Phil Asian Food Market

For the past two weeks, I've been looking for a way to send moulah to my family in the Philippines. It's difficult to send money because my per diem here in the US is not given in cash. Instead, I get an American Express gift card. I tried to use xoom.com but they don't accept AmEx. I even tried sending money through my HSBC credit card but only cards issued in the US are accepted. Western Union is an option but they charge 22 bucks for the 200 dollars that I plan to send. And then I found out about "Phil Asian Food Market", a Filipino store in Chantilly, VA. I researched on the net where it's located. It's only less than 15 miles from Ashburn. Sweet!

I asked Richie and Faye to accompany me. From Ashburn, we took VA-7 East, 28 South, then 50 West. When we saw Lee Jackson Memorial Highway, we made a U-turn. It's a bit challenging to locate the Asian store because their shop is not visible from the highway.

When we entered the store, I immediately asked the woman at the counter named Linda where I could send money. She instructed me to fill out a form. She told me that the money will be delivered to our house in Bulacan on Wednesday. They charge 15 bucks when the recipient is in the province. 7 bucks for people living in the Metro.

Afterwards, I checked out the store. They sell so many different spices, noodles, sauces, snacks, etc. Too bad they don't have Purefoods hotdogs. At last, we found a bagoong (fish paste). They also have a canned calamansi juice. It's already sweetened so we cannot use it for our "sawsawan".

There's also a teevee showing "The Buzz". Piolo Pascual was being interviewed. They showed a screenshot from his movie with Regine Velasquez. I hope they show the movie here in the US.