The ABC and D of Adventure! (Part 3)

(continuation)

C - CHERRY SNAPPER, COLD LOGARITA SPRING with CUERVO & CREEPY BUT COMFY HOSTEL

When we arrived at the farm where Noralre was waiting, she immediately asked who among us has a birthmark on the buttocks which signals misfortune on virtually anything a person would do or be a part of according to Filipino superstitions. I was quick to say, "Not me!" while my eyes automatically scanned the area for the table where our food would be served. Noralre's father Melchor greeted and accommodated us well in the farm. With a warm reception like we had, I'm sure I wasn't the only one who felt every inch of a tourist. Shortly after we bid goodbye to Dewdew the good Samaritan in red, two plates full of grilled Tilapia (aka Cherry Snapper) caught our eyes. My stomach growled for the nth time and as soon as chairs were set up and the saucer with soy sauce, vinegar and chili were stationed on both ends of the table, we posed for a two-second pictorial then hastily began eating. And what best way to do it Filipino style? Eat with our bare hands (though spoon and fork were provided)! It was past noon time so one could imagine how we attacked the food with much gusto, even licking our fingers to savor the mixed taste of salt, vinegar, chili, soy sauce and the fish oil that the Tilapia was soaked into. The aromatic pink rice was an added bonus that heightened our olfactory senses and made our meal more delectable. One of us mentioned about carcinogens and all I could manage to respond was, "Screw carcinogens!" while I happily munched those black and crispy fish skin.

Our late lunch was well-received by our stomachs and after glasses of cold soda and some shots of rum on the rocks to emulsify the oils and everything we had eaten, we went to Logarita Spring to cool off after what seemed to have been a long morning for us. To say that the water in Logarita is cool is an understatement. It's actually ice cold that you have to keep on stretching all parts of your body to avoid stiffening of your muscles and bones. The place was packed with many locals and tourists because it was a Saturday and we even met some relatives who were also there to cool off and pass around a glass of their favorite liquor. We had tequila, which generated body heat and somehow countered the cold water we were swimming into. Our afternoon ended with a splash of cold shower and a marked excitement of going to the house of our next hosts, Von and Sam Maglente, for dinner.

If you are a nature lover, the Maglente property is the place to be in Bilar. When we arrived there, we were  ushered into their beautiful garden of flowers, trees, vegetables and bermuda grass. Tables with lit candles were prepared and the silhouette of the moon on a moderately cool and cloudy night coupled with occasional howls of domestic canines made a chillingly comfortable ambiance that we all longed to experience. More than the scrumptious dinner served to us was the hospitality of Von and Sam's parents. Our hats off to them and to the rest of the Bilarnons who never showed anything that would keep us from wanting to go back. After a long tequila-inspired chitchat, we had to retire for the night so we thanked the Maglente family and headed to our home away from home - the creepy yet comfy hostel, which reminded us of the horror movie of the same name. It wasn't really a scary place for me even if one of Noralre's sister mentioned about some supernatural phenomenon going on there. I've experienced worse in my college dormitory before so what could possibly be more scary?, I thought. I was just happy to have something to tell to my friends especially the most scaredy cat of all, Mayette, whose fears still tend to overcome her even in broad daylight. This is good.

When we entered the dark hallway of the first building going to the hostel, Mayette could barely keep her calm composure. Her visual field resembled that of a horse with blinders, which kept her from seeing whatever she thought she would see in her peripheral vision. When  I started to say something she expected to be scary, she attempted to retreat and shifted her pace towards the center of the pack. After we registered at the front desk, we went straight to our room Sunflower and Mayette conveniently chose to stay at the center of the bed where she felt guarded from all angles of the room. We were all tired so the thought of ghosts and anything supernatural hardly scratched our imagination. I don't know with Mayette, though. She insisted to leave the lights on. 

TO BE CONTINUED...

The ABC and D of Adventure! (Part 2)

(continuation)

So we got out of the car to check what really happened. With a wild imagination like mine, I initially thought the car would explode and we'd be blown into pieces of red meat with shattered beige-colored teeth (there you go, not white I told you). The car had to be parked to the side of the road so Justin (not Bieber) started the engine. For five seconds, the engine roared and it gave him enough time to move the car and avoid collision with any vehicle from opposite directions. When the hood was opened, it looked like an oven and the smoke was coming from the radiator. We found out it actually overheated. The solution's simple, we thought. Get some water, fill up the empty tank, let the car cool off a bit then off to our destination where a scrumptious lunch is waiting. I think we all had this same thought. Though we were almost in the middle of nowhere, there were farmers nearby who were kind enough to lend us their pail full of water. 

While we noticed Justin's effort to fill up the radiator did not stop and the pail of water became almost empty, we looked under the car and found out water leaking from the radiator. Great! The radiator's leaking so now what? Our hope of eating lunch dwindled and the thought of grilled fish being prepared by our host Noralre (repeat the word 99 times and see if you don't get tongue-tied) aggravated our unfortunate situation. 

B - BELIEVE IN PRAYERS FOR A GOOD SAMARITAN TO PASS BY

We sent an SOS message to Noralre and told her to bring a mechanic, some water, detergent and the food she prepared for us. The detergent was suggested by the farmer to be used as a sealant but I couldn't picture out how until now. Anyway, Justin called our common friend Al Ganas who's from the same town as Noralre and asked for help. He wasn't available but the good thing was, his brother was on his way home and he would pass by our starving faces in a few minutes. Thank God a good samaritan is on his way to lend a helping hand! After a mouthful of Cadbury chocolate bar courtesy of Keren/Itik Balon and some left over macaroons I bought earlier, a red 4x4 pick up pulled over in front of us. The driver, in red shirt, stepped out and Justin, who was also in red, came to him and greeted him. "They're all in red!", we chorused. Now I know why red is considered lucky for Chinese culture (I'm not Chinese but my grandfather has a Chinese-sounding middle name and I don''t know... I'm just sayin'.).

Dewdew, the good samaritan in red, offered to take us to our destination so we could finally satisfy our growling stomach (maybe our gastric parasites were in protest). But the car had to be brought to a repair shop first so we filled up the radiator and hoped it would give us ample time to reach the shop that was around two or three kilometers away. The rest of my friends went with Dewdew while Justin drove the car to the shop with me in the passenger seat (moral support was all I could offer at this point). After leaving the car in the shop with a trustworthy mechanic, we jumped into the back of Dewdew's red pick up and off we went to our lunch date with Cherry. Wait, who's Cherry?

TO BE CONTINUED...

The ABC and D of Adventure! (Part 1)

A - A CAR'S TALE

While my cup of coffee was still hot, I prepared the things that I needed for a one-day adventure with friends. I'm an experienced traveler, I believe so, and I only need 30 minutes tops for a short trip like this before I can say, "I'm all set." I posted a "Bilar, here we come" status on my Facebook, finished my cup of lukewarm coffee and bid farewell to my blog with a self promise of writing about the said trip when I get back. So here I am.

I was excited for this trip after being on a self-imposed house arrest for a week so I didn't mind waiting for almost an hour for my friends in the next town where I will catch a ride with them going to our destination - BILAR. I ordered macaroons and mango juice in a bakeshop near the junction of Loay and the interior national highway. I sat down and waited for my friends who were still 20 kilometers away looking for calamansi to go with the tequila. The thought of calamansi triggered a slight hypersecretion of my salivary glands and the tequila brought tachycardia secondary to moderate excitement.

After several jeepneys passing by and passengers looking at me like I'm actually a tourist from another place (yeah, just bear with me okay?), a green Toyota Corolla parked in front of me. My friends were smiling, their white (or beige maybe, I'm not sure) teeth still managed to glow behind tinted glass windows. I smiled back at them, stood up and got inside the car in a flash. And so our road trip began...

Our hostess from Bilar could hardly wait for our arrival that she flooded our SMS inbox asking for our location. As we coursed along the steep and winding road going to the man made forest, I smelled something. I didn't mind it at first until I saw smoke coming out from the front hood. "I think I'm seeing smoke", I said in a not-so-sure tone. Then the car stopped. "Uh-oh"...

TO BE CONTINUED...

I PROTEST CCP's tolerance to BLASPHEMOUS works of art.

Expression of art may be limitless but mutilating or associating phallic symbols with the image of Jesus Christ for the sake of art is NEVER amusing for anyone who KNOWS the meaning of HOLY & SACRED. And the Cultural Center of the Philippines is tolerating what they call as 'works of art'? Religion is part of culture and it seems that the institution fails to show any respect to the very culture it is suppose to uphold.

MONEY, fuel me - sincerely, ADDICTION

There are too many films I'd like to watch on the big screen or on DVD that the list I made for the past 4 months  is frustrating to look at as time and, of course, budget are considerable reasons I won't be able to put checks beside all the movie titles on the list. 

I'm a movie addict; a sucker for anything scifi, thriller/suspense, espionage, Marvel and DC Comics superheroes and all genius Disney & Pixar collaborations (remember Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, etc?). Yeah yeah, call me a kid or tell me to "grow up" but I can't help it and you gotta admit to yourself, too - you're a kid like me!

The last movie I saw was the final installment of J.K. Rowling's legendary series about Harry Potter - the final half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I watched it on 3D and it was one cinematic ride as me and my nephew savored each scene of what would be our last big screen encounter with the boy wonder and all of Hogwarts, King's Cross Station, Diagon Alley, Ministry of Magic, Gringotts Wizarding Bank and the list goes on. Right now I want to tell Rowling to keep on writing maybe about Harry's descendants this time or a spin off series about Albus Percival Wulfrick Brian Dumbledore when he was still a young wizard. There are countless of stories that the entire Potterworld wouldn't mind following just to keep the magical fire burning ("Incendio!"). I wonder what's on her mind right now. I hope she won't waste her talent by bidding goodbye to the magical world she created and just rest on her laurels being the billionaire that she is now (even richer than Queen Elizabeth according to reports).

Moving on, Kung Fu Panda 2, Green Lantern, Captain America and Cars 2, among others are just some of the movies I missed or haven't seen yet. The last two are still being shown in cinemas today and I'm dying to go to the city to watch them. But my car, Lightning McQueen, is on tour right now so I'm left with no transportation at all. Darn. Well, it won't hurt to make excuses like this when the truth is I don't really have the green (not the lantern) to pay for my cinema tickets, will it? ;)

The Man Who Can't Be Moved cover

My cover of The Script's The Man Who Can't Be Moved.

My father makes a cameo in this video. He wasn't aware I was recording it. ;)

You're Still You cover

This video is the result of boredom a few days ago. Here's my cover of You're Still You popularized by Josh Groban. ;)

Baby Out!

Remember the status I posted on my FB before? The one about the Yakult bottle that got stuck in our toilet bowl because my nephew wanted to test the bowl's flushing power? Well, after a series of unsuccessful attempts of pulling it out manually or pushing it further, we figured we needed help from someone whose expertise is on toilet bowls and toilet bowls. :) So the expert plumber from the neighborhood came to the house yesterday. He had to destroy portions of the floor tiles in order to remove the bowl and pull out the bottle and when he finally succeeded in doing so, he showed me the culprit that has made great inconveniences to the bowel patterns of the entire family. "The baby's out, finally!", I said.

Janssen, my clever nephew who "accidentally" dropped the bottle, managed to flash his signature grin upon learning that his not-so-admirable act of testing his curiosity has now been corrected. 

And finally, I can now resume my daily morning ritual. ;)

Hangover Part I

The birthday party of my cousin last night turned out to be more than just eating the scrumptious food prepared but also enjoying the karaoke over bottles of wine. I haven't been drunk for a long time and last night's drinking spree almost went over the top for me. Sometimes, you just want to push yourself to the limits for the effect of alcohol to sink in - less inhibitions, more laughs, interesting topics to talk about - and before you know it, the struggle of trying to contain everything in your stomach turns out to be a challenge and vomiting eventually becomes inevitable. Good thing I was aware enough that I already reached the maximum point before my gag reflex could not hold it any longer. It was like I knew an impending doom is going to happen so I had to raise my hands in surrender as my cousin handed me a half-full glass of brandy on the rocks.

When I woke up this morning, my world slightly revolved around me so I had to go back to sleep. Then my dream prompted me to get my a** up and fill my empty stomach with something. Whenever I'm asleep and my tummy feels hungry, I always dream about food, salivating foods at that! So I got up, went to the kitchen, scavenged whatever I could find as edible and found a hot pork soup to which I exclaimed, "Perfect for Hangover Part 1!" 

Dear AUGUST...

I dunno if i'll be happy or not having you around. The result of the boards is a few sleeps away from now and my birthday's just around the corner. I'm having mixed emotions, really. You better have good things in store for me. After all, I was named after you so please cooperate will 'ya? ;)