SM City Masinag : the Supermall Between Cities

Me and my family love to go to the malls. In fact, we visit different malls at least twice a week. There are quite a lot of them in Manila and just last May 6, a new mall opened under the SM franchise which is the biggest chain of malls in the Philippines. It is located near Masinag along Marcos Hi-way in Antipolo, Rizal. It is also quite near the boundaries of the cities of Marikina and Pasig.

Comparing it to other SM Malls, SM City Masinag is among the best malls that we've seen in terms of space, shops and food choices. We haven't visited all SM malls since they're spread throughout the whole country. However, we've visited almost all of them here in the capital and a few of them outside the metro.

SM City Masinag is along Marcos Highway which is one of the main roads going to and from the Antipolo City proper. Public transportation is abundant as there are taxis, buses and jeepneys. Soon, the LRT3 may very well extend its service to Masinag so when that time comes, SM City Masinag will be very accessible to anyone. Nevertheless, it's not that far. It is also quite near other big malls such as SM City Marikina, Sta. Lucia East Grand Mall and Robinson's Metro East.

If you have a car and if you're coming from Quezon City, you can just go along Marcos Highway and the make a U-turn after SM City Masinag. Or, you can go along Sumulong Highway so that you won't have to make a U-turn but you'll risk traffic since it's a main road through Marikina City and you'll encounter several intersections which could delay your travel time.

Parking space is available in the carpark building. It's spacious enough to accommodate a few hundreds of cars. It felt the same as when we went to SM City Tarlac though. But then, it does seem that the number of parking spaces is adequate for patrons. Just to make sure, go there early so that you'll have a better chance of getting a good parking space, near the entrance to the mall, easily. Mall-wide sales in SM Supermalls will surely pack a lot of people and of course, parking space with it.

Mall hours are from 10 am until 9 in the evening just like most of the other SM Supermalls. You can still catch the LRT3 line if you are heading south/west and there are still quite a lot of public transportation available in the evening.

Now let's move on to the more important part. Based on my observation, the total land area of SM City Masinag is fairly small compared to bigger SM Supermalls such as SM Megamall and SM City North EDSA. It is quite comparable to SM City Marikina. There are, however, not many shops even though the mall is quite spacious inside. The ambience is quite comfortable and it's really relaxing strolling inside the mall. Just take a look at the pictures I provided. What a space.

As with most of the SM Supermalls, you'd probably expect some features that are common such as the SM Supermarket for your groceries, SM Department Store, SM Food Court and Cyberzone for gadgets and electronics. Well, SM City Masinag has them all. The Supermarket is quite big but the merchandises are a bit cramped up and you'd probably bump into another person because of the slightly narrow aisles. It's complete though since it has meat, vegetables, fish, and dairy products and so on.

The SM Food Court is located on the top floor and you'd find mostly Filipino dishes. However, there are also some Japanese and Korean foods available. There's a vegetarian outlet as well. There are quite a lot of other places to eat. There are fast food chains if you fancy burgers and fries. If you like fine dining, you'll definitely find some of them here. And of course, you'll see small food stalls scattered around such as ice cream, shakes and so on.

Shopping won't be a bore since SM City Masinag's department store is filled with stuff from clothes to toys. There's a bookstore, video store and other specialty shops throughout the mall. Cyberzone is the place for techies and gadget lovers since you'll find most of them here. You'll find cellphones, computer parts and accessories and so on. This is probably the only thing that somehow disappointed me. The Cyberzone area is really small. You don't have that many choices and you probably won't find some of the stuff that you are looking for. There aren't many shops and what you see in the picture I provided is what you get. There's just a very small area on the left side but that's it.

Aside from shopping, you can always have fun in the amusement center. It even has a roller coaster but do not expect a very thrilling ride like the ones you see in carnivals and huge amusement parks. You can also watch movies at the SM Cinemas if you'd like. There's also a stage on the ground floor where some events happen such as concerts, competitions and many other.

Overall SM City Masinag is a nice place if you just want to relax and have a good time shopping with family and friends. Don't expect too much yet since at the time of writing, some of the shops have not yet opened. But when all shops open for business, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a bustling mall. If you love going to malls, you'll probably enjoy your stay here. Again, just don't expect too much yet since it just barely opened at the time of writing.

Source:
Official Facebook page '" SM City Masinag
http://www.facebook.com/smmasinag

Wikipedia SM City Masinag
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM_City_Masinag