A Pinoy Blog About Nothing

1. Family, 2. My most favorite lechon of all :-), 3. Candle cart, 4. Cousins, 5. San Juanico Bridge, 6. Quiapo Church facade, 7. What a Joy, 8. Binagol, 9. Man in orange, 10. Supplicant, 11. San Miguel Grande, 12. Classmates., 13. Wacky Signs, 14. Halo-halo, 15. candle sellers, 16. Friends

Mosaic of my and Petite’s vacation pics.

Well yeah so okay you can get the lechon and the halo-halo somewhere in the US but majority of those pictures you just can’t. I mean where do I have to go to get a case of San Mig Grande?

So we’re just barely recovering from our vacation to the Philippines — 4 islands in 3 weeks. We needed a vacation from the vacation. But I can’t complain. Although the schedule was hectic, it was so nice to see old familiar faces and being at the old haunts. A couple of things learnings, observations:

* Four years, while not a long time to be away, is still enough to time to shock you with the changes back home.

* Prices, particularly food, went up 3x since we’ve been there. I’m wondering if the wages followed suit.

* The exchange rate plunging from 48:1 to 45:1 in three weeks can wreck havoc on one’s budget. My sympathies to the exporters too.

* We made it a point to make it back to the Philippines after the elections to avoid all the craziness. We got there on the Friday they just had the national elections. We left almost a month later and they’ve only proclaimed 10 of the 12 senators.

* Everything’s relative. My father passed on this observation — in the Virginia Tech, 30 people were killed and it was called a ‘massacre.’ The Philippine election had 130 people killed but they still called it ‘peaceful.’

* Missed seeing any live bands we wanted to see. We just kept missing Brownman Revival perform. On the other hand our friend Joelle mentioned it’s not the same band from 4 years ago. She also said the scene is more exciting these days with not just a huge number of bands but bands that offer different kinds of music.

* We did see Parokya ni Edgar and they’re still a riot. We got their compilation of videos on DVD for additional kicks.

* Didn’t get a chance to go to Saguijo…

* …although the spirit of Dredd seems to be alive and well at Mag:net Cafe. Although I did hear Dredd has reopened — their website doesn’t say where.

* Chanced upon a band called Pandora’s Box at Formo in Cebu. They did pretty decent covers.

* Some of my favorite restaurants closed (or maybe just moved). Internet cafes seem to prosper.

* Traffic, as usual, is the deal breaker. I remember when one can look forward to the weekend to see some relief on EDSA. Not anymore.

* SM is like Starbucks — there seem to be one at every city and municipality.

* Speaking of SM, I wasn’t able to check out Mall of Asia. Pero sa mga kwento, pag balik ko, magdadala ako ng scooter.

* Broadband services are getting cheaper (PLDT had a 900+/month deal going) although wi-fi seems to be spotty. The wi-fi at home went down a couple of times…especially when I needed it. Although, wi-fi when you can find it (like Gloria Jeans or Starbucks coffee shops are at 100 PhP for 60 minutes) are pretty fast. If you’re too cheap to get a prepaid wi-fi card, there are still an unbelievable free (read: unsecured) wi-fi access around town.

* It’s not unusual to see people sport 2 cellphones — one personal, one for business/work. Also, Manila offers a great deal for a variety of cellphones that’ll work anywhere in the world.

That’s all I can think about right now. I guess you can take it as a balikbayan’s view of Manila.