Book Fair Experience

Late this afternoon, I decided to check out the 29th Manila International Book Fair held at the SMX Convention Center. I've started attending this activity yearly since 1998. Back then it was held at the Megamall. Then when the World Trade Center was built, it had its run in the center and now in the newly built SMX Convention Center.

I used to be fascinated by the numerous discounted books surrounding me during this activity. It is my frustration since as a kid to have my own big library someday. Until now it is still a dream since I've only got a few shelves of various book titles. In every book sale, I try to buy as many books that my money can afford! I've always loved to buy books that I haven't read yet (and of course something that I can afford). Fortunately and unfortunately, I love to read books and magazines and anything that I can get hold of may it be at the library or borrowing from somebody else that's why I only end up buying a few titles for myself. For those books that I cannot afford, I try to read through them page by page in the bookstore as libraries nowadays are hard to find in the metro.

This time around, I was relatively surprised that I was only able to buy a few books. I've scoured the area for great titles! Unfortunately I got discouraged by a lot of attendees at the book fair that I have a hard time checking out the shelves for great buys. I was about to buy a recipe books but I got discouraged by the long line to the cashier. What I managed to buy were a few prayer books, a CD containing prayers of the rosary and Eckhart Tole's The Power of Now.

My Milo Marathon Story

For about 2 years now, my husband has been trying to convince me to join the Milo Marathon. I am not an athlete nor am I a health buff as I am the opposite. Last year, we signed up for the marathon but was not able to go since it was raining hard. This year, we decided that we participate in the Marathon whatever the weather may be. It was both our first time to join the Marathon but it was not my first time to witness one. My first Milo Marathon experience which was about 6 years ago was almost a forgettable one as I woke up late then and when I got to the event location, all the runners were in the different race paths.

I've managed to have a better Milo Marathon story since then. At around 5 o clock in the morning, we got up, got dressed and tried to reach the race area by car. There was a re-routing for vehicles on these times as runners were trying to assemble in the starting line. It took us about 30 minutes to reach Km 0 and the race just got started.

I was mesmerized by what I saw, I used to think that only ants can gather in such a number! There were a lot of participants all having their own Milo Marathon story to tell regardless of age, gender and socio-economic class. Rain poured heavily and a lot of participants did not mind the weather at all. We managed to walk first in the starting line as it was quite hard to run given the volume of race participants.

We managed to finish the 5Km race and was amazed to see that the participant of 42K already was about to go to the finish line with almost the same time as ours. My husband and I vowed to ourselves that we will make it a yearly ritual to participate in at least one Milo Marathon. If weather permits, we would bring our kids for them to experience such a glorious event while they are still young.