Greenhills, San Juan, Metro Manila, Philippines

Greenhills Shopping Center in the district of San Juan, Metro Manila, Philippines. Described as a 'bargain center', the bottom floor of Greenhills is a market place with a vast array of shops selling jewellery, clothing, souvenirs and more. There's lots to be had at cheap cheap prices, even though much of the clothing and accessories are fake with brands like Nike, Adidas and Oakley all available for rock bottom prices. The nicest part is that you can negotiate a price, so don't take the starting price for any item you want, either suggest a lower price or at least ask for a discount.

It seems there's been a push against pirated movies in the Philippines and I've not yet seen any openly available. One man however approached me with a list of recent movies such as 28 Weeks Later, and asked me if I was interested. I just gestured to him that I was'nt. Genuine top DVDs cost around £5 - 6 while older titles are even cheaper, leaving the market place for pirate titles mainly for current cinema releases.

Greenhills is big and I bought a lot of stuff, especially souvenirs to take home such as some decorated balls made from polished coconut shells and a picture frame made from the same material. These items match the colour scheme of my lounge quite nicely!

Greenhills Shopping Center

A maze of shops

Greenhills at Night

On the way back from Greenhills I ended up at Santa Lucia Mall as we decided to do some grocery shopping there. I took the chance to check out the market stalls there for pirate movies and saw none. In sharp contrast there was a huge amount of software available including the cracked install of Vista. It seems obvious that pressure has pushed movies at least off open display in some areas.

Tags: Manila, travel, Philippines

Comments (5)

23 May 2011 02:47 by Jeanne

Spuoerir thinking demonstrated above. Thanks!

12 Dec 2009 03:43 by Bren

I used to shop here in the late 70's for groceries. It was a "class" place to go to at that time .... actually, it was a nice place and I bring my children to watch movies at this place and we eventually end up at the Barrio Fiesta nearby.

21 Jun 2008 12:28 by dave

Cool! I'm heading there next week and I can't wait - especially for the electronics. My wife and daughter already have lists as we've been able to do a bit of virtual shopping at the Greenhills website. A friend at work cautioned me to go with a local which I think is good advice if you're not used to haggling. Thanks for posting this!

29 Apr 2008 07:46 by FEU LAW FC

We must stop piracy and uphold the law!

18 Feb 2008 03:51 by Sagaree

I had visit this place, while I had gone to Manilla on work. . .and trust me, it took my breath away. I was enthralled with the fact that fakes looked so real. You name it, and voila. . .the brand was there. The handbags were out of the world, the shoes mindblowing. And, now everytime I go to Manila on work, I keep a day aside for Greenhills. It just brings back all the oxygen in my life - absolutely therapeutic at its best!!