Happy New Year (or Let's Hope 2009 Doesn't S@ck Too Badly!)

Well, 2009 is here.

Our New Years Eve was normally bizarre.

Let me tell you about it:

Edson and I went to meet his family for mass at the Church of the Risen Lord (CRL) on the University of the Philippines Campus.We were shocked to see how uninspired the decorations were this year inside the church.But that was just the beginning...

Service began with a three-man band, two on guitar, the other an electric keyboard. Judging from his expressions and mannerisms, the singer must have thought he was Bono. All the songs they had selected all seemed to have one thing in common: all were very short lyrically, and those scant lyrics were all repeated endlessly.

At the end of each hymn, the director of the services, a long-haired woman, would try to cut in with what she would say next. She seemed to be in the band's way the entire time physically as well. I guess you could say she was that group's version of Yoko Ono to the Beatles.

There's a reason Edson and I are usually late for mass those times we attend: it is the minister.

CRL's minister loves to talk.

And talk.

And talk.

And he loves to use power point presentations from his iBook. He really, really, really loves his iBook and iPhones and other gadgets, especially if preceded by "i". I secretly (Oops! Not much of a secret now!) think he believes Steve Jobs is sent by God, if he isn't God Himself.

Service that evening had his power point presentation flashed up on a screen mounted tastelessly and awkwardly in one corner of the altar. So as the service went on, the power point would change, reading "Call to Worship", "Invocation", "Prayer/Benediction", etc.

Were they doing this for people who had never been to church before? What is the point?

I can understand showing the lyrics to hymns. That is quite nice not having to look down into the hymn book, where you find most parishoners mumbling...er, singing into the pages.

At one point during the service we were all supposed to give God a standing ovation for his great work on 2008.

Does God really care if it is 2008 or not? 2008 is just a concept of time for our benefit. Man made time and calendars. Is God beholden to man's calendar? And while I'm thinking of it, does God care about our standing ovation? Does he care if we sit or stand or lie down? If we can't stand, does he think less of us? What if we can't clap?

I also found having two (yes2!) offertories to be one too many!

If having one offertory wasn't one too many to begin with (I don't think anyone needs their neighbors in the congregation watching to see how much they place in the collection basket...or if they place anything in it at all.), the second offertory necessitated everyone coming up to the altar and placing their offerings in a basket marked with their birth month...for "everyone's birthday".

Bullsh@t!

During the sermon the minister revealed they had doubled their tithes in 2008. I'm not against a church not in debt, but the guy does like to make people feel they are better for having given so much more.

There's no need for two offerings! Just place the collection boxes at the doors of the church and let people donate when they come and go. Collecting money has no place in a worship service. If I want that kind of experience, I can go to the mall and shop, thank you. And it is more than likely I'd leave the mall with more than what this guy gives me during his sermons! (He usually gives me severe hunger pains, since he drones on for so long about how good the Lord is for inventing his cell phone. No, I'm not kidding!)

Anyway, after the services ended we pretty much agreed we weren't likely to go back again until they had a new minister. We got absolutely nothing out of listening to this guy, except for hunger pains and a sore butt from sitting for so long listening to him.

It's the same reason I stopped attending mass years ago. I was amazed that the priests could interpret every passage of scripture as God saying he wants me to give more of my money to the church. If the parish needed more in the collection, why didn't they just say so? If money ceased to exist tomorrow, I don't think God would care or be any worse off for it.

Anyway, after we left we had a great lasagna dinner for Edson's birthdayat his parents home with his whole family and then we came home where we had some friends over for drinks before the Makati New Years fireworks display.It all ended happily and safely in the wee small hours of the morning...and we still had unopened bottles of wine on hand. Add to those the three we were gifted last night, and we're ready for another party.

^_^

Just Don't Talk With Your Mouth Full

Don't talk with your mouth full was something my siblings and I heard a lot as kids. After some years that changed for me to Hurry up and finish your food. I'm a slow eater.

I talk a lot during a meal. And if I don't talk with my mouth full it's obviously going to take a while longer to eat.

I could be anti-social and starve, too.

Here's just a few meals I've had over the past month that may have kept others waiting at the table:

July 20th in Bulacan:
Chicken, potatoes, and carrots.

Fresh bread and fish.

Spaghetti, shrimps, and marinara sauce.

After that meal we drove into town to buy chicharon (pork rinds):
A chicharon store.

Another chicharon store. Gee, she doesn't look too busy. Let's not buy any here. Wouldn't want to wake her!

How about here?

You readers may be interested to know all three of these shops are on one part of a small, mostly residential street full of nothing but shops selling chicharon. I took pictures of just these three because there was only enough room for eighty-six more shots on the memory card and I didn't want to run out. ^_^

That last shop had the doors open to their kitchen. So this is what it looks like when chicharon is being cooked.

As much as everybody that day loved chicharon, it is a snack mostly lost on me. I did eat some, and freshly prepared chicharon is better than pork rinds you buy in a bag in the grocery store that have been there for who-knows how long; but I'll never be addicted to it.

When our dear friend Opal was here for five weeks we went out to eat with her a lot.

And I mean a lot.

That isn't all we did, but that was most of it!

Thanks to my swimming laps most days and Opal doing the same every day, we have no titanic tummies to show for our meals, but we do have pictures to remember them by. August 7th:
Here's Opal at Sala, in Greenbelt.

Great food. It better be. Our meal was one third what some people in the Philippines earn in a month.

After dinner we went to a place owned by one of our friends (it is also in Greenbelt), Classic Confections.
Here's just to prove we were all there.

We recently discovered a new place in Greenbelt called Flapjacks. As the name implies, they specialize in breakfasts.

I'm a big fan of breakfasts at non-breakfast hours. A lot of restaurants don't understand that mentality here, especially when it comes to western ideas of breakfast foods.

Pancakes and waffles.

Sausage and bacon.

Eggs done any way you like.

(Aren't you hungry just reading this???)

We were pleased to add Flapjacks to our short list of places to go for a good breakfast meal. It was August 11th, the last opportunity we'd have to see Opal for a long time, and she was excited to try it as well!
Tastes as good as it looks, folks!

This last weekend we had dinner with some of Edson's friends from his student days at UP. This time we strayed from Greenbelt to Serendra, in Ft. Bonifacio, and dined at Tatami.

As is obvious from the name, it is a Japanese restaurant. It's quite good, too. We'll be back for several reasons:

1. Unlike many of their neighboring restaurants, they don't seem to charge extra just because they're located in "Ft. Bonifacio Global City". Their prices are on par with other better Japanese restaurants.

2. Edson got a Japanese curry dish that reminded him of those served at our favorite restaurant in Ithaca, NY.

3. My zaru soba noodle dish (lower left in photo below) was served over a bed of ice, which kept the noodles nicely chilled.
I did find it unusual that the music playing in the restaurant was all by Enya.

Culture clash you're thinking?

It actually reminded me of my first time in Japan, back in 1993. My friend Hideaki's girlfriend liked to be lulled to sleep by Enya at night.

Oh, there's actually a 4th reason to go back to Tatami: to give us a reason to get us out of Makati once in a while!

How to Spend an Early Evening

Early evening is that time when the heat of the day begins to cool, the shadows grow long, and often magnificent sunsets appear!


Fortunately our condo unit is situated high enough up that our view of the famous Manila sunsets is one of the ideal views in Makati. It really only gets better if you actually go down to the bay to see it there.

Parade

I bet you'll never guess what this parade is about.

Here's more to help you guess.

Any idea yet?

If you said 'gay pride' you are wrong.

Yes, you read right! Wrong.

Really! I'm not kidding!

And look how excited these folks look about their costumes:

You'd feel pretty awful about marching down the streets of the central business district in your nation's capital dressed like an frog too!

The happy happy Jollibee bee.

May 9th was the 338th Makati Founding Day celebration parade. Parade participants assembled just below the Columns at the Makati Central Fire Station. That made it easy to know just when the time would be right to go down and watch and take pictures.



And the magnificent float courtesy of the folks from Laoag City, up north in Ilocos Norte. The horse leading the kalesa is even animated!

This May be the Only Chance I Get...

...to blog on February 29th!

I was going to post a cute little blog entry about interesting tidbits of information about this day. That changed when the news came out that there would be an interfaith prayer assembly in Makati.

So what, you're thinking.

Well, here's a small (very small) portion of the "assembly":

If it looks like the pictures I posted the other week about the anti-government rally, that's because it does look like that. But this was taken today, shortly after I had heard the Battle Hymn of the Republic for the forty-seventh time blare over the loud speakers. (Yes, those are the times even the most ardent gun-control advocates re-think their positions!)

As the Philippine Star predicted, the prayer assembly (which included former Presidents Corazon Aquino and Joseph Estrada...no, not Ponch!

That's Erik Estrada! Though they are both actors...) turned into a rally calling for the resignation of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and accountability on corruption charges. Many Catholics were also expected to be in the ranks, unhappy that the powerful Catholic Bishops' Conference has been very hands-off on criticizing Mrs. Arroyo.

Of course, the Catholic Church supported the colonization of the Philippines under Spanish colonial rule for hundreds of years because it allowed them to come in and forcibly convert the nation to Catholicism. It isn't much of a surprise that they don't speak up about the corruption of the government since that very government is good to them.

So, for the second weekend in a row, I have had hundreds and thousands of people amassing at the base of the Columns to march down Ayala Avenue in their celebratory effort to bring down the corrupt government of Mrs. Arroyo. Yes, for those of you who were paying attention to my last post about these rallies, there were many vendors present, selling everything from ice cream to fruits. Hope they raked in some big bucks!

Anyway, I can't ignore my original intention for this post today! February 29th is such an odd day. Well, actually is is kind of even. Sure, 29 is an odd number, but this day only happens on leap years, which are once every four years (even) and those are in even numbered years as well. So it is more even than odd, which is odd in itself. And since we now have two odds and two evens in this line of thinking (If we're going to call this thinking.) I guess I should really call it a draw; being neither even nor odd.

If you had clicked on the link I provided you'll notice that nothing much of any global significance has happened on this date. But...

As far as the Philippines is concerned however, the Admiralty Islands were invaded in the American General Douglas MacArthur-led Operation Brewer; a step towards his returning to the Philippines after being defeated by the Japanese here in the onset of WWII.

And for all those who remember Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl: today is the day in 1936 that Baby Snooks, played by Fanny Brice, debuts on the radio program The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.

And today my mother gets to celebrate her friend Ruby's 22nd birthday! It is a bit odd when someone born in 1920 gets to have their 22nd birthday in 2008, but that's the way it is when your birthday only comes once every four years. Let's all hope she gets really good presents! C'mon, if you only have to buy someone presents once every four years, this is no time to cheap-out on them!

Happy Birthday!!!!

I'm Nero With a Camera

Imagine yourself on the road in a vehicle and you hear sirens coming from behind. The sirens become louder as fire trucks approach you. All vehicles clear the road in orderly fashion by pulling as far to the right as possible and wait for the fire trucks to pass.

You are NOT imagining a scene in metro Manila.

This might happen in provincial cities and towns in the Philippines. If so, good for you who live there. Aside from the cleaner air, it is another thing for which to be thankful. Should your home or work catch fire, you have a more likely chance of the damage being contained.

Tonight I witnessed a fire that broke out just two (2) blocks from the Makati Central Fire Department just across the street from our building.

If you are reading this shortly after I post it, you are learning of this tragedy before anyone else anywhere. Doesn't that make you feel special?

Anyway, I was passing by my window when, out of the corner of my eye, the sight of flames leaping several stories into the night sky caught my attention. Then I heard a siren. The fire truck was on Ayala Avenue below my window. Cars from the side street were ignoring its flashing red and blue lights and wailing siren and continuing to merge into traffic in front of the cars already blocking the truck on Ayala.

I began snapping pictures and continued to do so for another ten minutes as the truck inched along in traffic.


There were no policemen present (though the police department sits next to the fire department on Ayala) to help usher the fire equipment through.

More sirens were heard as a couple more fire trucks tried to pass without success.

After those ten minutes the first truck had finally reached the fire, just two blocks away. The flames were a good bit stronger now than ten minutes earlier.

In all, over a dozen pieces of fire equipment consisting of pumpers and water trucks arrived on the scene from many stations. All had to endure drivers unwilling to pull aside, actively pulling out in front of, or blocking their way. The height and luminosity of the flames were apparent to all. Each driver had to know exactly what they were doing...blocking the ability of the fire fighters to respond to the emergency.


It has been said Filipinos suffer from a "crab mentality". That means they behave like crabs in a basket. One tries to climb out. As it makes progress towards the rim, the others grab for it and pull it down. In the end, none of them are able to climb out of the basket.

Drivers in metro Manila (and perhaps all across the Philippines. But I believe it is far worse here, and I'm hoping it is exclusive to Manila.) are so caught up in this mentality they won't let anyone in front of them or pass by them. Not even fire fighters trying to extinguish a fire just a block ahead.

There is no sense of working together.

No cooperation.

Simple-minded selfishness.

Pure greed.

And hypocritical.

I'm sure the fire fighters will remember God Loves and Jesus Saves. They must. It's all over the vehicles blocking their way to the fire. I just hope Jesus saved anyone who might have been in the building(s) as it/they burned.


The street system here also does little to facilitate rapid responses to emergencies. With many one-way streets, lovely boulevards with a line of trees down the center that divides traffic, and narrow roads with large numbers of vehicles "waiting" where they are not allowed to stop, it is virtually impossible for them to respond in time.

It reminds me of a friend who was stranded for several hours on the expressway as a large fire raged several kilometers ahead. With only one expressway, it virtually shut down all of metro Manila. We were in agreement that another blanket bombing of Manila like in WWII is in order so that it can be rebuilt in a logical, organized manner. (Georgians take note: much the same could be done with Atlanta, so people I know there say. Anyone want to play General Sherman?)

What the fire department here needs is what all the diplomats get: a security escort led by a half-dozen motorcycles that move quite swiftly through the streets here. The motorcycles always arrive well before the motorcade to have the intersections cleared.
The police could do this, but they're too busy ignoring the vehicles making illegal left turns at the intersection just below us.

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve is also Edson's birthday. One way of looking at this is that the whole world celebrates your day. Another is to say it isn't.

Let's face it, the only thing worse than having a birthday near a holiday is having a birthday on a holiday.

We spent the day having lunch at Outback and then dinner with Edson's family.

As you can see here, the night of the 31st in Makati was full of "shock and awe".

Fireworks and firecrackers spread throughout a city of tens of millions appears a bit like a war zone until the most magnificent ones light up the sky.

Down the street from us was the Makati New Year's Eve Countdown. How convenient to be just a six block walk from metro Manila's version of the Times Square Countdown! Thanks to Makati's Ayala Avenue being the Central Business District, traffic was non-existent most of the day. By eleven-thirty Edson, his brother Emil, and I could walk down the six blocks to the event, wait eight minutes for the stroke of midnight, enjoy the fireworks, and head back home.

Here's what we saw as we approached the event:

And now for some video footage of the fireworks:



Ask us how we liked the fireworks display:

Coup-quake!

Yes, another new word, and hyphenated at that!

On Tuesday of this week there was an earthquake here in the Philippines. Apparently it registered 5.4, though it didn't seem that different from the 3.somethings I experienced when I lived in Japan in 1996.

I was home.

The building swayed back and forth (or side-to-side, depending on which direction one was facing, I guess). Maybe it moved in a roundabout way, kind of like the rides at amusement parks that are always making people sick. I don't know. I don't care. Suffice it to say, like Carole King, I felt the earth move under my feet...or the wood floor, anyway.

Today was another of those rainy days (yesterday was beautiful, by the way) where you open the window, look outside, and say "bleh". Apparently it was also a good day for military coup plotters on trial for their 2003 coup attempt (including bombs planted in strategic shopping and hotel locations throughout Makati) to march out of the courthouse and into the streets demanding the resignation of President Arroyo. Apparently they had arms, and I don't mean the two that naturally hang from either side of most peoples shoulders. And they were in Makati.

Cancel any plans to go out towards the shopping areas today.

The first I heard of it was a phone call from Edson saying there were reports of another coup attempt. His officemates just shrugged their shoulders, as if to say "Gee, coup season already?"

Coups are, after all, the way in which each Philippine president ends their term. Too bad this hasn't been tried (or tried successfully....who knows, maybe it has been attempted) on Dubya.

I was about to get dressed to go get lunch. What does one wear to a coup?

Olive seemed out of the question!

Blue? No. Marines.

Black? No. Too K-9 unit.

Khaki? Still too military.

White? In the rain???

Uh, how about pink? Hmmmm....gotta go buy something orange or yellow or light green, but that'll have to wait for later, won't it?!

"Bleh."