What would make for a nice follow-up after spending a Sunday afternoon at the cockfights? For me, it’s taking a walk through the Marketplace at sunset. The temperature drops just slightly and even more vendors come out from all directions to fill the streets with people, music and food! But first I went down the street to the local Catholic church and Convent to get some rest at the nice grounds there.
Lots of people passing through there as well for the evening Mass which is broadcast via outdoor speakers since the large church is often filled to capacity. It seats about 500 yet still fills every pew on a Sunday night. There’s a blind man along the street there I like to listen to. He has an amplifier hooked up to a wooden speaker with his old, beaten up guitar. He strums out some pretty nice tunes. (Even the occasional Elvis tune.) It’s kinda like getting to hear Robert Johnson do gospel-Filipino-blues. I took some video but the audio just didn’t do it justice. I slipped him some pesos in his cup though.. gotta support the arts.
From the Church/Convent it was only a few blocks to the Main street of the marketplace. It’s a busy place all during the day since fruits and sliced veggies for stir fry are really cheap here. But once the sun starts to set is when even more people come out both to sell and buy. I stopped at a small ‘sari-sari’ store to get some ‘load’ for my cell-phone and was immediately asked if I was married. I’m not kidding, as soon as I said, “No.. not yet.”, there were two older women and four younger ones at the counter in a heartbeat. One of them went to get her camera to get a photo of me. (I left my email, hoping to get a copy of the photo for the site here.) Speaking of photos, I took some nicephotos of the Marketplaceyou can view-here-.
From there I usually make my way through the crowd and check out what I might need for fruits/veggies. I don’t get them until I’m ready to leave so I’m not lugging them around, even though I bring my small backpack along for camera, water, etc. All in all it’s a nice way to spend the end of the day, meet a few good people and get some exercise. 🙂
