A Well-Spent Day Off and Off We Went To The Supermarket, "Ukayan" and "Tabuan"

It was a nice sunny day. It was my day off and I plan to buy fruits and vegetables at the local market. My mom asked my niece to purchase goods for her retail store. Immediately, after waking up from a nap, I decided to go with my daughter, my nephew, my niece, and his boyfriend who was driving us to the market. Mama's sari-sari store is just a short walk from home. A sari-sari store is a common small business in the Philippines. It is a small neighborhood store selling a variety of goods.

Mama's sari-sari store

Here is the list of what we needed to buy. This is what a sari-sari store owner does. She needs to gradually list all the goods that have to be bought. She has to remember and see to it that goods are available for sale in her store. Pardon the penmanship haha..

The list

Now we are heading to the city's market, Langihan Road. This is Langihan Road, Butuan City. Traffic ain't heavy because it's a Sunday noon. As you can see orange tricycle is commonly the mode of transportation here. It's conveniently cheap. You can also ride a "trisikad", which means a tri-three wheels vehicle that is moved by "sikad" foot pedals.

We chose to buy here at a wholesale store. JSSY is not too crowded and their products are cheaper than other wholesale stores. My niece is already used to buying goods for mom's store. She knows where to go and which to pick. It's so nice of her to help mom. Oh my! it was too hot inside. How much more if we came with a lot of people. Phew! I immediately went out after.

Now, we are going to "Tabuan", where the city's biggest vegetable and fruit market is. But we stopped by these tempting "ukay-ukay", used clothes shops. There are a lot of ukay-ukay shops lined up in this area. Ukay-Ukay business boomed a lot here. People like to buy used clothes from Korea, China, Japan, Dubai, and the US since the clothes are trendy and of good quality. Not to mention they're cheap. At my age, I don't buy clothes for myself anymore. I have a lot and it doesn't matter if I wear old clothes repeatedly as long as they're clean and they still fit well. See those tempting clothes at 40, 50, 100? So I looked around and bought a pair of pants for my daughter and a skirt-shorts for me. haha.

Finally, we arrived at Tabuan just a few walks from the "ukayan". Flower stalls are here. The flowers look beautiful. You can buy and place them on your center table or altar.

At this entrance, there's a barbecued banana for sale at ten pesos each. They are brushed with margarine and sprinkled with some sugar. It's everyone's favorite. It's one of my comfort foods. We bought and ate some. Yummy!

Beside the Banana cue stand are these fish for sale. Seeing them makes me want to have a fish tank again at home someday.

This is the Tabuan inside with many fresh green vegetables and fruits, spices, dried fish, etcetera. The price rocketed though after the pandemic but they are more affordable than those displayed in the mall. I support local farmers. You can buy in bulk or you can buy wholesale. I bought vegetables for a whole week because we eat them every day. I got bokchoy, chayote, cabbages, bitter gourds, eggplants, chilis, onion leaves, carrots, calamansi, sweet potatoes, and bananas.

We bought just enough for the week. I make sure my children eat some vegetables and whole food for their health. I am always grateful. Thanking God for the provision and safety.