Shopping: It’s more fun in the Philippines!

March 5, 2015 by feyma

Shopping: It’s more fun in the Philippines!

When I was growing up in the province of Malapatan, Glan (South Cotabato then, became Sarangani Province now), my mom would want to buy something for the household she goes to Dadiangas then (called GenSan now). The only big stores I mean like a small mall, at that time was Kimball Plaza (I think built in late 70’s), it burned down around 2002 and Datu Complex. I think Datu Complex was closed around that year or two after that too. Before the sad event, people were just so happy shopping there. Going to those places when I was a kid the place its always jam-packed. Just think about it, since that’s the only few malls in town. The people that were shopping there were the people from the nearest towns like Marbel, Polomolok, Kiamba and the other side of the bay Malapatan, Glan and the smaller towns, and of course the people of GenSan.

At around Mid 90’s, GenSan was the boom town and too many malls were being built. KCC was built and it’s packed with people that the business were in retail (geared more for sari-sari store). Now KCC built one of the fancy mall in GenSan “The Veranza Mall”. It’s really like the annex of the KCC mall. SM GenSan, I think is the nicest SM mall that’s built in Mindanao. It used to be GenSan was quiet after sundown. Nowadays as if the city never sleeps. I’m happy that GenSan improved a lot.

Felcris Centrale – A brand new mall in Davao

I could say the same thing with Davao city. When we first arrived here to live in 2002, Davao just had a few nice malls. Its a bit better than GenSan I should say . It’s just simple malls not fancy at all. It used to be that the small neighboring towns comes here to Davao city to shop. Nowadays, those little towns have malls of their own already too like Toril, Tagum and Panabo. Living here for a long time now, I can say that no need for us to be going special trip to Manila if you don’t really need a super fancy stuff. You can almost find anything you want here. If your wife want expensive and branded stuff you can almost always get that here, I think. If she wants those super expensive bags or shoes that the famous people use, then you might have to go to Manila, HongKong or other Asian countries. It’s not a problem too for flight, some airlines now fly from other cities here in the Philippines to other Asian countries.

Other parts of Mindanao malls were being built too. I’ve seen it advertise on TV or the malls here they showed of the branches they have all over the Philippines. For sure Gaisano Malls dominates Visayas and Mindanao. Here in Davao, we have few Gaisano malls (2 here in the downtown Davao, 2 in Toril, 1 or 2 in Tagum, 1 in Panabo). The main Gaisano here in Davao city, they improved that mall a lot to compete with the other malls. Now we have 2 SM malls herein the city. Here in Davao, just near to our house we have SM mall, NCCC mall, S & R Membership Store and the new one now that were just opened a week or two ago. It’s from Felcris. They also own Chimes mall. Their brand new mall is called Felcris Centrale.

Most malls have grocery stores, department stores, appliance center, restaurants, post office and other shipping courier, pet shops, bakery, payment center for your house bills, banks, ATM machines, government offices, play area for the kids, riding train for the kids, conference rooms, theaters and many more features.

Really shopping nowadays got even better. If you have the hang of it, use the internet to shop. You don’t have to fight the traffic. Send it to your place. Use LBC courier, they almost ship to any place in the Philippines. That I know because we use them for shipping for our business.

Have fun shopping!

February 26, 2015 by feyma

Paella & popcorn shrimp: with my little touch in it!

Just a few days ago we celebrated Bob’s birthday. As a tradition in our household we would ask the celebrant what would they want to eat for dinner. Bob told me that he will think for a few minutes, then he remembered the recipe he really likes that we saw on MKR (My Kitchen Rules Australia) show. Well, he then decided that he wants paella, we saw one of the contestant there cooked seafood paella. I had to make other food too because some of my kids would not eat seafood.

Bob, asked me if I think it would be easy to make paella. The recipe in the MKR was a little bit complicated. So I told him I will look it up in the internet for the recipe and let him know. I then told my daughter Jean and my niece Glenda that it’s Paella and popcorn shrimp for dinner. Jean is not really into seafood that much too. But since Dad wants that menu she’s happy to help me out.

Paella

I found a few good seafood paella recipe in the internet. I cooked the one that I know the chef. Good thing most of his ingredients I can find it locally. Few ingredients that I was lucking was the saffron and the Spanish rice. I’ve seen saffron on some stores here but they don’t have this time. My niece went all over the place and can’t find it. Maybe the “No shipment” and “The no stocks” is here again for sure. For the rice I just substitute with Japanese rice. It works out good too. For the clams I used mussels instead, since that’s what Bob preferred. Since it’s hard to get lobster in the market, plus its a bit expensive, I just put more of the prawns then. The calls for Spanish chorizo and it really adds flavors. I marinate the chicken with the spices the chef recommended, but he marinated his chicken for an hour. I marinated my chicken with the spices for half a day. The flavor were really good. At the end, I followed what he said to turn up the heat for 40 seconds to give toasted rice bottom, its called socarrat (dukot in Bisaya). You can really find good paella recipe that your family will enjoy and that will also suits your budget. If some of the ingredients were expensive, find some local substitute from your local grocery stores.

With the other recipe the popcorn shrimp. I made the batter from scratch. I even made my own heavy cream. Thank goodness for the google. Both recipe I tweak to suit more to our own taste. I think it works really good for us. Bob and us in the house seems to like it and so did our friend Bebe.

Talking about the popcorn shrimp. It’s rally a simple recipe too. I made some of the spices and save the rest for the next time uses. The popcorn shrimp on the other hand, we had to used small shrimp. The downside to it, the cleaning and deveining of the shrimp was a bit of work (we had to devein prawns for paella and shrimp for popcorn shrimp. But at the end its all worth it though. Everyone that likes seafood in our house loves it. I made some ingredients out from substitution. I saw heavy cream in the store. It not worth the money for me because I just need 2 tablespoon.

If ever you want the recipes of the paella and the popcorn shrimp that we made, Just let me know, I’m happy to email them to you.

Good eating you guys!

February 12, 2015 by feyma

Our baby has babies!

Well, almost over a year ago I wrote about that we had new baby in the house. The name of that baby was Blue. Our helper got her from the ditch (canal) here near the house. Well just 10 months from we found her she gave us 5 kittens. The runt kitten died the next day. Blue didn’t feed her properly, really she abandoned him. We tried to feed him, but no luck. He was really weak. I never thought we will get kittens this early. We did have a female kitten before and it took awhile for me to have them taking care of (spayed) because they didn’t show signs to have it taking care of right away. Well, Blue was just different I guess.

We joke here at the house that we feel that Blue was a victim of a teen pregnancy. Firstly, she got pregnant early, then she just doesn’t know how to take care of her kittens at first. I guess sometimes now too. She gave birth a little over 3 weeks ago. Not the best mom ever. We also joke that she’s having postpartum depression. She would be in with the kitchen like just staring at something and sadness in her eyes. We’re giving her special attention while her babies were sleeping. We would cuddle her and rubbing her head or tummy. She’s close to Bob, Jean and Chris. She will leave her babies and stay in our bedroom to be on Bob’s lap and be cuddled. She will stay with me once in awhile. A lot of times we just bring her babies to our room and let her stay there until time for us to go to bed.

Blue is something else. When she gets nervous she will lay down/step on her babies, or she’s trying to hurt them by biting hard. It’s not the carrying kind of bite, its really hurting them. Sometimes she will bite the legs of her kittens. My kids will help her when time for feeding the babies. I bought those little bottles for the animals. She really gets nervous when she heard her babies made sounds. She thinks that they’re crying. We felt that her kittens are getting bigger and bigger everyday. We tried to feed Blue more, she feeds active 4 kittens now, we let her drinks lots of milk too.

By the way, we are naming her kittens in honor of Pope Francis visiting the Philippines. Blue give birth the 2nd day of Pope Francis arrival in the Philippines. The first born name is Pope (the easily recognized kitten), the other names are Francis, Tina (short for Argentina, where the Pope came from), Yolly (For Yolanda, Pope Francis visit the PI for the Yolanda victims), last was Jorge (unfortunately Jorge died, he was the runt). Jean, Chris, my niece Bebe and our helper Joy helped Blue during the birth. They even made record of what time every kitten were born. I’m proud of them for helping Blue and staying up late until she was done with the last kitten.

When they were born Pope was the biggest one. Now he’s the runt. He is the one also that easily recognized. He’s the one that had Blue’s color of hair and with some white on him. To be honest we had to put tag with the other 3 kittens. It’s so hard to recognized them, they had the same color of hair all over their body and the same size. For the record we are giving them away. We already had 4 cats in the house. I’m trying to convince everybody here in the house that we don’t need a cat anymore. I think it’s going to be hard to give them away. We are giving them to friends that we know. I want to give them to people that will take good care of them. But in all honesty, I might give the older ones and keep the 4 kittens. NOT…

February 5, 2015 by feyma

Building a house, native style: Nipa hut!

I’ve been asked by so many people by email on the cost of building a simple house here in the Philippines. Sometimes the budget that they can afford is just low for a very nice house. So an idea came to mind for me again while I was looking at my old photos. I came across the house (cottage) built by a friend in Samal.

Like most of the email, they say they already bought a small lot for them to build a simple house. So the house I was talking about it can be 2 bedroom and one bathroom in the loft. The downstairs with living room you can have sofa-bed or have a nice futon bed if you have company. The house also includes with kitchen and dining room and one bathroom downstairs. With nice front porch. The walls are all brick. The roof has tin roof and the owner puts a nipa material (like straw hat materials) or a cogon (blady grass, kunai grass, or Japanese blood grass) on top the tin roof to make to look like a native house. It’s a very nice house and the cost was reasonable. The cost of that house when we inquired with the the owner he said he had it done with roughly half a million pesos. When we talked to him that was over 7 years ago though.

What a beautiful “Nipa Hut”

So to date, the house that I am describing might cost a million or a little bit more now. But honestly it’s still reasonable with the nice brick and the good structure, for me it’s worth it. I saw just recently a friend built a house in Sarangani area with similar size and he built it for 1 million, it’s not brick but with a gorgeous view, I think it’s worth it. I liked both houses but I prefer the one in Samal the brick and the loft attracted me the most.

The thing what makes the house so attractive inside were the nice crown moldings and woodwork. They even used bamboo for some of the moldings and the woodwork. It’s really nice. Both houses, the owners decorated it with native furnishings and native accessories. I’m not really an Adirondack furniture kinda girl but they had it there and I liked it a lot. The side tables were made of bamboo too. The rails of the one in Samal I think he uses bamboo for the rails in the deck. He also uses if I remember in the ceiling lining were woven bamboo ply panels or the crushed bamboo. I’m trying to remember the place my friends, we were there ages ago already. LOL

Quite Nice

I went to a friend’s house and they had bamboo stick for a a wainscoting and a bigger piece of bamboo as the border. It looks good. Really I think partly to make the cost lesser for building a house here, would be by trying using the local and native materials. Ask your carpenters to treat any woods before using it. My carpenter uses woods too when I had something built here in the house, but he always buys something to treat the wood first. It worked for us.

Good luck and have fun building your vacation house or your dream house!!!

January 22, 2015 by feyma

Thinking of donating blood!

End of last year was really pretty bad on both side of my family. My first degree cousin at the Rodriguez clan (my mom’s side) died third week of December, I was informed by my niece that she’s sick just middle of last year. I just thought that it wasn’t so serious. So shocked finding that she died a few months after. During that time also my first degree cousin at the Bayoy clan (my dad’s side). She was admitted to the hospital here in Davao for her illness (diabetes & heart). She’s been sickly now for 2 years or more.

So my cousin that was in the hospital needed a blood transfusion badly. If you’re on Facebook I think you saw that message from Bob asking if somebody would be willing to give blood. Here’s the whole message on his Facebook timeline:

“Friends, I have a request. It is not easy for me to ask for help, but this is for someone else. My wife’s cousin is hospitalized with complications from diabetes. She needs blood. If you are in Davao and if you have type O blood, would you be willing to donate for her? If so, please pm me and we will coordinate with you. Thank you to anybody who can help.— feeling hopeful with Feyma Bayoy Martin.”

Really a lot wanted to help from the announcement of Bob on Facebook. Problem most of them live abroad. I want to thank you guys for wanting to help out. One particular person contacted me and she was really willing to give. Luckily my cousin got blood right away. My cousin expresses her appreciation for you guys’ willingness to help and the offered prayers.

While were asking people to donate, we’re also asking our kids if they want to donate and they’re all willing to give blood for their Aunt. So I brought Aaron & Jean & Chris. When we got to the blood bank it said on the sign that anybody who want to donate to show ID and the person that donates cannot be below 18 years old. So the kids ages were okay. So we filled up papers for some info and my cousin’s info. We had to show the request from my cousin’s doctor that she really needed blood. First off to be interviewed by the person in charge was Aaron. First thing they asked what time did he go to bed the night before, Aaron answered 12am. He was out then. They immediately said, he can’t donate blood. Too late for him to go to bed. The latest should be 11 pm, they said. So I brought Chris next in line. They will not accept him, because of his mental capacity (he is a special child). I even tried to donate myself but they won’t accept because I’m taking medication.

Giving Blood

So last one in the family was Jean. She was accepted. I helped out Jean on filling out the papers. Wow, all the writing was in totally deep Bisaya. Jean was having difficulty answering them. So after she filled out the papers, she waited for awhile before her name was called out. Finally when they called her, and it didn’t took her long inside and she came out. So I asked her if she’s done there? She told me that “oh they didn’t take out any blood because I’m not type O blood”. I’m shocked that the blood bank people didn’t talk Jean into giving blood even though she can’t donate to my cousin. They could have saved the blood there for other people, especially because Jean’s blood type is fairly rare, type A. I asked Jean later when we head home, that if they ask to donate would she donate? She told me yes, she would donate.

I brought Aaron and my nephew the next day. Both of them can’t donate that day because they’re blood pressure was up. The technician said they might just be so nervous about it. The next day my nephew went back and he was fine. His blood was drawn okay. So luckily my cousin really got the 3 bags she needed, one of my nephews in Kidapawan was a regular donor there and he brought some blood from there.

I was shocked that the blood bank was closed during the holidays. The Red Cross was not open 24 hours during the holidays either (they opened till midnight during New Years day). Maybe that’s also the same in the West.

Helpful information for you all if you want to donate blood:

Sleep the night before not later than 11 pm.
Bring with you a valid id.
Make sure you’re not taking any prescription medicine.
Make sure you don’t have cold, fever, runny nose.
If you have high blood pressure they will not out take blood from you
Try to relax, nervousness will lead to high blood pressure. They advise there to drink plenty of water.
Don’t drink alcohol for awhile if thinking of donating blood.
People with disability can’t donate

Those are the things I remembered that they reminded there.

If possible to donate blood do so. Bob and I really encouraged our family to donate.