01435: Books, Sushi and Onslaught

So at the end of a rather stressful work week, I started the weekend rather geekily with a trip to the 33rd Manila International Book Fair. I wasn't exactly expecting much given how these events go, but it seems almost traditional to make the pilgrimage and to help support the fair in general. Books always deserve our support, even if most of my book spending is invested directly with Amazon. Blame my Kindle.

Beyond the usual mix of educational book sellers and Christian bookstores, the main points of interest were the stalls setup by National Bookstore and Fully Booked. National Bookstore had more of the same stuff and didn't seem all that different from your typical branch. But Fully Booked on the other hand felt a lot more like they were really invested in the whole book fair environment.

I really appreciated how Fully Booked handled their stall at the fair. They had a lot of staff on hand who were prepared to answer questions, help customers find books or just to give out free tickets for the fair. Purchases entitle you to raffle tickets and if you had gone to the fair with a Fully Booked ticket, you also get to pick a prize! And instead of the usual plastic bags, they gave out nice reusable shopping bags (with Fully Booked branding of course). And as a Quezon City resident, you know that you can never get enough reusable shopping bags. I also got a free pen a and a little notepad just for shopping with them. SWEET!

Seriously, it's the little things that make the shopping experience all the better. So thanks a lot, Fully Booked!

So after making the rounds of the fair, I decided to check out Toy Kingdom and then have some lunch. However it's been so long since the last time that I've  been to SM Mall of Asia, it was only today that I discovered that Toy Kingdom had moved and in its place was a huge Forever 21 branch. I've never really cared much for all these new retail chains entering the country like UNIQLO and Cotton On. Then again, I'm a geek, so my opinion on such matters isn't all that relevant.

So I ended up finally hitting Sakae Sushi to satisfy my sushi buffet craving of recent weeks, and it went pretty well. I went through 14 plates of sushi (as in the photo) and didn't feel too weird gorging on raw fish all  by myself. Then I made sure to get directions to Toy Kingdom's new location on my way out.

Thankfully Toy Kingdom had all the new Fall of Cybertron figures in stock (and at 10% off due to the 3-day pay day sale). So I finally got the last Combaticon - Onslaught - to complete my collection. It's just a question of when I'll finally release them from their plastic and cardboard prisons, hehe.

Now at home, just watching Futurama. I feel too full to sleep comfortably just yet so I'll kill some time for now. And I just might get around to unboxing some Transformers, hehe.