“Mas masarap kumain ‘pag may kasama,” as the Filipino saying goes. My school’s foundation week was supposed to be celebrated during the last week of January. Unfortunately, Taal Volcano surprisingly erupted, and so the school had put the safety of the people first. But even though activities were postponed, my most awaited part of the celebration remained: the food park. It’s better to eat when you’re with someone, and such is the case for me and my friends. Exploring the food park is our most awaited activity every school celebration.
The clock struck 12’o’clock, and so lunchtime began. One of my friends, Loujane Alhumayed, invited us to go downstairs to check out the food park. The rest of my friends, Pat Campos and Hannah Sorrera, immediately agreed and went on to get their wallets. We were by the door when we saw Pat removing her jacket. Didn’t want the canteen smell to stick, she said. We followed her lead and started removing our sweaters as well. Once we’re all set, we headed out straight and waited for the elevator down.
The elevator opens, the sight of the stalls and the smell of the food welcomes us. We roam around to check out the various selections, feeling out what type of food we want to eat. As we walked around, we saw familiar stalls that we’ve seen from the past food bazaars. There was the Hottu Doggu, which from the name, serves freshly grilled hot dogs. There was the usual Takoyaki stand, as well as the Scramble vendor. We went around and saw that there’s also a stall that sells kpop merch. Almost walking the full circle, most of the stalls were familiar.
Loujane headed to her staple food park item– lemonade. I remember the first time we tried the lemonade from Coolava. It was during the sports fest celebration last year; and as usual, we were walking around checking the food stalls. The lemonade stand immediately caught our eye. Everyday for the week, we tried a different flavor, varying from lychee lemon to berry lemon. Ever since then, lemonade has become a staple for us to buy.
I heard Pat call out my name excitedly and looked at the direction of where she was pointing at. There I saw a new addition to the food selection called Avocadoria, an Avocado-flavored dessert shop. I’ve first tried it through my mom, who is a big fan of avocadoes. I remember trying it for the first time and immediately telling Pat about how good it was. Needless to say, we had our fair share of avocado ice cream.
As we received the ice cream, we sat down to wait for the rest of our friends. Loujane returned with her lemonade, while Hannah returned with cookies from a new stall called TigerCookies. She came back as if she discovered gold, saying the cookies are delicious. Each of us took a small bite out of the chocolate chip cookie, and it certainly did not disappoint. The impact of the cookies were clearly strong, as even after the week ended, one of my friends still kept thinking about it and eventually ordered online.
When we finished buying what we wanted to buy, we returned to our classroom. The first thing that we did when we got back was spray a ton of perfume on us, hopefully eliminating the smell of the canteen that stuck to us. We sat down and ate the food that we bought, talking about whatever we could think about. We continued to laugh at silly videos and converse about pop culture until we didn’t realize lunch was over. Indeed food does taste better when you’re eating with the people you love.
Ysabela Meets World 