Waltzin Matilda

To start things off, I'd like to share this photo of my 1/35 Tamiya Matilda.

I finished construction of this around July 2005. I remember first seeing this kit way, way back when I just finished 6th grade. It was around 1980. I was in an old mall in Makati called Goldcrest, right next to Bricktown I think, near Quad. (It was still Quad then, as Quad II was just a concept). Anyways, I was with my mom then in one of her trips to the business center, and I usually ask to wander about the mall and visit my favorite places, even then.

I went into Lil's Futaba of course, which had just about the only hobby shops in town then. And lo and behold, I was surrounded by boxes and boxes of kits.

Under all those kits on the center shelves was a pile of... discards. It was a bunch of kits that didn't have any boxes, and being sold for a lesser price. Not that I could afford any of it. But for what seemed like an eternity, my eyes caught a plastic bag with the complete kit of a Tamiya Matilda. I held it for the longest time, hoping my mom's hand would come tap me on the shoulder and rescue me from calculating how much lunch money I need to save to get the unreachable price of P35.

I left it there of course. And that was the last I saw of the Tamiya Matildas.

Until 1999. I migrated to Melbourne, and the very first place I go into on Swanston Street is the Victorian Hobby Centre. I made new friends with the staff, and lo and behold, as how it was nearly 20 years ago, there was a fully boxed Tamiya Matilda. Of course, I bought it. And now you see it built.

And as I read the box side, it actually says, Made in the Philippines.