Costume season
All you parents worrying about where to get Philippine national costumes for your kids for the Buwan ng Wika celebrations at their schools, look no further.
The snapshot above is from my daughter Maia’s Buwan ng Wika (National Language Month) Celebration at her school. Maia (second from right) is wearing a Tausug formal dress called the Biyatawi. The biyatawi is a blouse made of plain material like satin and is ornamented with tambuku (gold or silver filigree) on the breast, shoulders, and cuffs. It is usually worn with sawwal (loose trousers) of silk or brocade. A habul tiyahian is either slung across the shoulder or allowed to hang on one arm.
Of course, for this outfit we went to the tried and tested Echague Bazar in Quiapo, which I wrote about sometime last year, after we discovered it while looking for where to buy United Nations costumes.
The costume Maia is wearing cost around PHP400.00. There are cheaper versions of this costume, but we picked this one out because of the finer quality compared to the less costly set.
Teachers looking for their own Filipiniana costumes should look no further as well, because the Echague Bazar also sells adult size costumes. Click through to my other post so find out how to get to the Echague Bazar.
One plus one
More and more often these days I find myself wondering if online math help would have been much different a decade and a half ago, if Internet at home had been available to me and my young family. Math help would have been a boon with my sons growing up and in school. I was a young and unemployed full time mom at the time, and could have appreciated all the assistance that an online math tutor could provide. Ever since I started to be on the Internet on a regular basis I found that it was the best, if not only at times, source of information for me, especially in times that I needed free online math help.
My daughter and youngest child Maia, now five years old, learned to read on the internet. It was on a site called starfall.com which I now recommend to all of my friends with pre-school kids who have access to the internet at home. She learned not only to read, but to count and to do simple addition through its online math tutoring section. The only disadvantage to online tutoring is that my daughter did not learn to write by hand, actually holding a pencil to paper, because she had become accustomed to typing her letters and numbers out on a keyboard.
But that’s been remedied by going to kindergarten school, starting June of this year. Now her handwriting is quite legible, and coupled with reading on her books and on the internet I believe she has taken in far more information than her classmates who are less exposed to the internet. Of course, internet learning should not completely replace parent- or teacher-supervised learning. Human interaction, after all, is probably the best teaching tool a young person can have.
Where to buy United Nations Costumes in Manila
It’s been the question midway through September. The next month meant United Nations celebrations in most schools in the Philippines, and more often than not it consisted of the kids dressing up in various native costumes of countries around the world and saying a greeting in that country’s language.
Maia is representing Austria in her school’s United Nations pageant late this month. Preparation for her costume involved quite a bit of internet research as to what the national costume of Austria looked like, and how to find such a costume in any store in Manila. Having one made to order was already out of the question. Most tailors required a month’s notice for such jobs.
Last week I tried the malls. I spotted costumes for Korea, Japan, the US and some Polynesian ones but ziltch for Austria. In fact the malls had more Holloween costumes than United Nations costumes. Holloween in the Philippines is something I am not very keen about but that’s another blog post.
Cris did some research himself and came upon this mom’s support forum where one Mom mentioned a store in Quiapo that specialized in United Nations costumes. She could not recall the street it was on, but gave enough directions to her co-forumers that Cris knew where to find it.
The store was on what used to be Echague Street, parallel to Hidalgo, on the farther side of the Quiapo Church. In fact from Sta. Cruz, following Echague Street will take you into Quiapo Ilalim. Echague Street is now known as Carlos Palanca St.
We found our Austria costume at the Echague Bazar, ran by William Uy and Christine Cheng. They sell all kinds of embroidery, barong, ladies bags, kimonas, long gowns, costumes, wedding gowns and table cloths. They also accept made-to-order barong, gown etc. I got that bit of information from the business card the owner gave us. Maia’s Austria costume cost us P350.00.
Echague Bazar is at 163 Carlos Palanca St. with phone numbers 314-7890 and 733-6357. It’s on the same side as Excellent chain of stores where people in the know get their hams and quezos de bola for the holidays.
Additional directions: from Manila City Hall take España Bridge which will lead you to Plaza Lacson. Immediately after the bridge on the right is Carlos Palanca St (Echague). At that corner is Plaza Fair, behind it is the old SM. Just keep going past the camera shops, looking to the left and you will see the Echague Bazar.
Missing her best friend
For some reason, Maia woke up very quietly this morning. And for a time she would not talk to anyone, nor give in to any treat we proposed. She just lay on the sofa with a sour face, and when I asked her if there was anything she wanted she just shook her head. She didn’t want breakfast, she didn’t want milk, no water with ice, not even the computer.
Then I asked her if she was missing Ate Bebing, who she always referred to as her best friend. She nodded, and almost started crying, but then I told her that we were going out in a while to get Ate Bebing’s ticket so she can come back to us. That made my little girl smile. Actually I had really planned to get the ticket today, it was just a good thing it cheered Maia up as well.
So off we went to the 2GO outlet at SM Sucat, where a ticket from Iligan to Manila cost a little under P2,000 including travel insurance. Not bad, I thought, since the ticket going to Iligan cost a little over 2K. This is the longest time Ate Bebing’s been on holiday, but I am glad to report we suffered no ill effects like the other year when she went home for a couple of weeks on Christmas. No hunger strikes this time, and no stomach flu.
Maia and I must be getting older and more mature 
About Me
