MANILA DAYS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7853, 15 July 1911, Page 12

MANILA DAYS

Glimpses of Manila in “Travel” show life in Uncle Sani's island protectorate to be very intei'estiug. At the smaller shops you can buy almost anything from shoos to hairpins—their assortment, however, is that 01 a country .siorc.woaie of the most necessary articles being missing, even if the sign does .read “Manila-Paris-New York”! A shop ping tour is not complete without a peco into thd old town made up of Filipino and Chinese shops, a series of one-storied ouildings of one room each. The side exposed to the short, narrow street has the wall taken down, and the shopper is jarred only by a u-giily polished hardwood counter, on which you can sit if you prefer it to the small sloo.s whim o sctimes miraculously appear lor yoi.r .onvonience on tue crowded tid. walks. Usually you wind up the morning s our —remember, all taken in lthsurc-,y fashion, no hurry and scurry of Brw„ - way, lor what cannot uo bought to-d.y cun be bougut to-morroiv—at tue cam. l tore and ice cream parlour.' It ism ,-uterprisiag American merchant whi provides the ico cream soda. To be suit, It is made of condensed milk, for cot s are luxuries in the East. Shopphg has to be done in tho early morning . for the noon hour sees forbidding shu - ters placed in windows and doors of the English and native shops while the merchants go home for their siesta until the cool of the afternoon, when down the shutters come again, but the Yankee spirit of being afraid of losing a dollar keeps their shops onen.