So friends Rose Ann and Fei dragged my ass out of the house Saturday for a supposed-to-be La Mesa Eco Park adventure but then we ended up somewhere else---first.
A tricycle away from Philcoa is a humble abode of old, pre-owned, and perhaps even hard-to-find books called Bookay-Ukay. Not sure if this is the same store I'm following in Facebook for updates on interesting but cheap books. Not that I have ever purchased from the store, but they do shelter some intriguing, not-in-your-usual-bookshelf tittles. Classics and Pinoy literature were available as well. I haven't made a lot of research about the place but I'm pretty sure the store also promotes youthful, raw pinoy art both in print and visual.
I was not able to take a picture of the entire place but here are a few pieces of that cozy little store.



Recently I've taken an interest in film cameras. With the untimely demise of Kodak, I feel more compelled to support this old tradition of photography. So fancy it is to find a Bell+Howel BF-35mm plastic camera sold for a mere 200 pesos in the Bookay-Ukay shop. I guess the cool guys are also supporting my ideas on old means of photography? Since I wasn't very familiar with the unit (and the brand) I left it to my friend to purchase one. Since she's going to Singapore next month (for good), I did my part in encouraging her to have fun with the camera and give a few suggestions on which films to use.


Right now I'm using Mao's Golden Half, a half-frame 35mm camera as of now so I'm pretty excited to see how my picture fared.

It's this thrill of wanting to know how your pictures turned out which we have lost in the digital age. After using manual cameras for a while (not that I'm any good so far, err) I realized I've lost half of my life's patience as digicams have given me the convenience of seeing results (or deleting them on a whim) in a flash (like, literally).
But I still want my own Split-Cam! It's called a schizo camera for reasons not that figurative. Google it.
Anyhow (why was I lecturing about cameras again?), I'm definitely coming again to this shop. Probably purchase a few books or take some friends there, too. ^_^