A more intimate business: Cubao Expo is not your usual getaway
by Renee Cuisia
This piece was submitted last June 2016 as a travel story for J 111 (Feature Writing) under Ma’am Ivy Mendoza
It’s an all too familiar image Hollywood has tirelessly employed in its films, presumably because of its timeless, characteristic beauty: the staple setting of an isolated, abandoned ghost town. Its shacks and crumbling structures still somehow hold their former grandeur with respectable dignity; they are magical in their faded glory. Dust swirl around the place, embracing its quiet existence.
Vintage and retro have quickly become worn-out words themselves, both trendy and tired. Recently, people have been attracted to anything vintage and retro — old radios, classic-cut dresses, decades-old posters and trinkets, among others — maybe because of its attractive style but on a deeper, and I think truer level, because it invites bittersweet nostalgia.
On General Romulo Street, Cubao, tucked among cramped clusters of modern buildings and hiding behind the thick smoke of vehicles passing by, is a gem of a place that combines the charm of a ghost town and the appeal of the vintage.
This gem is belovedly known as Cubao Expo.
Formerly the Marikina Shoe Expo, the site has expanded from being a composite of shoe stores to a composite of different, odd shops. From a dentist clinic to a drinking house, from selling patches to pots to pleats, Cubao Expo, or simply Cubao X, has quickly become a favorite hangout, especially among millennials.
One of the expo’s many cozy spaces might be able to explain this attraction. The Appraisery, a lifestyle hub that’s simultaneously a café, bar, game place, boutique, vintage store, events place, and art space, is one of its most visited spots. With all that jumble and attempt to be all things at once, it is also a microcosm of the expo itself.
As millennials are said to have short attention spans and a more experimental, adventurous spirit, it’s no surprise that it’s this age group that flocks the place the most.
A step into the expo is a departure from the real world. It’s said that the best time to visit Cubao X is at night when little, colorful lights trace adjacent roofs and the spirited, inebriated youth that occupy the bars jolt the place to life. But it’s also a treat to visit the place in the quiet time of the afternoon, when it most resembles a ghost town.
While most of the expo’s drinking places such as The Appraisery and Fred’s Revolución (a Communist-themed bar) are closed until the evening, everything else is open to the public. And by everything else, I mean the boutiques and vintage stores that most people set as Cubao X’s main identifiers.
The cul-de-sac that is Cubao Expo has one side dedicated to stores selling all vintage stuff imaginable. From sofas and suitcases dated as far back as the 1930s, to little keychains and baseball cards, everything and anything old is preserved, displayed, and sold in the said row of stores.
According to the shopkeepers, the bestsellers seem to be old vinyl records, faded but pre-loved books and comics, barely functioning but still beautiful film cameras, and other memorabilia.
“The dirtier and the more broken the objects appear to be, the more interested the buyers are,” one shopkeeper shares, a bit confused. He also says that in the afternoon, when the place is most deserted, he and his fellow keepers relish the peaceful, pleasant silence before it is replaced by the bustling noise of the night.
If one is after this solemnity, or the way the scorching sun shines on the rusting antiques, or the lull of the ghost town that is Cubao X at the afternoon, then it’s best to go before dark.
If one’s not up for the usual drinks, café fix, or boutique shopping experience, the expo has a lot more unique things to offer.
For example, Cubao X is home to the Warrior Poet Art Café, a place that doubles up as a space for spoken-word performances. There’s also Four Strings Café, which is characteristically a lot of things at once (ukulele hub, café, and local crafts store) and Local Loca, a store dedicated to featuring and selling accessible artworks such as stickers, patches, keychains, and t-shirts made by contemporary local artists. For bookworms there is the Reading Room, a bookstore that holds regular readings in its cozy, artful rooms.
Even regular stores such as barber shop and dentist clinic are not exempt from Cubao X’s signature artisan touch. A look into these shops immediately reveals the expo’s characteristic quirkiness, homeliness and familiarity.
There’s nothing quite like Cubao Expo. Anyone who’s been there will tell you the same thing: It’s like a different world altogether.
Indeed, in a time of clean-cut and carefully curated commercial establishments, of malls and shopping centers bearing names and items so removed from anything sincere or grounded, Cubao X, with its collection of local stores and restaurants and boutiques carrying the same endearing elegance any well-made handicraft or beautiful handwriting brings, offers something so rare and refreshing these days — Cubao X offers an intimate, delightfully personal experience.
It offers the possibility of stores being more than a business, and instead a community that fosters the attachments its guests create on and for it.
Whether it be during the daily routine of your weekdays or on a weekend when an art exhibit or performance is scheduled, it’s never a wrong idea to visit the expo and take a dip of your own trip, to escape the world you already know to one you will endlessly know.
And don’t worry about boredom here. The expo doesn’t run out of choices, just like it won’t ever run out of character.
