At the end of the week, I came back with MrC and together we looked at all the furniture there again.  Even after looking back and forth between stores we still ended up buying from one furniture retailer.  The name of the retailer is Marc John Furniture and their factory is based in Pampanga.  They said all of the furniture will be delivered on Dec. 12, which is a Saturday.  We paid 30% downpayment and the rest will be Cash on Delivery.

Another nice thing this week is that we have contractors that started making our entertainment center in the living room and two book shelves.  We pay them daily and the rates are pretty good.  If you find a good and trustworthy carpenter I do recommend having custom made cabinets. You get exactly what you want for a lot less!

It took us around 45 minutes from Cubao to reach that area called Maypajo.  We went all the way through EDSA past the Monumento (as told by our landlord) then looked for the left towards A. Mabini.  It turns out that it is the same way as going to Sangandaan.  This we learned from asking for directions.  After Sangandaan we crossed a big highway called the C3 and after that followed the street until we saw furniture stores.  The amount of furniture stores were significant to notice but it was less than I expected.  We were able to stop by one of the stores with a corner parking.  There we were happily welcomed by the staff of the store in the corner.  There was one sofa or sala set that we seriously considered.  It was made of solid wood and it includes a 3-4 person piece and 2 1 person seats and even a coffee table.  The cushions were not attached.  We could choose the thickness and fabric of the upholstery.  In the end, I still had some doubts if I really liked the style.  It was hard to judge because I didn’t see a finished version of what we wanted.  After that, we asked to be shown other kinds of sofa and tables.  We were then led to their little storage place a few steps away from their store.  Somehow, even though we were led into a dark, alley and the room was totally dark we were not so scared.  Maybe it’s because the saleslady seemed nice and non-threatening.  There wasn’t anything to show though and if there was, most of the furniture were dusty and it was way too dark to actually appreciate them.  After that we took the saleslady with us and drove off to another “house”.  It turned out that this was their factory.  Again it was dark and musty.  We saw what one would consider a “sweatshop” in several countries.  The second floor of the house was divided into two, one part was a makeshift storage space (messy), and the other part is where they do the assembly of furniture but again they could not find a good sample for me to see! It was pretty disorganized.  The entrance of the house is where they put up a makeshift kitchen sitting on the ground.  We kept an open mind about everything we saw, and we stayed out of curiosity.  However, they were not able to show us anything interesting to buy.

In the end, we decided to just hold off buying the wooden sala set.   Again, there was even heavier traffic going home.