the market. Coming back out into the sunlight, we are in the banana section. Fabulous. We’ll buy a big bunch of them. Oh, just watch your wallet; maybe stick it in your front pocket for now.

Next, we’ll hit up the pineapple place, and sort through some oranges. Apples are expensive, but we’re going to get some today for a treat. Of course, we’ll buy mangos; what would a trip to the market be without mangos?!! We have to snoop around a little to make sure we get the best deal. Now where on earth are the mango steins? We troop back and forth and get a bit lost for a while. This market just goes on and on, whichever direction you go. No matter how often we come, we still get lost just about every time. Finally, we see some mango-steins and barter down just a little for not too bad a price. You don’t get much fruit for your peso so to speak, but these things are delicious!

We’re all pretty hot and sweaty by this time; the sun feels like it’s burning our scalps off. So, we hurry through the vegetables and take a big breath before heading down the fish “aisle.” There are all manner of fish, fresh and dried, plus lots of crabs and eels and squids and things. Men scale and clean them for you if you want, then take your money and give you change without wasting any time to wash their hands off or anything. Uh….we decide we’ll pass on getting fish today. Finally we are at the egg place. That’s good, because soon after this we’ll find the best place in the market. We swing a right and a moment later are seated on a rickety picnic table-type bench and are being served sticky rice!! Each person gets a big scoopful on a plate, plus a cup of hot chocolate and free access to brown sugar. We’ll pour the hot chocolate and sugar on, and then savour the result.

After we’ve paid for our sticky rice, (and bought a few banana leaf packets of it for a snack for later), we hit up the oki oki. The meaning of oki oki is some sort of mix of “dig dig” and “shuffle shuffle“ and “sort sort;” the best way to illustrate is by making scooping and digging motions with your paws. Basically, it is second hand clothing, but because it’s mostly in piles, you kinda have to dig, shuffle, and sort to get to the good stuff. Which there is lots of, by the way. Old Navy anybody? American Eagle? The deal here is you ask for half of what they’re asking, and then be prepared to go half way up again. So, if it’s a P100 shirt, you ask for P50 and should end up paying P75. It’s kind of a fun little game, especially if you’re not in too big a hurry.

Next, we go past the shoes; well, mostly sandals actually. We’ve all had our hand at bargaining for mga tsinilas here. So far Amber has proved to be the most adept at this. Once, with vehement and animated exclamations, she bartered those poor chaps down from P180 to P80 without so much as batting an eyelid.

Now all that’s left on the list is the vegetables. Tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, calimansi (like small little limes), and some interesting leaf thingy’s we’re using for a soup. Nice work everybody. Wiggle your fingers and make sure you haven’t lost all circulation from the plastic bags digging into your skin. We’ll hop back on a 04C now; there’s so much more we could show you, but we'll save that for another day.

Thanks for coming!

Amberkay