With only a few days left before l had to leave Manila, I wondered how to pass my time. After finishing my work, I stepped out to visit the Bonifacio Global City (BGC) area. First, I took the MRT to Guadalupe station.
A collection of apartment buildings near Pasig river, just as you disembark from Guadalupe MRT
My first reason for visiting BGC was to check out the recently opened Mituskoshi shopping center. Mitsukoshi is a high-end department store/mall that’s part of Japan’s Isetan Group. After that, I planned to go see the 3D billboard installation in the BGC, the first of its kind in Manila.
From Guadalupe, I caught a jeepney going towards BGC. I got down… somewhere… and then followed Google Maps to get to Mitsukoshi on foot.
Mitsokoshi is located right next to the Grand Hyatt Manila.
Being really hot during the day, I decided to step out only at around 2pm.
I began my outing by having a KFC lunch. The outlet I sat at had cheddar cheese coated KFC. It was bleh! It’s basically the same artificial coating you find on cheese balls crisps but now on KFC. The meal cost ₱99.I then went to Ayala to withdraw some money from Citibank branch there
After withdrawing some money, I walked around the area (very posh, mind you). Lots of malls and office buildings.
Asian Institute of Management — it’s one of the top-ranked B-schools in AsiaI entered Greenbelt 5 mall, which is just one of many malls under the Greenbelt name in the areaThis is Greenbelt 3, the posh mall with all the really high-end brandsI spent some time at the SM department store picking up some t-shirts for my younger brother. SM has official merchandise from popular anime like Naruto, One Piece and other cartoons. Pretty cheap too, t-shirts can be found ranging from ₱99 all the way up to ₱399.
After that, I went to Carriedo (LRT station) where SM has a clearance mall
I had seen this building from taking the LRT, figured I would check it out
I found some great bargains inside. Besides a bunch of in-store brands by SM, they had a few name brands and foreign brands in short supply (maybe export rejects). None the less, I found H&M cargo shorts for ₱400. Definitely export-reject-worthy Rip Curl swimming shorts for ₱200. And then some bermuda shorts for like ₱100 each. Not everything was cheap, but then again, coming from India, I wasn’t planning on buying many clothes from Philippines anyway.
One thing I found funny was just how many sales persons are there to sell you socks. Like, super-aggressive when it comes to shoving socks in your face. Think perfume sales people offering a spray to get you talking to them — but a lot more of them selling packs of socks! High margin socks I presume?
Outside, Carriedo is home to a rather large street market
