Sunday was Labor Day in the Philippines — a fairly important holiday in many parts of the world. As a result, Monday was also a holiday (a decision made late last week by the government). Consequently everyone was off from work on Monday. I went into the office for a while, but could work just as easily from my hotel room so I went back to the hotel about lunch time. Later in the day I had a couple of phone conferences, including one at 4 p.m. Manila time. I decided to go over to the larger mall in the area and make that phone call from there and then look through the mall for something to take home as a souvenir.

I found a quiet spot outside in a kind of a courtyard at the mall. While I was on the phone, I saw a lady come by and set a bottle of water on the ground and walked away. A few minutes later, another lady put a bottle of water a few feet away from the first bottle and then left. In the next twenty minutes or so, about fifteen bottles of water, plastic sacks, or soft drink containers appeared. Sometimes a woman would come by, pick up a water bottle, and put it somewhere else and then go on her way. This behavior went on for an hour! When my phone call ended, and one of the ladies came back and moved a bottle of water, I went over and asked her what they were doing. She told me they were having a class — it sounded a bit like a “bible” class so I asked if that was what they were doing. “No,” she said, “We’re having a taibo class. Do you want to join?” I declined and she laughed when I said I would just watch. By this time the water bottles and stuff looked like the picture at the left. I still didn’t know what “taibo” (pronounced ty-boh) was, but I was willing to wait to find out. It was very curious!

A little after 5 p.m. a couple of guys came in bringing electronic equipment and soon a sound system with a couple of big speakers was set up and being tested. So much for a quiet courtyard at the mall! Shortly thereafter a whole bunch of women lined up to the command of another woman wearing a microphone, and they began a fairly strenuous jazzercise routine. Most of these people had done this before! The knew the routine and understood what the leader wanted as she called out the next maneuver to be performed. The bottles of water turned out to be place savers.

I was also glad I was only watching. Even though the sun was quite low in the sky and the entire courtyard was in the shade, I got tired just watching. The mall is a two-story building, so I went up to the upper floor to take this picture of the activity. The first set went for about eight minutes followed by a two-minute rest period. Then the next set started. It looked like heart-attack city but no one fell down or passed out.

The mall itself is quite large — larger than any of the malls in Salt Lake City. That’s still pretty amazing as there are two other malls within a five-mile radius of my hotel and each of them are very big malls. This mall was the Alabang Town Center Mall and in one area is four floors above ground and two floors below ground. But it has all the western restaurants, such as Tony Roma’s and Outback Steak House. I had fun wandering through the mall and did pick up some unique stuff to make up a couple of table settings for the table. I also found some reasonable-looking post cards in a book store. I was surprised at how few postcards are on display anywhere and, if there are some, how old and dilapidated they are. After that it was back to the hotel for another late-night phone conference. These things can wear me out! There are more of these the next two nights.