Saturday morning (not too early), my housemate Dominic and I left our apartment in Tuding to get a jeepney ride into downtown Baguio City. We left the jeepney on General Luna road, passed through Shoppers’ Lane (a shortcut), and further walked through throngs of people buying and selling chickens, eggs, butchered pigs, vegetables and more on our way to a bus depot bordering Center Mall. »→
Today Dominic and I rode a bus six hours from Baguio City to Sagada to see the sights here. We arrived at 4:30, found a hotel, ate dinner, then moseyed down the main boulevard of this hamlet of 15,000 Igorots and Kankanaeys. I took pictures of kids playing on the street and the verge, and we inquired about where to go tomorrow for typical tourist activities.
Current time is 7:55, and this internet café is about to close. In the off-season, restaurants, cafés, souvenir shops, and convenience stores close between 7 and 9 p.m. The enforced curfew is 9 p.m.
Sunday I walked down to Baguio Gold to deliver groceries that I’d bought and refrigerated dishes left-over from Saturday night’s big meal in Leah and Mike’s home. I found that the A-V-C-A family had already eaten lunch, but the folks were grateful for what I’d brought. I heard that 17-year-old Pat, who’s been working in a mine in Rino Hill in Baguio Gold had brought 500 pesos of his wages to his grandmother, so the family had dined on fish and rice. »→
Like other storms, Tropical Depression Fourteen has been spinning past the northeast coast of Luzon toward China and dousing us with rain all the way down here in west-central Luzon. We’ve had plenty of rain in the monsoon season.
Here’s a composite picture I made with Photoshop, using a satellite photo and false-color radar image from my favorite weather site, Weather Underground.
These are collected transcripts of humorous notices seen around the globe by English-reading tourists and business travelers:
Read in a Bucharest hotel lobby:
The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.
At a Copenhagen airline ticket counter:
We take your bags and send them in all directions. »→
Typhoon Nuri has been blowing rain in Benguet for days. Continuous rain. We lost electricity for hours. A tree may have fallen upon an electricity-carrying overhead line nearby, or a cement pole holding up lines may have toppled on over-saturated soil. We’ve just regained our electricity, so I’m on the internet now. »→
Thomas Edwin Paine was born today to Chris and Leslie Paine. I guess that he was a pain from the start.
Glad to see another Paine, though! Leslie is doing well. Thanks be to God!
Today is Charlotte’s eighth birthday, and her family is too poor to do anything to celebrate. I doubt that they’ve ever celebrated birthdays ‘American-style.’ I walked down to Baguio Gold and went in their shack to blow up balloons while the kids were in school. I carried a bag of inexpensive gifts that I’d bought when I shopped for Nick’s and Rose’s birthdays. »→
Nick and his younger sisters came uphill from their humble home in Baguio Gold neighborhood hours ahead of the 4:30 Mass time at Turning Point/Fatima Hill. I think that they wanted the opportunity to watch cartoons on TV or DVD for a while before we departed for Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church. »→
……Nick came up from Baguio Gold after his chores so that we could go together to Baguio City and register him for Taekwondo training in UFC Fitness Center. Upon arrival downtown, we checked my mailbox for his birth certificate again (not there, alas). Then we crossed Father Carlu Street, walked toward the cathedral and descended into the Porta Vaga Building that the diocese owns to go into UFC’s martial arts school. »→
Tonight Nick came to the flat soaking wet, cold and shivering. He said that he had walked from Baguio City to Monterrazas Village. I asked why he didn’t ride a jeepney with 10 of the 20 pesos that I’d left for him. He claims that he lost it. »→
Well, I have nothing interesting to report. We have shopped for groceries and checked our mail box in the city, worked at our computers as rain falls almost continuously… For days I have been fighting against mold in my bedroom. We have had so much rain since Saturday, one wall of this apartment is against earth, is cracked and is seeping water which puddles on the floor and must be mopped. »→
This morning, Nick knocked on the apartment door, and I welcomed him in. Then he told me that Mack had kicked their brother Andy this morning and that Andy has returned to his uncle’s home in Aurora Hill. I didn’t ask why Mack had kicked Andy’s chest or abdomen. But I thought, with a big brother like that, who needs enemies? »→
I arose at 6:30 to eat breakfast then prepare to go with the family from Baguio Gold to Riverview Waterpark for fun on Nick’s birthday. About 7:00, Nick and came to the door and said that the others were waiting at Tuding Road. I asked Nick if he’d arranged to hire one of the jeepneys down in Baguio Gold to take us to Asin, and he said no. So I gathered my bags, and we walked up to Tuding Road to hail a jeepney or a taxi to downtown Baguio City. »→
Today I went shopping in Baguio City for more birthday gifts for Pat, Nick, Rose and Charlotte. I also bought gift tote bags, greeting cards and a cake emblazoned with the names Pat, Nick and Rose. Then I went to 50′s Diner to await the arrival of the A-V-C-A family and Dominic to have a celebratory dinner. Today is Pat’s seventeenth or eighteenth birthday, tomorrow is Nick’s twelfth birthday, and Sunday is Rose’s sixth birthday. Charlotte will be eight on August 11. »→
May I ask you to pray with faith to Saint Anthony or Our Lord for the recovery of my lost/stolen cell phone?
In my rush, rush, rush to prepare for the kids’ birthday dinner I misplaced it or it was swiped. The I.M.E.I. is 35796801340330/5
