Fun at the 29th Manila International Book fair

My friends and I have been to the Manila International Book fair for three years in a row.  It has become a tradition for us.  We get our asses out of Cavite and high-tail it to the world trade center where we buy a lot of books.

This year it was different.  The Manila International bookfair was going to be held at the SMX convention center! We were kinda happy because when the bookfair was held at the World Trade Center, we would always go to MOA afterwards for food.

So, David, Chris, Khash and I assembled at Dawghouse at around 11am to start our trip to MOA.  Chris was excited because It had been three months since he was out of Dasma and David was excited too because it was his first time at MOA.  Khash and I were somewhat jaded about the whole thing since we both had been going to the bookfair for three years now.

Excited!

 Khash’s girlfriend Pat wasn’t coming with us.  She was reviewing for their exams on Monday.  I had semestral exams on Wednesday and I had just finished a week of exams so I didn’t feel like studying at all.  I wanted a break!

Pat n' Khash

 So we all got into a bus and arrived at MOA.  The first thing we did when we got there was eat at a restaurant that Dasma didn’t have, so we all ate at YOSHINOYA. 

Khash and I had beef bowls

I advised David and Chris to buy the really big meal sets since this was their first time at Yoshinoya. 

David got tempura and beef

 

Chris got chicken and beef.

 

Chris bought very bitter tasting almond jelly.

 So after lunch, Khash wanted to go have a haircut so off he went while Chris, David and I decided to tour the mall.

We went to Toy kingdom which looked more disorganized since the last time I visited it.

Obligatory picture with Darth Vader

Halloween was in the air.  Toy Kingdom had Halloween Decor out.  It looked pretty tacky and fake.

Tacky Halloween stuff and a battery powered fake moving hand.

 We went to the food court where we had Halo-Halo at Heads and tails.  Chris was raving about their halo-halo and he assured us that the Halo-Halo was great!

Me and Chris at Heads and Tails

So we bought our Halo-Halo.

Green: Pandan, Orange: Vanilla(?) and Purple: Ube Halo Halo

The Halo Halo was okay and it cooled us down enough to get to the SMX convention center.  I was really glad at the change of venue! The SMX convention center was really huge and perfect for the bookfair!

Too excited to go in!

We were waiting for Khash to finish his haircut so we decided to have a picture taking session among the very well made sculptures of philippine storybook characters. 

Muwahaha!

 

 

This is very cool.

 

An old woman

 

Filemon Mamon: I hope I don't look this fat!

 

The monkey and the turtle with the sarimanok.

 

Very Cute statues

 

A nice sculpture.

Clowning around with Pilandok

 

Pilandok doesn't want to share!

 

Juan Tamad

 

The ant and the grasshopper. I hated this story as a kid.

 

Chris tries his hand at lockpicking the Duwende's treasure chest.

 

Petting the blind girl.

 So finally, Khash arrived and we set off to look around the book fair. I was pleased that the book fair was better than last year’s and that there were significantly more exhibits and  people!

What inside the bookfair looks like: Chaos!

 

Urgh. National Bookstore.

 

A neat place selling sciencebooks and stuff.

 

 

A device that projects slides on to your pc. Drool worthy.

 

The C&E publishing booth.

 

The Theosophical Society!

 

Madame Blavatsky! Wow!

Certain old faces (exhibitors) were there.  Instituto Cervantes, The Buddhist place, Wikipilipinas and the ever present Time and Newsweek sellers were there too.  The buffet area serving food was bigger  now inside the fair area unlike last year where it was outside and people had to fight off flies and bear the heat.  Last year we had to eat shawarmas and drink coca cola standing up.

Khash unfortunately couldn’t afford Time or Newsweek subscriptions since the price had skyrocketed! (a tradition of his is to subscribe at the bookfair.) 

Instituto Cervantes: Where all the Spanish guys hang out.

 We headed over to the ASEAN books area where we found a lot of cool stuff.

Books from Indonesia!

 

Nifty looking books!

 

Making obscene pictures with Felt animals and Velcro. That Zebra is loving it!

 

We took a break outside after touring the fair and I snapped a picture of the lovely church outside.   Then we headed back in to do our shopping for real.

Interestingly, an EAC bus is parked outside.

We avoided the Main bookstores (National Bookstore, Power books, etc…) because for the past three years we have this motto:

We can always buy the books that they’re selling at their main branches.

Instead we went and looked at the tiny stalls selling books.  Books that you ordinarily don’t see in local bookstores.  We always turn up amazing finds this way.  This year our amazing find was some absolutely GORGEOUS iranian art by Mahmoud Farshchian and a comic book compilation of Khash’s childhood war comics.  

EVERYONE in our group wanted Farschian art. We became fans on the spot and we bought a lot of prints!  I got two prints:  “Growth” and “To live”   They are GORGEOUS!  Here’s “Growth”, It’s awesome!

So everyone went and got 1 hour to buy stuff that they wanted. Then we all reconvened.  We laughed really hard because each of us had bought art from the iranian stall and each of us had been given the exact same book as a freebie.

Iran nuclear program!

 We then had dinner at Sbarro’s where I had the biggest piece of Lasagna that I had eaten in my entire life.  Then we headed home. 

My loot was:

1 Juan Flavier book, 1 Keychain, 1 cool Marvel Mousepad, 1 Filipino book for my american friend, Mike, and three Farshchian posters.   I didn’t have that much to spend and I didn’t buy much for myself (in my opinion) but I had fun despite getting some water damage from an unknown source on my Farshchian posters! Fortunately only the white borders were damaged.

Marvel Mousepad

 

The keychain. It was pretty unique.

I had fun but afterwards I felt really lonely.  I guess I wanted MORE bookfair!  I can’t wait until next year’s book fair!  Hopefully It’ll be even bigger and better!