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This will be my last post for a while. I wanted to be sure to get you up to date on everything that has recently been going on and some things that will, or at least should, be going on. I will get into the specifics of all that at the end of this post. Right now I’m going to rewind y’all to last Friday (the 28th of June).
All pictures today are the newest ones from behind the Ciriaco Hotel, Resort and Spa and pictures of a little ceremony parade that came by the other day.
Mark G. stopped by today. He brought us some fennel seed. Lita has been talking about making some pork sausage, at my request, and that is an standard ingredient in sausage evidently. Now that Lita has seen what it actually is, she says that they do have that here in the Philippines. Well they have something similar that is probably close enough. They have Anise here. Mark stayed for about an hour. He said he was leaving the next day and wanted to be sure to stop by here first. He even had an interesting, though awkward conversation with Poppa. As you may know, Poppa is pretty hard of hearing and lots of things Mark said, he had to repeat. But Mark took it all in stride and didn’t seem to mind all the repeating.
Lita is not one for waiting until the last minute to do things so our bags have been packed for a couple of days now. She still makes some adjustments, adding and subtracting, but the bulk of it stays the same and we are pretty much ready in that department. Tomorrow, the 4th of July, we will be heading for the bus station. Lita went by to make the reservations today with Judith, but we don’t have to pay until we show up tomorrow. I believe that Lita said the bus leaves around 10am. I was more worried about what time we will be arriving in Manila then when we left here. I really do not want to arrive in Manila in the early morning hours because we still have to make our way to Clark. I’m not really sure how we will be doing that yet. Right now it looks like we will either be taking another bus or just taking a taxi. Last July when we went from Clark to NAIA, it cost us P3500 for a taxi, which I was pretty happy to pay. Maybe we will just do the same thing this time also, but I don’t want to do it really early in the morning because I want to be able to see where we are going. I’ll have more on the whole trip starting with my next post.
Decided to take another walk downtown so I could pay my Globe bill. I wanted to go ahead and take a video of one of the streets .. again, but Lita gave me a couple of places to go while I was there and I needed to get back home. I did find out what happen to my P100 load that disappeared though. A pretty young lady at Globe explained it to me. Although I didn’t understand everything she was saying, she did turn off the problem. Under the “Wireless and Networks”, then “Mobile Networks” is a thing called “Use Packet Data”. That needs to be turned off. She said something about some incoming texts that were charging me P5 for each text. Turning this off stops all that, which is good for me because I was getting useless text messages from Globe on what seemed an hourly basis.
There is so much to learn about cell phones. In the US it’s not complicated like this. I put a bug in the ear of the lady at Globe about how the phone system works in the US. I’m not sure it will do any good, but the bug is there. I also found out that I have GPS on this phone, but if I use it, I get charged extra. Of course if I would just get a plan from Globe, I think I could avoid all or at least most of all the charges. Lita has been talking about getting a much simpler and a little larger phone for me and keeping this one. I think I will not resist. I’ll let Juvic show her how to use this phone and I won’t have to worry about learning it all.
Someone won that almost P179M Grand Lotto (6/55). It sure wasn’t me. I had 4 sets of numbers and the best I could do is 2 numbers, which is no money. Juvic said she had some numbers and if she already checked them, well I didn’t hear her or anyone else screaming, so, if she did, she must not have won either.
Juvic just put a P200 load on the phone again. She also activated the roaming on it so I can use it outside the Philippines. I don’t plan to use it at all outside the Philippines, but just in case. I’ll probably send a text first, although they take me a long time to do. I will be sure to tell Juvic to answer any text she receives from me to be sure she got it and I actually sent the text correctly.
Well that’s what I have for now. The next post will be about our first day on the road to Manila and Clark. I’m really hoping that we get out within a day or two of arriving at Clark, but I still have not seen a schedule for their Space A for July. The were closed until 1 July, but were suppose to start back up again. If they don’t have any flights or something else odd happens, maybe we will just take a trip to Hong Kong like last time and spend the night at the airport, like last time. At least we will have Burger King and Popeye’s Chicken at the Hong Kong airport.
Salamat Y’all
Howdy UJ,
Hope your trip goes smooth and no delays other than what is expected. I saw the space “A” schedule out of clark with most going to kadena AFB, one to Guam, pretty slim schedule as I thought they would go to yokota AFB more often, where there’s always a flight back to conus outta there. Are you headed back to Belton and some good ole texas BBQ? Maybe a few cold ones as well? If so, may you and yours have a safe trip getting back here
John D
Well John, the trip did not go smooth. The Space A schedule was not up before we left, it was suppose to be, but it was late, so we took a chance. Bad move. I will have more details of the whole sorted mess starting with the post later today.
You prob wont get this in time, but if your bus into Manila drops off anywhere close to Megamall, can take Philtanco bus direct to Clark.
Hey Don. We were not near MegaMall that I know of, but I’ll look for that next time. Which won’t be that long from now. Of course you’ll have to read the posts that I will be starting later today to find out what that is all about. We went into Cubao through Pasay, are those near MegaMall? I have no idea.
Cubao is probably a 15 taxi ride if traffic is normal. Just head down EDSA. Cubao is also where they have the large seafood and wet markets and can stink pretty bad.
Or can take the MRT, 3 stops to Ortigas. I think its around 12 pesos. But have to carry luggage up and down steps to get tot he platform and can be crowded.
So in Cubao I can get a taxi to Philitranco by MegaMall and go straight to Clark?
We took a bus from Cubao to Angeles for only P140 each, then a tricycle to the hotel P70, then a tricycle again to Clark another P70. Getting to the right area of Clark for Space A was tricky for us, but I’ll have all that information later after I rest up a bit.
Actually, based on their website, they have bus serviced from Samar to MNL and then to Clark. So maybe you were using them already.
I enjoyed sitting down with you and Lita the other day. I wish Juvic or her sister had sat in and said ‘Hi’ but Juvic said she was too shy to so that’s that, lol. I’d like my wife to meet Juvic. We have the little one, Nigel, who may like to play with the kids. He has 12 cousins on the island to play with but only one in Calbayog. Cheryl would get along fine with Juvic and Grace I think and they could do girly things together. I think Cheryl should talk to Lita a bit about what to expect in the US but we’ll have to see how long it takes Cheryl to get over her ‘shyness’ as well. I didn’t mind talking to Poppa at all John. Anybody who’s been around as long as he has must have something interesting to talk about. Always interesting to get someone elses take on things especially when they are his age. Fennel is pretty similar to anise but not as sweet so it may work out substituting that. Good luck on your trip and take lots of photos, lol. Looking forward to your next post. Randy L. should be around by that time too.
Juvic and Grace are both a little shy at first, but once they start talking they are very talkative. I remember when Gary brought George by here the first time, he was a bit shy, but by the end of the visit, he was running with the other kids.
I’m sure Cheryl would get along with Juvic and Grace. I guess they can do girly things, I don’t know what those thing are, but I guess they do. I’m sure that Lita would be happy to tell Cheryl plenty of things about the US. No need to worry about Lita being shy either. She got over that years ago.
Sometimes even I will go outside when Poppa is drinking his ‘coffee’ (it’s just Ensure) and he is alone. I’ll get a cup of (real) coffee and go sit out there with him to talk about whatever. Of course I usually have to yell, but I can do that.
I’ll take plenty of pictures I’m sure and I hope to have plenty to say. I hope it’s all mostly good. I don’t mind having a small problem because that way, after I figure out how to get around it, I can pass it on to y’all so y’all won’t make the same mistake, or be able to get around it if you do.
Yes Randy should be here tomorrow. He will be coming in and I’ll be going out. We hope not to be gone long though. I do hope to be able to get some things from the commissary at one of the military bases though, whichever one we end up going to.