treasure hunting at dapitan arcade.

dapitan arcade is some sort of secret mecca for home decor fanatics. it's been widely featured in home and lifestyle magazines, including the likes of real living and more recently, tsuper.

dapitan arcade (journal of journeys)

last friday, i made a trip to dapitan arcade with a couple of friends, hoping to find some nautical or sea-inspired accents to spruce up my place. again, being a preppy former resident of the south, i had no idea how to get there.

highlights from our road trip below...

• J was very helpful the night before our dapitan arcade trip. all of the text directions that came up on his net searches didn't make sense to me, so he looked it up on google earth. the image he sent me seemed easy enough to follow. go straight along edsa, get to quezon ave, find the welcome rotunda, turn right on the first opportunity (mayon street), just keep going until you reach the corner of dapitan street.
• i did NOT print out this google image. i was super confident that i'd be able to keep the directions IN MY MIND.
• as it turns out, you will not find the corner of dapitan street along mayon street. we traversed the entire stretch of mayon until we reached a. bonifacio street. this made me feel stupid, and suddenly made me doubt my long-term memory skills. so much for IN MY MIND.
  
• we should've turned right when we saw suki market. it will be easy from there.

anyway, it was worth getting lost because i found these lovely things, all for a total cost of less than PhP500!

in this photo : 1888 milk bottle (PhP100), three navy blue rattan balls (PhP100), ceramic starfish tealight holder (PhP50), blue old-fashioned kerosene lamp (PhP200) from various dapitan arcade stalls

i'm taking my time, arranging and re-arranging these things, moving them around my place to find the sweet spot that makes each item stand out perfectly.

the different shades of blue contribute greatly to the beach cottage feel.

thank you to khay for driving, and to mike for leading the way to quezon avenue! :-)