So there are two days in the year that guarantee empty streets in Metro Manila: Good Friday and New Year’s Day.
It was the dawn of the New Year and we were recovering from our ideal holiday: lazing around with good food and drinks and a stack of DVDs, no pressure to do something special or exciting. But with our hangover wearing off, boredom set in and my brothers and I suddenly decided we HAD to have a Nintendo Wii to kick off 2009.
Pooling our leftover Christmas money together, we set out for Eyo in Greenhills, where most people we knew bought their Wiis (not bad for a modified US version, two controllers and 10 games for an estimated P20,000).
It was eerie how we made it from Makati to Greenhills in less than 30 minutes, but the delight was shortlived when we found out only restaurants were open in the area. Not to be deterred, we went back to Park Square and Glorietta. Park Square’s Toy Stop was open, but didn’t have a good deal. The rest of the shops we wanted to see were closed. SM Makati and Landmark department stores, known for their “always open” policy, were surprisingly locked down as well.
We finally acknowledged failure and consoled ourselves with Hen Lin siomai and buko juice at the the food court before heading home. The funny thing is, we lost enthusiasm for the Wii altogether, so it’s not clear whether the household will ever have one or not.
One thing’s for sure, for New Year’s Day 2010, we’re definitely going to stick to foolproof activities: themed DVD marathons or a friendly poker game.