Very Tired, Resting

[smartads] Okay I need to get this thing going and done.  It’s 8:03pm and I will be getting up early tomorrow morning, heading for Tacloban.  WHAT??  Tacloban?  Well read on and I will be getting to the reason in just a little bit.

The City of San Juan (Filipino: Lungsod ng San Juan) or simply San Juan is a city in Metro Manila in the Philippines. Before the creation of Metro Manila, it was part of Rizal Province. Currently the smallest city in the region and the country in terms of area, San Juan is one of the smallest among the cities and municipalities in the metropolis, second only to Pateros. This was the site of the first battle of the Katipunan, the Filipino revolutionary organization, against the Spanish colonizers.

http://www.sanjuancity.gov.ph/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Juan,_Metro_Manila

“San Juan” is a contraction of the city’s longer official name: San Juan del Monte (English:  “St. John of the Mountain”). It is named in honour of St. John the Baptist, the city’s patron saint, and the hilly terrain the city is situated on.

http://zip-codes.philsite.net/

I got up for a CR break at 7-something and decided to just stay up.  After turning on the computer and answering the only comment I had, I decided to look for those audio Tagalog lessons that I keep saying I need to find.  Turns out that if you input the right information, it ain’t that hard to find.  I found 2 good ones and 1 in particular that I think is going to help me a lot, as long as I take the time to go through it.  Here’s the link in case you what to give it a try.  Heck I’ll put them both in here and let you decided which is best for you.  The other one is here.  I hope that one or both of them can help you.  I took the first test on the first link and made 100% on the test, twice.  Of course it was only 6 words and I already basically knew 5 of them, but part of my problem with the Tagalog language is understanding what is being said when they say it, because it seems too fast.  So I like my progress so far and there are over 100 lessons like this on different subjects.

Right now though, I’m in LolyKat and it’s 0850.  Lita looks dead dog tired, so she’s heading for bed.  She said to give her 30 minutes, but she’s always spouting out those numbers.  Sometimes she says, “Give me just 5 minutes”.  Who the heck can rest in 5 minutes if you are that tired, especially when you are retired and can take as long as you want.  I was going to let her stay in there as long as she wanted.  Of course things don’t always turn out like I want and especially when Lita is concerned.  Read on, you’ll see.

http://www.paraisophilippines.com/category/metro-manila/san-juan-city/

Remember Cathy’s dolls I was looking up for her on E-bay?  I looked but there are so many different kinds of those silly little Hannah Montana dolls, I’m going to have to get more details on them and look again later.  Cathy said she’d be willing to put them on E-bay with a minimum price.

Lita just headed for the Grand Tour terminal, the Korean store and Monterrey Meat Shop.  She didn’t sleep long did she?  It’s been almost exactly 1 hour since she went to bed.  I reminded her to get some AA batteries, so I hope she remembers them so I can try out the portable CD player.  They were not her main reason for going to the Korean store, but I can’t remember what that was.  Obviously whatever it is does not affect me directly or I’d remember.  She’s going to Monterrey to buy some chicken for lunch.  I haven’t eaten today yet, but I’ll wait until she returns and cooks.

I guess now is as good of time as any to tell you why it is Tacloban and not Cebu for our trip this weekend.  Mar and Ludy came by last night.  We were talking about the trip and we found out that the fare for the trip to Cebu via the ferry is a little over P900 per person each way.  That’s about double what we were expecting.  Now we still have enough money to go there, but I would not be able to do much shopping after we filter in the restaurants we would be visiting and whatever else we decided to buy.  Our trip to Cebu was not necessary right now.  We were just doing it to get Lita’s social security information up to date, but decided that if we went there and there was a problem, we would have wasted a trip and money.  It’d be more practical to just wait until we get back to Texas because the social security office is very close to where we’ll be staying.  We will miss out on 3 months of social security payments, but such is life.  It’s not going to be all that much anyway.

http://www.wheninmanila.com/everything-at-steak-best-steak-house-in-manila/

So, since we will be leaving here about 0530, then I will need to get this post out earlier.  The trip to Tacloban will be an all day excursion and of course our main purpose is to go to Robinson’s Mall and the supermarket.  I probably should make a list to make sure I at least look for everything I want.  I will personally be pushing that cart up and down every aisle looking at things.  Some items, like BBQ sauce, Underwood Devil Ham, American cheese and sausage I will be sure to get a good supply of it.  Hopefully enough to last a couple of months until we head for Korea and Texas.

Speaking of Korea/Texas, that looks like it will be my first entry in the yet to be established travel blog.  That’s probably a better choice anyway because it will include something unique that most travel blogs do not have, the military flight from Korea to Seattle.  I just have to remember to get to a computer after our flight is confirmed so I can get the online discount for a flight from Seattle to Texas.  There are plenty of flights from Seattle to Austin to choose from on Southwest Airlines, so at least that should not be a problem.

Whenever they load/unload the Pepsi truck, they stack the cases on the side of the road.  It was only a matter of time before someone ran into them.  Yep, it happened today.  Luckily it wasn’t too severe and I believe only 1 case of Mountain Dew was destroyed.  No one gave me any details, but that’s all I saw them cleaning up.  They cleaned it up so fast, I didn’t even have time to get a picture of it.  If I found out any different details, I’ll relay them to y’all.

http://www.kevblog.co.uk/greenhills-san-juan-metro-manila-philippines/

When I paid the Globe bill yesterday I complained that sometimes the Internet connection is just so very slow.  They actually sent someone out already to check on that.  Of course after they did their checks, they didn’t find anything wrong.  I’m not sure if they did anything except check, but since then I have not had a problem with the slowness.  One of the guys spoke very good English and he told me, after I inquired about it, that Globe is in the process of upgrading their system.  It should be done, this year.  He couldn’t give me a more accurate date of completion, except maybe this summer.  I hope that when/if they do upgrade it will actually make a difference and that it is all complete by the time we return from Texas.

Lita is back from shopping and I told her she needs to start cooking, NOW.  It wasn’t hard to convince her because she is hungry too.  I forgot to mention to you earlier that Precious went with her.  She bought Precious a yo-yo.  One of the cheap ones at the Korean store.  I got to use it for a few flips, but since then I’ve seen it in 2 pieces.  I never was that good with a yo-yo.  All I could ever do was go up and down, take the dog for a short (very short) walk and hit people with it.

She remembered the batteries, but when I put them in the portable CD player, it didn’t work.  I’m not sure if the batteries suck or the CD player sucks.  I guess portable CD player is still on my wish list, or just anything that I can get music out in LolyKat with.  I’ll be working on it and let you know.

Lita cooked some Swiss style fried chicken and she must have liked the pepper added to it that she did last time, because she did it again.  Good for me.  I ate both breast halves and both wings with rice and a 1/2 liter bottle of water.  This would have been a good time to have more BBQ sauce, but I’ll have it next time.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel

Rain Days = 10 in a row.  It started raining just past noon.  It didn’t rain as long as yesterday, but it was almost as hard.  I won’t be here for most of the day tomorrow, so I might have to ask someone here if it rained or not.  Unless it is raining when I return, or if the ground is soaked.

The Ciriaco is having another HRM class over there.  There are lots of pretty young ladies flooding in there.  Most of them are very skinny.  A couple of them had legs that looked thinner than the toothpick I just used.  They all have the same style of clothes on, so maybe that’s a school uniform.  If it is, then I don’t know if I would want to be a teacher at that school or not because … well enough said about that.

At 1:45pm, Lita came out here and said she would stay until 3:00pm.  Naturally at 2:40pm, she came in the computer room and said it was my turn again.  So I’m out here.  I was only watching and listening to videos on You Tube anyway.  There are so many songs that I’m starting to think I may never finish put them on the computer and if I end up with 5000 of them, I would not be surprised.  There are so many songs that I had forgotten about and when I see the name and/or the group, I remember.

Well anyway, I’m seriously thinking about closing the store at this time, even though it is only 3:15pm.  If I do, I may open it again later.  After all it is Friday night.  I do need to get this post down though, that’s more important to me.

http://thesplendorofthechurch.blogspot.com/2009/01/st-john-baptist-parish-pride-of-san.html

In the Grand Tour van will pick us up in front of the Ciriaco in the morning.  We have seats 4 and 5.  I think 5 is a good seat as long as they don’t have a lot of boxes in there.  I should have good leg room.  At least I think seat 5 is on the aisle.  It might be the window.  If it’s the window, then I’m going to be scrunched up for the 2-3 hour trip to Catbalogan.  Not good.  When we switch to another van there, I will be sure to get one of the better seats.  I like seat #2 (passenger side up front) and I think seat #9.  If I’m correct, that’s the folding seat and when it’s down, and there is not a lot of luggage, you have plenty of leg space.  The #2 seat is the best for my long legs though.

Salamat, Paalam

From the Brochure:

Basic Facts on Calbayog City

Location:  Calbayog City is located in the western coast of Samar Island 60 miles from the northern tip, 180 miles east to west from the coastal boundaries of eastern and western provinces of the island.  (I suppose that means it is 180 miles wide)?

Boundaries:

North:                                                                             :Municipality of Lope De Vega, Northern Samar

Northwest:                                                                    :San Isidro and Bobon, Northern Samar

Northeast:                                                                     :Silvino Lobos and Mondragon

Southeast:                                                                      :Sta. Margarita, Western Samar

East:                                                                                  :Gandara and Matuguinao, Western Samar