MIBF Experience and the Search for Apollo 2

I've mentioned last time that we were looking for "Trials of Apollo 2: The Dark Prophecy." Well, we had the chance again to go "Apollo hunting" last September 17, the last day of the Manila International Book Fair (MIBF) held at the Mall of Asia SMX Convention Center.

Time flies so fast, I did not realize it has been two weeks since I've been postponing this very late post. That is one of the biggest challenges of a mommy blogger - how to squeeze blogging into the many tasks we need to do. Anyways, Theo promised to help me co-write this post. I trust he will give more justice to it because between him and me, I believe he is the better writer.

So ... coming from our little hometown just outside Metro Manila, we first headed for The Feast to hear mass.

We, then proceeded to MOA to experience the MIBF for the first time. From hereon, I give the keyboard to my wonderful author-son, Theo ...

***

The sky was cloudy and dark when we arrived at the Mall of Asia. We entered the SMX Convention Center, and there were lots of people. We walked through the crowd until we saw the sign for the book fair. We were about to enter one of the entrances, but a person working there asked us if we had a ticket.

And no, we didn't have one.

We fell in line to buy a ticket. The line was really long, but getting to the actual ticket-buying place didn't take up as much time as I had expected. The line moved forward pretty fast, so we were able to get some tickets in a few minutes.

We finally entered the actual book fair. When we got in... ¿Lo que el gato? Remember what I said earlier, that there were lots of people? Yeah, but that was outside the book fair. Most of the people were inside. I mean, you couldn't even let go of your companions because there were so many people.

We started searching for the second Trials of Apollo book. After going in a circle and checking out other categories of books, we finally found the place where all of Rick Riordan's books were. We searched the shelves for Apollo II, but of course, we didn't find it.

We found another Rick Riordan book (Percy Jackson's Greek Gods) and bought that instead. We searched for more books, but didn't buy any, so we exited the book fair. We went off to find a restaurant, because we were getting hungry, but we saw a Fully Booked store, so we checked it out first.

Inside, the only customer assistant was running around, talking to customers, and turning off lights that a kid had turned on. When he was finally able to talk to us, he got on his computer and typed away furiously on his keyboard. More customers asked him about stuff while he was waiting for his search results to load.

Finally, he told us that there were two possible copies of Apollo II in the other Fully Booked shop, also in MOA.

We rushed to the other Fully Booked branch. We got inside, and I immediately found the Rick Riordan section. And finally, we found the book that we'd been looking for. The customer assistant was right. There were only two copies left - one hardbound, and one paperback. We bought one of them and exited the Fully Booked store.

Finally, our search for Trials of Apollo Book 2 Ends

(at Fully Booked MOA)

At this point, we were really hungry. We searched for a place to eat, and we found a KFC restaurant. After eating, we went home.

***

Thank you so much, my dear Theo, for writing that part for me. I knew I can always count on you!

I would just like to add that while we were inside the National Bookstore area, the group Book Launch / Book Signing of GMA Network broadcaster Arnold Clavio ("Iskets, Piktyur at Tula: Igan@30," Radio DJ Mr. Fu ("Juice Ko Fu") and veteran actress Rita Avila (children's books) was ongoing. I managed to take some shots of Mr. Clavio and Mr. Fu, but couldn't get a clear view of Ms. Avila.

Overall, our MIBF experience wasn't bad at all. Considering that we were there on a last-minute-shopping, at least it was 'mission accomplished' for us for finally ending our long search for Apollo 2! Perhaps, next year, we'll see to it that we have more time when we go to the 2018 MIBF.

I end each post with the lesson/s I learned from the particular experience for the said post and keep them in mind as my "mama goals" that I can apply in everyday life and future events or activities. Perhaps they can be your parenting goals as well.

Here are my MamaGoals for this post:

• Although I would have loved to look around some more for books that I wanted to buy for myself, I stayed focus with Theo's books in mind. Prioritizing my loved ones always gives a sense of fulfillment and inner happiness. Just seeing how happy Theo was when we finally found the book is already a precious reward for me.