I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three. As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in...
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe...
I was pretty confident that this time, my team would be able to solve a mystery at Century City Mall's Mystery Manila. Yes, I was back with a vengeance because the last time I was here, my team hadn't retrieved the Pym Particle with time to spare. The team I was in, this time around, was composed of college degree holders, but I was the only one with a PhD. There's a lawyer and the rest had at least taken units towards their Masters... or had finished them. I was the only self-declared overthinker in the team... for a change. (Don't rely on the PhD's to get you through this type of game. We always overthink; we can't separate real clues from red herrings .) We attempted to solve the Crime of the Century. It's basically a hunt all over the mall. When we started the game, the first thing I noticed was that my teammates just ran off without reading the materials given to us in their entirety. They just started hunting for clues! When we did ...
Happy anniversary tita sally & tito cesar!!!
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