What’s with all the Excitement?

We have a new shopping mall in town that had opened a week ago. I finally decided to check it out today after my husband’s constant insistence. He suggested I should go there around opening day to partake in a milestone event or I will cease to be a patriotic denizen of my town. I felt guilty. So I had to end my hibernation and left my four walls to see what’s out there in the real world.

On the opening day of Abreeza, (name of the new mall) everyone went out to witness the much awaited launching of the newest, biggest and most modern mall in town. I was stubborn; I wanted to wait for a few more days before I stuck my nose out and hoped the crowd would thin down by then. Today my husband said that I waited long enough and had persuaded me to go out and see the new mall, so I went and checked the place out. It is indeed impressive and grand, a three storey building with a huge department store and supermarket and has hundreds of shops that sell local and imported brands, restaurants, coffee shops, movie theaters, a fast food place overlooking the view of the city and so on, but its actually not quite finished yet. Many store spaces are still closed and have “opening soon” signs. The air at the mall still smells of paint and had given me a headache after fifteen minutes of being there. So I didn’t stay very long. I was glad to see the newest mall though. Now when everyone is talking about it I won’t be at loss, but I will wait for few more months before I’ll go back there again when it is completely done.   

My hometown (Davao City) is really progressing, I can still remember the old times when we only had department stores to shop in and a few good restaurants to choose from. Life was so simple way back then. Our first real mall came in the 90’s, everyone was so excited about it. To date, we have six big malls all over town including Abreeza. Next year, another new mall will rise. The rumor is that this will be even bigger than Abreeza. What really excites me is that these two new malls are so close to where I live so I don’t have to travel a long way when I need to shop or stroll. 

Now the locals and people living in nearby towns have many nice places to socialize and to do their shopping. I love progress, though progress always have some consequences in return, such as heavy traffic, pollution, increase in crime rate, over population, to name a few. Although I am confident that our local government will take care of that eventualities as they always do. As of now, I am happy and proud of my hometown’s new accomplishment. We have come a long way, Congratulations dabawenyos!!!