This morning I rode a jeepney to Baguio City to check my mailbox in the central post office, buy a telephone card and ask of the requirements of opening a Metrobank checking account.  As usual, when I’m in the city, I’m thirsty -at least I have a dry mouth.  I walk a lot and breathe a lot of vehicle exhaust …

I buy from sidewalk vendors or small convenience stores (mom and pop and 7-Eleven) small bottles of water for 18-20 pesos or a 16.8 ounce bottle of Nestea for P22.  The past two days I happened to pass a juice vendor (three 2.5-gallon jugs on a crate) selling mango juice, papaya juice and pineapple juice while I was thirsty.  Both days I drank a cold cup of pineapple juice for 5 pesos.  What a deal for a light, inexpensive thirst quencher.

One can see a large variety of foods offered on sidewalks.  Even restaurants/ cafés have storefronts at which one can stop to buy a pizza or ice cream or meat shaved off a rotating skewer.  Hey, it’s good business to offer food up front where the pedestrian traffic is.

I’ve seen hamburgers/cheeseburgers, pancakes, cookies, donuts, … Dominic favors ice cream.  I  haven’t bought from a storefront like that yet.  And we haven’t been in a Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, KFC, Jollibee, Mister Donut or any other fast food grease trap.  We don’t intend to.

Anyway, on the sidewalks one can find mangos, guavas, apples, fuji apples, oranges large and small, tangerines, mango slivers on stickes, mango slivers in plastic sleeves, golf ball-size baby chickens fried whole, balut (18-week duck embryos cooked in their shells) fried whole fish, fish on sticks, pork on sticks, chicken chunks on sticks, chicken intestines folded accordion-style onto sticks, and many other foodstuffs which we don’t buy, such fried donut holes on sticks, deep-fried marshmallows, unidentifiable things …

What I really like is bagged shelled peanuts.  Vendors on foot or sitting behind a crate have varieties of cashews and peanuts -dry-roasted, roasted in oil, coated with brown sugar or baked-on honey, plain…

Today while I stood on a sidewalk reading and sending messages with my phone as I awaited a jeepney bound for Tuding, a young man carrying a big platter holding four large clear jars of nuts walked near me on his way to Wright Park to sell to tourists.  I beckoned to him and then bought what I always do: three scoops of plain peanuts with a scoop of shaved fried garlic (flakes) to mix in.  Cheap and delicious snack for me.  Nuts are poured into a small paper bag with sliced garlic added last, so I fold over the top of the bag and shake the contents to mix, then I really enjoy it while I’m waiting for a ride or walking in the city. †