Ms. Margie's Cheap Tickets: Blumentritt Street, Manila

I usually get up late whenever I don’t have a job and just spend the whole day being a "let-down" person. But at this moment, something just popped up in my strange mind and wanted to wrote it down. Early morning today, my aunt woke me up. She wanted me to go with her in the market and buy something to cook for our lunch. I remember a week ago when my best friend Mary Ann asked me to help her to do the groceries. We went to Blumentritt Street and I was surprised by the cheap prizes of the goods in a particular local supermarket there.

Blumentritt Street
is where the cheapest wet market located and it is nearest from our home. And so I told my Aunt, being her tour guide each time she visited Manila,
to try the local market place.

This is how the busy street of Blumentritt Street looks like. Try to find me here!

photo courtesy of Art.com

Just a brief history of this place, the street is named after Ferdinand Blumentritt, a friend of José Rizal and a sympathizer of the Filipino cause. Above-ground, lays the Blumentritt LRT Station of Manila LRT Yellow Line (LRT-1). Blumentritt station serves as the fifth station for LRT-1 trains headed for Baclaran and as the fourteenth station for trains headed to Monumento. The southern counterpart of it is Tayuman, the place where I grew up and stayed till this old age. Tayuman Street was near the old San Lazaro Hippodrome, which now houses SM City San Lazaro. Reminiscence of a six year old me, I used to ride horses there and stroll around the old Hippodrome whenever there are no races, and so much with that old little girl’s story.

On December 30, 2000, Rizal Day Bombing happened in Blumentritt Station. An explosion by a terrorist attack killed some 22 people and injured hundreds. It took three years before the most wanted man was charged with plotting and masterminding the attack.

Anyway, my aunt filled the basket with seafood and vegetables and cooked our lunch. And so we thanked her for the food and for the so much love she brought us.