Day 10: Sunday 23rd May 2010

Shopping as if we were on an amazing race

We had a late breakfast today at 730am finally. No more waking up at 5.15 am to prepare (For me and Jolyn)! But, we were almost late today because we wanted to take a family photo before our breakfast, fearing that the parents and children may leave the house for their own activities and it would be quite hard to catch them back. So, we took our family photo with the help of Kuya Hwai! After our delicious breakfast, there was still time before we leave the village to SM Fairview so we went back to our home to play jackstone (or jagstone??) with Rowan and charissa came to join us too! I do not excel in playing Singapore’s five stones, so this game really was a challenge but I managed to proceed to level 3 I think.
And then, we left the village at 9+ am on a jeepney. We reached the shopping mall before 10am and strangely, we were not allowed to enter for I-don’t-know-what-reasons but there were so many people in the mall already. It was like they were queueing for something. HAHA. Typical singaporean’s thinking. Anyway, we went to another entrance and got in within minutes after the security gantry. I think it is very cool to have a security gantry at every shopping mall exit. But, it would add on to much inconvenience as I always bring a bigger bag or pouch so I have to constantly open for them! And it may slow down traffic if there were huge crowd flow and I think it would occur in Philippines man! Their megamall was so nice!
Being typical Singaporeans who had gone to check and compare the price of Starbucks previously which coincidentally was the 1st store we saw when we entered, we went to buy their beverage. But, I did not! Decided to save money for other shopping items!  Oh another funny thing was that everyone was vigorously checking their mails and FB using the mall’s free WIFI. And Jolyn even used FB to try to contact me because she could not find Yvonne and me. But, I happened to off my wifi setting already at that time. But, it was very funny when I went to my FB page to see.
For the 1st half of the shopping trip, Jolyn, Yvonne and I went shopping together and oh man, we bought quite a lot of stuff (mainly clothes for ourselves and family as well as friends!). Yvonne is really a good shopper! Shopping with her is very fun but we have to control her spending too because she loves everything she see. (Right Yvonne??)
Anyway, we went to have our shopping for host family items (this time, with geokie) after lunch at Wendy’s. In the end, we got our host family the following items:
1. Pencil cases filled with pencils, sharpener and pens for Rose-an, and the twins.
2. Hair band+ earrings for Rose-an
3. Minnie Mouse Accessory Bag for Rowan
4. Notebooks and a box of coloured markers for all the kids.
5. A very long pillow (can have 4 people sleeping together).
When we went back home after dinner at the village, Kuya Hwai and Kuya Leonard’s tita came to look for Jolyn and I. As I recalled about how she was finding us, I could not help but laughed. This was what she said: “Neighbour Neighbour! Where’s the visitors?” “Come come. Come for a get-to-gether.” Then when we were at her house, she said, “sit sit.” And then, we all started chatting abit but I did not talk much because it was kinda awkward at first. Their tito was drunk and he was talking so much and continuously repeating all his experience. It was a very nice sight actually, to see us cuddle together in a small little living room, sitting in a circle and perspiring together because of the weather and listening to tita esmee’s laughter and saying that we are all her sons and daughter and she love us and would miss us forever and ever when we are back in Singapore. Last but not least, she will also end off with “nice to meet you”. These are all the words which I seldom or even, rarely will speak but yet, they can say it so easily! She influenced me then and I started to say “Mahal kita” to my host family too and they could not stop laughing. Haha.
Oh, it was not the end yet. After we left the 2 kuyas’ home, we went home and had a little war fight with Li-on and Rowan. Rose-an did not really play that much but she was there, laughing at us. Haha. We played until we were still trying to tickle each other in the dark! HAHA.
Okayyy…sorry for the long (and no pic) post. No time to do photo collage. It was really a well-spent day I would say though everything was very rushed on that day (especially shopping).

Cheryl:)))