Shopping is... different here.

We made it to the mall yesterday. I thought that it would be a fairly normal shopping experience, since it was a mall, the most American of shopping areas, but no. There was plenty to learn.

A took the girls to a movie so that I could shop on my own without two ankle biters slowing me down by knocking everything and making friends with everyone they see. (Kids!) The mall here is very overwhelming, but not any more so than a ginormous mall in, say, New York City. That is to say that there are a lot of people, a LOT of stores, and very loud music just about everywhere.

We had something to eat before we split up. We got a chicken dinner at Kenny Roger's Roasters. (Excellent chicken and corn bread, "eh" side dishes) When you order here, you go and sit at the table and they bring the food out. Then when you are done, you just walk away from it. KRR also has a roaming gravy girl who wanders around with a pitcher full of gravy for all your gravy needs. Pretty sweet.

When we finished, we went into a cell phone store and got me a cell. As she was setting up the cell phone for me, the salesgirl started singing along with the music that was playing in the shop. I had heard before that Filipinos loved to sing and karaoke was really big over here, but I'll tell you what, if this girl was in the States, she'd have been thrust on to some reality show or another or signed to some label or at least singing in a dimly lit something somewhere. She was amazing. And she was selling cell phones in a mall in Muntinlupa.

A issued a warning when I split off from him and the girls: "In the stores, someone will cling on to you and try to anticipate everything you need. It will be very overwhelming. Don't be afraid to tell them to leave you alone."

*gulp*

I made my way to Robinson's Department store, which is much like a JCPenny in the States, though they had a far more extensive stationary department that I had to step out of before I started drooling on things, since that's kind of noticably destructive to paper products.

The first thing I noticed as I searched for some soap was that the aisles were very, very tight. A slender American of short stature would feel a little snug in the typical aisle here. An overweight American of close to 6 feet carrying a purse the size of a piece of carry-on luggage was like Godzilla wandering through Tokyo. I only had one moment of knocking something over, only to turn around to pick it up and knock something else over, again and again *ahem* before I got the hang of navigating the store with a bit more ease. I would like the record to show that the one time when I had to actually lift the things I was going to buy over my head to make it down the aisle, the sales lady who was helping me had to turn sideways to make it through, too. When someone who is about 5 inches wide has to go sideways to make it through an aisle, the store might really want to consider extending the space between displays. That's all I'm saying.

I went to the toy area first, because I'd promised the girls a gift on the first night they stay quiet for the entire night. (I'm not above bribery in my attempts to get us over jetlag!) I didn't know what I was looking for, exactly, and apparently, not having a purpose was permission to pounce. I had someone at my hip almost immediately, which was way more attention than I wanted as I browsed around converting prices, trying to find something less than $5. I am cheap, and I take a certain pride in that, but I still don't like someone breathing down my neck while I am being cheap.

Fun fact: Disney-princess themed toys are about twice the price you'd pay in the US. Same thing for My Little Pony, Littlest Petshop, and Polly Pocket. Basically, everything my kids play with already. Another Fun Fact: You can buy a Snow White themed meat-grinder toy. I got a photo. I will get it up.

I eventually found a few toys and escapsed upstairs to get curtains and other household things. This is where things just got out of control. At one point, I had 7 people helping me. Seven. Think about that for a moment. You've just come from a country where it's almost impossible to find someone to ring up your purchases in a large department store, let alone find someone to help you BEFORE you have decided what to buy. You are used to a pressure-free shopping environment where you can hold two products in your hands to 30 minutes while you weigh your options, if you so chose. And then you find yourself surrounded by 7 people, taking different towels off the shelves, unfolding and refolding them before you, holding them up so you can see how large they are, asking what you'll be looking for next, shouting orders to the people standing in the area you'll be sent to to get those items so they can be ready for you, packing things in your basket for you, and then sending you on to be swarmed yet again.

It's a bit overwhelming.

I went in with A's warning in my ears, prepared to tell them all to leave me be, I was ok. But once I got into housewares, I was just swept up in this tide of customer service that pulled me under. I came to, sputtering and gasping for breath an hour later with four large bags of goods and a curtain rod being carried for me out the door by yet another salesman. I'm not sure how it all happened, but I ended up with much of what I needed. In fact, I ended up with two extra towels, but I'm pretty sure that was my fault.

I had texted E while I was in line, and he showed up a moment later and whisked all my things off to the car for me. You can't take bags from one store into another store without having to check them, so that's one of the things E does for us when we go shopping is that he just hangs around the mall, too, and when we ask for him to come, he meets us and takes the bags for us. I'm not going to lie. It's pretty awesome to not have to lug your bags around the mall all evening.

Robinson's doesn't exit to the mall itself on the floor I was on. It exits into a hardware store, which was good, because I needed some hardwarey things. I spent about an hour poking around and got the odds and ends I needed. Except for an ironing board. For some reason, a full-sized ironing board here is $60. I don't understand why that is, but after paying half us much as I'd normally pay for everything else I'd bought, I wasn't going to pay twice as much for an ironing board.

I walked out with two bags this time, but instead of calling E, I decided to make my way to the supermarket on the bottom floor and then have him come get everything at once and then we'd go back to put the stuff in the fridge. That, however, is when I learned that you can't take bags from one store into another. I was pooped by then, so I stopped and had a soda and texted A to find out when their movie was ending. It had just finished, so we arranged to rendez-vous where we entered the mall.

That is when I got lost. Did I mention that the mall is huge? Like mind-bendingly large? I thought (judging from the mall maps, mind you) that it was shaped like a boomerang. Turns out that it's more like a flattened A with stores filling the triangle at the top. Not realizing about a whole other layer of stores in the layout of the mall, I couldn't find the exit I was looking for. That is when I was supremely thrilled that we had thought to get me a cell phone before we split up.

When we got home, the girls had passed out. I tried to stay awake, but by about 5, I was toast. A made us some dinner and tried to wake us up a few hours later. K and I managed to eat something, but the youngest could not be roused. She evenutally woke up at about 1 am and spent the night awake at my side again. K woke up at around 3. This is going to be an issue for a while, I think.

Today, we are going to drive around out neighborhood for a bit to get a sense of what is where and what is available. Then we are headed back to the mall to start getting some small furniture items, like bedside tables. I've dressed a little nicer the last few days, but our clothes are at the laundry, so I'll be a grungy Kano today.