My World Trade Bazaar Experience

If the United States has Black Friday, we also have our own version of this, although not that popular and nationwide - Christmas Bazaars. And last December 1 (during the "long" weekend), I experienced my first in the World Trade Center.

I went with my sister and we literally shopped until we dropped (when the car arrived after four, probably more, hours of shopping, we dropped every bag we were holding, not caring what were inside them, and hurriedly sat down to rest our aching feet).

We actually didn't know that there were two bazaars that day. So when we entered the WTC, we had no idea we were  in the wrong one. Although we did notice that the entrance fee was cheaper than what we knew of (Noel's was P50, whereas SuperSales's was P100), we didn't think that it was the wrong bazaar.

Once we got in, I was overwhelmed by the number of stalls. There were probably a thousand in there! Being a bit of an OC, I lead my sister to start at the very end stall and work our way zigzaging through every hall. The space between each stall wasn't enough for two people to walk through, and with the number of people in the whole thing, it was really tight.

At the beginning, I couldn't find anything that I really wanted. We went there to buy clothes to wear this Christmas season, but being bigger and taller than most girls my age and even those way older than me, I didn't think any of those ukay-ukay and divisoria stuff fit me. So to make the P50 entrance fee, I decided to concentrate on finding the perfect gift for everyone I knew - from my friends to my best friends, my cousins to my parents.

When we were almost halfway through (or probably just a third, 'cause there were A LOT of stalls), we heard a fellow shopper that there was another bazaar just outside in the Tent, My sister and I looked at each other, and we knew that that was the one we intended to go to.

So after three hours of scouring through the wrong bazaar, we hurriedly made our way to the exit (getting distracted by a few stalls along the way), dropped off our bags (which were getting really heavy), and went to the SuperSale Bazaar.

As we got in, we got excited at the beginning when we saw Sophie's Mom by the entrance. But we decided to put the cupcake break for later as a reward for a long day of shopping and went inside (shelling off a hundred pesos each for the entrance).

And there they were, all the girly stuff (and some men stuff too, but mostly girly) you could think of. From clothes, to shoes, to make up, and everything else in between. But again, the same problem stayed, I was still too big for the free-size clothing they had. The dresses were either too short, too tight, or they just didn't look right.

So after another hour or so of going through stall after stall, we called it a day and bought ourselves cake pops, cupcakes and nutella mochi as treats. I went home with most of my Christmas Gift List ticked off, but with a lot of my Christmas Shopping List still left unchecked.

The whole experience was fun, but I don't think I'll be going back next Christmas to buy additions to my wardrobe. But it was a fun night I spent with my little sister, and we did save a few pesos (I think).