A sari sari store

Previously, in my post Walking in Quezon City and Matilao, we toured a couple of neighborhoods in the Philippines in my walking in cities series. If you watched them, you may have noticed a number of stores called sari sari stores. These are convenience stores. Above is a tour of a rural sari sari store to give you an idea of what they offer. As a bonus, at the end our host and her mother fire up the sari sari's karaoke machine and sing a couple of songs.

Below is another walk in the Philippines, this one during a heavy rain. In spite of the weather there are a lot of people out and about. The neighborhood is hilly and you can see the drainage problems they have handling such a heavy downpour.

Walking in Quezon City and Matilao

Above is walk in the Quezon City which is part of metro Manila. It's a walk on side streets, alleys, and what can only be called footpaths between buildings. It is uncaptioned, with the conversations in Tagalog, but you can tell the people are friendly as they interact with our walker. 

What stood out to me was the enormous number of political campaign posters plastered everywhere, with a fair number of women candidates running for office. That got me thinking... is an Asian upper-middle-class Karen more, or less, terrifying than your average American cul-de-sac dwelling, wine swilling Karen? 

Aside from that the number of kids running around was striking. It looks like a lot of free-range parenting is taking place. Also, the haphazard way the powerlines were strung was more than a little alarming looking.

Below is a video by a different walker, this of Marilao. It appears to be a bit more upscale of a neighborhood, with many buildings painted so it not quite so relentlessly chromatically gray. The area is also looks generally better maintained. He starts in the side streets and alleys, but eventually comes to a large open-air market.

A day in a rice farmer's life

This video is from M'Lang which is on the island of Mindanao in southern Philippines. It shows the tedium of hard labor in the paddies, as well as bit in the middle that shows workers in a rice processing plant. I have to say, if i were born there, I would probably pack my bags and head for a factory job in the city and a shot at the sweet life like so many do.