Originally, she asked me to go to Uniwide Novaliches to check there. But when i went there, it was closed and their was a sign saying to go the Super 8 store in Novaliches town proper instead.
But on our way there, we saw that Uniwide was already open, so we stopped there instead. There was a couple of promising trees there: a 6 ft pine tree that sold for 3,990 and a 7 ft white Canadian (?) tree that sold for the same price. Compared to what we saw in the malls, this was pretty cheap. But we decided not to buy yet as me might take a look in Divisoria when we have time. Chea bought some Disney themed christmas balls instead.
We went back and picked up my parents and headed up to Antipolo. But by the time we reached Tandang Sora, the weather was a bit warm and our Honda City's ac never gets too cold so my dad felt uncomfortable. We decided to drop them off at McDonald's C-5 corner T.Sora Ave, then headed back home and changed cars, using my dad's Honda Civic instead.
We then picked up my parents and headed on our way. We stopped over at Tatystar Bakery at Sikatuna to buy some toasted siopao. By the time we reached Katipunan Avenue, it was already 12 noon so we decided to have lunch at Yang Chow at Marcos Highway. The place was almost full but we managed to get a parking slot and had lunch. I'll blog about it on another time.
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| Great food at cheap prices. |
After that, we headed off to Antipolo. We stopped by at Birmingham Homes in Antipolo as my parents wanted to speak to an acquaintance there. After that, we went to Maia Alta to pick up Thirdy and Tita Fe. Only Mama Tess was there, so after resting a while, we then decided to go to Ayala Triangle to check out the musical light show for Thirdy. It was 3pm by then. Originally, we were planning to visit my brother at the columbarium first, but I thought it was going to be a long drive from Antipolo to QC and then to Makati, instead of driving directly there. And it was a good thing too. Traffic was so bad that we arrived at Ayala Triangle after 2 hours!
By the time we managed to get a seat around the light show area, it was already 5:30 pm. Chea let Thirdy walk around the place while my dad and I sat, and my mom and Tita Fe looked for something to munch on.
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| Thirdy giving Chea an exercise |
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| Thirdy kept on walking/running around until the daylight started fading |
We finished eating when the light show started sometime around 6pm. This year's light show was rather short. I took a video of it on my phone, and when I stopped recording, it was barely 6 minutes long.
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| Show was about 6 minutes long with American Christmas melodies playing. |
Since we were still full, we decided to head to Meralco in Ortigas first for their christmas village display. About a few minutes out of Meralco, my dad felt a bit ill. Most likely because Thirdy was so rowdy along the way. We had to leave him in the car with my mom to rest, while Chea, Thirdy, Tita Fe and I went to take pictures with Thirdy.
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| Filipino village |
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| This is probably corporate tax deducted or part of their operating costs. |
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| Western christmas village |
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| The train ride. |
The Meralco Christmas village had 3 areas for display: the native Filipino houses, a Christmas village with a working train you can ride on tracks that encircles a big lighted Christmas tree, and finally, a very big nativity scene. Chea wanted to take Thirdy on a ride on the train, but then I got a call from my mom asking me to go back to the car.
When I got there, my mom wanted to bring my dad to a hospital or a clinic. My dad just wanted to go home. He's hypertensive and he didn't bring his medication with him and he didn't want to drink any meds unless he got his blood pressure taken. Personally, I didn't want to take my dad to a hospital straight away, so we decided to drive home and look for clinics along the way.
I checked foursquare for any clinics, and the closest was somewhere in Cubao. It was already 8pm by then and I seriously doubted there were any clinics open at that time. When we arrived, the clinic was closed. By that time, my mom wanted to take my dad to a hospital. She mentioned there was one nearby, and checking foursquare, it was Quirino Memorial Medical Center. Thank God for Foursquare.
We took my dad to the ER, and when they took a BP reading, it was 160/70. So they put him in a bed and gave him some medications to bring his blood pressure down. They only accepted one guardian for every patient. So while my mom was looking after my dad, I was outside the ER entrance. A bit later, I asked Chea to take Tita Fe and Thirdy home. We'll just take a cab when my dad gets discharged.
While waiting outside, I witnessed a couple of gunshot victims brought in, an ambulance full of mothers and babies came and went, and about three expectant mothers came in with their relatives.
The good thing about government hospitals, is that they don't stock some of the medicines. They usually have their patient's guardians buy what they need at pharmacies outside. This allows their patients to choose where to buy that's more economical for them. Compare that to private hospitals, which stock on all their medical needs, which makes these expensive. Being treated at an ER at private hospitals, actually make whatever medicine or tests more expensive, than if you had these taken if you were checked in at one of their rooms.
So the periphery of QMMC was lined up with stores and pharmacies that were open 24 hours. I got bit hungry at the time, so I decided to go out and buy something to eat. Aside from the pharmacies which also sold some grocery times, there were a few cafeterias and sari sari stores. There wasn't any commercial fast food establishments around, but I did spy a nearby barbecue stall about 50 meters away. I made a beeline to it and ordered the last 4 pork barbecue sticks they had, and a bottle of coke. I also bought my dad a bottle of water after my mom texted me.
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| I wanted unprocessed meat so I went for these |
I went back and gave my mom the water, and then continued waiting outside the ER. I whiled the time away on my Iphone.
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| So there are still payphones around. Matt phone home. Cost me 2 pesos. |
I think it was before 10pm, that my mom said that a doctor was able to see my dad and discharged him when his blood pressure stayed normal.
I asked my mom how much my dad's ER visit cost. She said, 240 pesos. I was surprised. I think my jaw literally dropped open and my eyes popped out. I've been brought to the ER about 4 times since I graduated college, and every single time, it cost us thousands of pesos.
It got me thinking, maybe next time, instead of going to the ERs of private hospitals, if you can't afford it, just head to public hospitals. And if they need to admit you, then you can have someone check your preferred private hospital if they have available rooms and then move there later. It'll save you from exorbitant fees associated with ER facilities of private hospitals.
We got a cab and took my dad home. It was fortunate that the cab we took had its garage at Novaliches too, so the driver was more than willing to drive us there. Traffic was terrible still, especially since it was past the scheduled truck ban. However, we arrived home safely with no incidents along the way.
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