Manila part 5: mind your own business!

The streets of Manila are aligned with small businesses. It's amazing and fascinating to see the hustle and bustle of all these mini-commerces.

Candy can be sold one by one. Not one package, no, one piece of candy only.

You can sell bugs, like centipedes. Balloons, used magazines, mango on a stick, wigs for cosplay, Santa Claus and fake xmas trees, toy machineguns, fry food on the street and what not....

Here are some examples:

'Trainrides' through Rizal Park.

Horse carriage rides through Rizal Park

Blind man begging @ intersection

Arranging his bugs. Selling them for what use? Food? Don't know. Will find out.

"Please, take picture!".

Reading his own merchandise. Relaxed!

Mango on a stick

Fried food

"Please, take picture!".

Xmas deco. The frenzy has already begon, since Xmas is a big thing here.

I bought a fluo pink one, for only 2.50 euro. They are mainly bought for cosplay, the lady told me.

Xmas deco again.

Santa Claus on sale; 75 euro only;-)

You can also sell notary services on the street:

Need to have an official letter or document signed up? The lady with the typewriter can help you with that.

Or become an armed guard:

Guarding a bank. When I went into a bank to go to an ATM, after entering, the door was  barred from the inside with a wooden stick between the door handles.

Guarding a school.

Or a garbageman:

Men, this garbage truck stank sooooo bad!!! All the garbage bags in the open truck, under the burning sun...groce! But the garbagemen were happy and wanted to be on a picture.

So this is what small commerce and what jobs in Manila looks like. Very lively!


I gave an impulse to the local economy, by buying 5 tops for myself, 5 Tshirts for Frits that turned out to be too small, 10 bracelets, 2 strings of xmaslights, 1 Maria with a light inside, 1 mermaid-magnet, 3 bottles of water, 2 bottles of nailpolish, 1 russian red MAC lipstick and numerous taxi-rides;-)


The next Manila blogpost, part 6, will be about murals in Manila.