Sunday afternoon at the mall (Guns & Roses)

© nacho hernandez

© nacho hernandez

Filipinos love malls. They are at the center of their daily life. Huge malls in Manila attract clients by the thousands, with the promise of anything they might need: cafes, restaurants, shops, churches, movie theaters, clinics, massage parlors, convention centers. Malls have also brought the "democratization" of air conditioning, with many families spending the whole day at the mall, specially on week-ends.

Yesterday, while visiting the Mall of Asia (the fourth biggest in the world), I started to bump into people dressed up as manga characters. It turns out there was a "manga convention" (probably not the right term) going on.

The guns were fake, and so were the roses.