When Cris, Pia, and I went to Shangri-la [mall] last year to get my birthday gift, I noticed a compact Eagle-Creek Koala toiletry bag.
Knowing me; Mr. pack-rat utilities guy, it was the sort of product I knew would be useful (moreover, I would have use for) in the future. But I just brushed off the idea since I didn’t need it at that moment.
Sure enough, while trying to maximize available luggage space for our choir’s upcoming trip, I couldn’t use my clunky old Nike toiletry bag. The first thing that I thought was “I need to get that bag I saw last year!”
You know how it usually goes; how the universe usually conspires against someone in their quest for something. And you know that I never quit unless I have good reason to… thus began the journey to find the elusive Koala toiletry kit.
Oh and before you proceed, be warned that there are a lot of useless trivia and pics here… I’m just looking for an excuse to post some photos from my iPhone.
Naturally, the first place to look was in Shangri-la. Surprisingly, it seems other people noticed the practical brilliance of the Koala; perhaps waiting a whole year was pushing it… but then again, even my Victorinox 3-way traveller was still in stock, so there’s no reason why an unassuming toiletry bag would be depleted that easily when there were better brand-named alternatives out there (Samsonite, Victorinox, etc).
Suffice to say it was gone. We looked all over the mall for other possible stores and came up with zilch.
A consolation tough, was that we found something we weren’t expecting (which incidentally has nothing to do with bags):
At last! An easy way to buy _Truffles_ in the Philippines!
Moving right along. We ended up going to Megamall, and failing to find a stock just as well. We called it a day and were contemplating to go to Trinoma another time to continue the search.
That search was, and ended today 😉
Picked up Cris, but not before I took a picture of this scary sight on the road. Don’t try this at home kids; taking pictures while driving is more difficult than it seems.
New motorcycle feature: self-airbags! 😉
Anways, so we hit Trinoma, went to The Travel Club, and found out that there was only one stock left of the Koala… and that was in SM North EDSA; the mall right across the street.
So Cris and I trekked out of Trinoma down the street to SM North, normally, I hate walking… but aside from the fact I was on a quest for something, there were some interesting sights that kept me amused:
Why do I find that hard to believe?
We hit The Block, and decided where to have dinner after getting the bag. We chose Tokyo Cafe, made a mental note, and proceeded to the main mall.
After getting what we came for, we then returned to The Block and proceeded to wait for a table at Tokyo Cafe. We amused ourselves while waiting by watching this kid who was stuck behind the chair at Bread Talk.
Help me! (and yes, that is a glass panel between me and the kid)
We finally are seated and I must say, the food was really good! Given there are so many Japanese establishments popping up left and right, this particular establishment doesn’t disappoint anyone eating there wouldn’t regret it.
We then walked off our dinner by going back to, and going around Trinoma to kill time. Cris was even able to find a size of the shoe she was eyeing from a different branch of People are People.
Went around some more, of particular note was a “what-the-fuck!?” moment I experienced in Cutting Edge where I saw this:
I never knew yo-yo-ing was such a competitive sport!
So where’s the pic of the bag? Seriously, it isn’t that interesting compared to the other stuff we’ve experienced today. But here it is if you really want to know.
I will say this though: given that this is probably the second time I’ve hunted down the last stock of something (one was the quest for my white Camper shoes) I’ve learned something:
If you see something you think you’ll find useful, provided it isn’t that expensive… just fucking get it and save yourself the headache of having to hunt for it the moment you actually need it.
As such, while looking for the Koala in The Travel Club, I saw, and purchased a cool PacSafe CoverSafe waist wallet. I’m a fan of these types of “wallets” because they’re designed to be worn under your outerwear (jeans, etc.) It’s perfect if you’re travelling with large amounts of money as you’ll have the peace of mind that if, God forbid, someone mugs you, that you only lose the amount in your wallet. 1 Which if you’re smart enough shouldn’t contain much since most of your cash would be in that waist wallet.
And don’t think this is only useful in other countries… it has its local uses as well. For example; this is perfect for a photographer taking a trip to Quiapo in order to buy expensive camera stuff. you can dress down, have a few hundred bucks in your wallet… and have the rest of your Php70k wad of cash in your waist wallet and you’re set.
Notes
| ⇡1 | Which if you’re smart enough shouldn’t contain much since most of your cash would be in that waist wallet. |
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