Of course, Filipinos and people familiar with our language know what I’m talking about – the market. It can be a baby market or ‘talipapa’ in the vernacular, or the humongous central markets that have sprouted across the country, similar to Chatuchak in Thailand or Petaling Street in Malaysia.
In the Philippines, there is the Divisoria Market in Manila, where you can find almost anything, or the Virra Mall in San Juan, where Filipinos often take visitors from other countries on a shopping spree.
Market Day
I went out to go to the market yesterday, it’s my scheduled ‘market day’. According to the quarantine pass given by local officials, residents from our community can go out to get groceries and other supplies on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays, which is totally fine with me. I mean, who goes out for groceries every day anyway? And besides, we have ‘sari-sari stores’ in my country. These are small home-based stores run by enterprising families you can find almost everywhere; we have a couple in our neighborhood that I can go to if I run out of shampoo while taking a shower. Not that I have hair, but you get my point. Lol.
There was a light rain that trickled down from the overcast sky which eventually cleared up on my way home. But that is getting ahead of my story. Rewind….
On an ordinary day before all the crazy things happened in the last few months, the palengke will be packed full of people at this time. It wasn’t exactly an empty marketplace, but most of the people have gone home. I like to do my marketing when the stores are preparing to close down not only for safety reasons, but because I get more bargains and discounts. The sellers love it when you buy from them at the moment before they go home. An old lady gave me free tomatoes for buying from her. She was already packing up when I arrived and was not able to take a photo with her.
I did have a photo of one of my favorite Filipino snacks: the ‘maruya’.
Hardy-har-har
So, it was already late in the afternoon and I am already hungry even before I went out of the house. I had an early lunch because i wanted to write a few more lines before running off to do my marketing errand.
Shortly after arriving at the palengke, I immediately saw this awesome stall with banana que (bananas on a stick), maruya and samalamig (fruit juices). I bought the maruya and put it in my manpurse bag thinking that I will have a nice little snack while walking back home.
I got a little carried away, taking photos with my phone and looking at things to buy, so I forgot all about my banana fritters.
Fast forward, I’m doing my write up, one day after the market trip, and transferring the photos that I took with my phone and saw the food stall photo where I bought the banana fritters.
Yikes! I still have the banana fritters in my bag. I cracked up laughing at myself, but if the banana fritters are still fresh. Yes, they are and I am now having banana fritter snacks. Haha.
End of story.
More Goodies
There were a lot more on sale than I had planned on getting, but it didn’t stop me from taking photos after I had bought what I needed.
A typical palengke in the Philippines will have these stalls:
A stall selling all kinds of eggs such as salted eggs, different sizes of fresh eggs, quail eggs.
Balut
If you look closely at the upper left hand corner of the photo above, they also sell the famous ‘balut’. For those unacquainted with it, balut or ‘balot’ is a boiled fertilized duck egg, more or less 20 days old. It is eaten by first sipping the soup, then putting some salt, and chomping away ‘till you finish it. Another technique, is to sip the soup, then eat it whole. I haven’t had this since I became vegetarian a long time ago, but used to eat it every chance I get.
'Niyog' or Coconuts
The coconut tree is called the tree of life here in the Philippines because of the countless number of products that can be made out of it. Obviously the fruits can be eaten fresh, while the older ones can be cooked to make candies. Coconut juice comes from the fruit and is extremely satisfying and nutritious; it is aptly called Mother Nature’s sports drink. I love drinking it directly from freshly opened coconut shell.
My favorite food from the coconut tree is the lumpiang ‘ubod’_, which is the Filipino version of the spring rolls. Ubod comes from the center of the tree, near the top, where it is still soft and extremely delicious. We also love cooking it with coconut milk, which comes from the coconut fruit also. Let me explain, coconut milk is extracted from grated white meat of mature fruits, but more delicious than the canned version.
Alas, these are just some of my favorite things from coconuts; there are others, which I can share in another post.
I took a detour to the snacks food stall and bought the cheese flavored tortilla chips that mysteriously disappeared sometime after dinner.
You can buy face masks from this stall. They sell motorcycle parts and accessories but have diversified to include face masks, coin purse and other small items.
I paused for a few minutes in front of the church and looked at it, intent on saying a prayer but I never did. I know in my heart that there are people suffering because of the Coronavirus situation and genuinely wish for things to get better.
Going home, I saw that there were some other people walking with me. These two youngsters walked pass by me on their way to an ATM machine. The person on their left wearing an over-sized shirt is picking up recyclable things from the street.
I saw a man riding a bike, probably going home from work…
Economic activity is starting to come alive. For me, it is a good sign for the coming days and weeks ahead.
The carwash was open…
A delivery truck full of brand new motorcycles…
A hardware store was open for business…
Another one selling tiles and bathroom furnishings…
And, last but not the least, this Funeral Homes is always open. I wonder why?
CONCLUSION
So, that was my ‘Palengke’ day. It was a peaceful walk to the market and back. Got everything I needed.
I was even able to activate the 
Thanks for joining me in the continuing saga called life, it is a pleasure to share with you my experiences here on the HIVE platform. I sincerely wish you good health and a calm and peaceful day, and many blessings to come.
Keep safe everyone!