Where I Bought My DS

As you can probably tell from my last post, I recently bought a Nintendo DS lite. Following my friend's recommendation, we went over to Recto to buy it from a guy he met through an online forum.

Now, video game consoles are usually bought in Greenhills. There are a lot of shops there that offer competitive packages if you know where to look. Only the rich and/or the foolish buy consoles from Megamall or any of the major malls since the price tag literally spikes to a few more thousand pesos. Instead of going to Greenhills my friend suggested we buy my DS from his seller, so off to Recto we went.

Now, maybe I've been to Recto before, but I don't remember so I when I say I haven't been there it means I don't remember the last time I was there, if I ever was. When we got off the tram it was like stepping off into a war zone. My friend said 'kinda like Fallout, isn't it?', to which I agreed. Fallout is a video game set in a post-nuclear world, and while Recto didn't have any radioactive waste, it sure was reeking of something else. The buildings looked dilapidated and the streets were, I don't know. I can't say they were dirty because they weren't, but they weren't clean either. We passed through an open movie theater and felt the air conditioning coming from within. It was cool, but the smell was otherworldly.

When we got to our destination I called our contact to find out where we were exactly supposed to meet him. He gave us the directions to a compound and off we went. The place reminded me of the Math Building back in UP. It was a rectangular structure that had an open space in the middle. Corridors ran along the perimeter and people lived along the lines of the rectangle itself. Our contact told us to go up to the fifth floor.

The compound itself was clean, but it was really old. Both the paint and the tiled floor were chipping away and there was grime running along the wall. I found myself looking for lights because it was a little dark inside even though it was broad daylight. I wondered how the place looked like at night and decided that I didn't really want to find out. Considering the state of the building, I found it surprising that I couldn't smell anything unpleasant.

Our contact himself was kind enough so nothing wrong there. I bought my DS and went back as soon as we could. All in all, it was an uneventful trip, but I'm probably going to buy my next DS in Greenhills.