Out of the comfort zone

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I was greeted with this view out the window to start my morning. That’s the Black Rock Ridge.

Changed things up some yesterday, or at least tweaked the normal routines a tad. Here’s how that went down:

We did the usual Friday group hike but made an unusual journey to San Marcelino to do it. Once there, we proceeded with a dike walk in the shadow of Mount Pinatubo along a lahar-filled Santo Tomas River. We made this hike several years ago, which is long enough to make it almost feel brand new to me. It was a mostly flat journey, but a longish (for us) ten kilometers. This is some of what we saw along the way:

Our merry band of hikers
Off we go
The river quest begins with a long and straight passage
Thirty-four years after Pinatubo’s eruption, the lahar it blasted is still being harvested
There appears to be an endless lahar supply in the riverbed.
The worst aspect of the hike was the constant procession of dump trucks passing by on the dike road with their loads of lahar, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake.
The dust was worse than COVID, so I willingly masked up.
And yes, I made some jokes about putting a finger in the dike. Boy, I’m a Dutch treat!
And then, almost in answer to a prayer, a water truck passed, wetting down the road and reducing the dust.
That’s some of those big-ass trucks making their way across the riverbed, which provides some scale to appreciate the massive size of the lahar field.
A pitstop for the locals and truck drivers
A cookie offering for the kids present
The apex of our journey. We’ll do Mapanuepe Lake another time.
Nope, we are going to turn around and head back from here.
On an alternative route than the dusty river road
We passed through the sleepy village of San Rafael on our return trip
Kids there like cookies, too.
Others die young
The trees live on
And the flowers blossom
A goat rescue. This one was helplessly tangled in his rope, and Gary freed him.
Onward we go
Surrounded by agriculture
Decorated crops
Color us done
The way we were

So, a longer-than-usual hike plus the long drive back got me home a couple of hours later than usual. By the time I’d finished my shower and blogging chore, it was already five p.m. And just like on Thursday, I wasn’t feeling like doing the same old, same old, so we changed it up by having dinner at the rarely visited Harley’s Pub and Hotel.

Here’s a quick video look around Harley’s.

We enjoy the view from Harley’s, and the food ain’t bad either. Saw several folks we knew there during our dinner time.

Side one of the Harley’s menu
And side two
Sadly, this delicious looking dish wasn’t among the offerings
This view from our stools shows the Mangrove pier in the foreground, the Central Park Reef Hotel in the middle, and the high side of the Kalaklan Ridge in the background
Off to our right is the lower end of Kalaklan. That’s the part we climbed on Thursday.

Dinner is served:

The grilled meat platter for me
And surf and turf for Swan

Two of the most expensive menu offerings, but still less than we’d have spent at the SOB. That event was held at Queen Victoria last night, a venue I’ve been boycotting because they didn’t honor the “free drinks” deal at the previous SOB I attended there. (They said Swan’s wine wasn’t a local drink, so it wasn’t included. I countered, fine, I’ll pay the price difference. They said no, and I said we won’t be back.)

Our after-dinner view from Harley’s

Now what do we do? Well, I haven’t been to Whiskey Girl in a while, so let’s start there. Wow! What a difference a few months make. The music was BLASTING (good songs, but damn, it was almost painful). Since there were dancers on stage, I didn’t ask them to reduce the volume, but I wasn’t pleased. We shouted out our order, and when the waitress returned and reported that wine wasn’t available, I was relieved to have a good excuse to pick up and leave. And that’s just what we did.

Since we rarely visit this side of town, all the remaining options were unfamiliar. Let’s see what’s up in Lux. My, everything here has changed since my previous visit as well. The stage has been moved from the center of the room to the front, and while dancers were performing standing around on it, there was also a drum set in the back. Turns out they are doing live music at Lux, but it doesn’t begin until my bedtime (9 p.m.). Another surprise was the drink pricing. A good surprise, wine at 120 pesos a glass and my beer was only 80 pesos. That’s the cheapest I’ve seen for a dancing bar anywhere in town. Then there was the music. It was being played at a pleasant volume, and two large-screen TVs were showing music videos. I like that! What I didn’t like was that all they played during my entire visit was rap crap. Yeah, that doesn’t appeal to this old fucker. I had two beers while Swan finished her glass of wine, and we were out of there.

And now for a nightcap destination. I hadn’t been in Nipsey’s since they first opened (in Alaska Club’s former location) over a year ago. It was just across the highway (which ain’t easy to cross on a Friday evening) but we made it alive.

Nipsey’s is another dancing girl bar, but it is well-lighted and comfortable. They played classic rock at the right volume, and the staff was attentive and friendly. We enjoyed our brief visit, then caught a trike right out front for the ride home and the end of a differently pleasant day.

I even managed to make up for a little lost ground

Found this proof of what I always believed to be the case on Facebook today:

Manila sucks

It was almost twenty years ago that I hiked up Namsan to the Seoul Tower for the first time. That event is worthy of mention in The Story of My Life. And the photos are nice, too!

Some Facebook memories from this day in the past to share as well:

Eight years ago, while on vacation, I played in my first dart tournament in Barretto
And I discovered a Monte Cristo sandwich at the Arizona Resort. Alas, the hotel changed ownership shortly after I moved here and the place (and food) have gone to shit.
Part of the purpose of that trip was to scout out some housing options for my move the following year. The construction of this place right on Baloy Beach was almost done. I was very interested to see if it would be up for rent, but no one knew who or where the owner was. And that remains the case today. Two great houses on the beach have been vacant for eight years now.
It was four years ago that I treated “Mama” to dinner and told her about the room I had rented for her. She enjoyed the meal but declined to give up her life of homelessness. And she remains living on the street to this day.

Here’s the explosive I used on Facebook yesterday:

It worked.

Today’s YouTube video comes from a friend of mine named Jambo. He covered last weekend’s Beach Bash beauty pageant. This is the talent portion of the contest:

To the humor then:

I just hold up three and say read between the lines
That was true for me fifty years ago
Sounds like whore story in the making

I don’t know how long I can keep this up, but I’m glad to still be in the game. Thanks for joining me here.

4 thoughts on “Out of the comfort zone”

  1. Those houses on the beach where no owner is to be found, What’s to stop squatters from just moving in ?

  2. Re: Lahar – are they doing anything with it like mixing it to make cement or just trying to clear the area and reclaim the land?

    Re: traffic. Never been to Manila but I thought Jakarta would be on the top of the list. Up until just a few years ago, Jakarta was the largest city in the world without a subway system. They finally got one line running, but still a mess.

    While I was in Indonesia, Jakarta used to require vehicles entering the city during rush hour to have at least 3 (or maybe 4) people in the car or they would ticket you. Just before that zone, there would be a bunch of street urchins that cars would pick up, pay them a XX rupees to have them ride in the car to the city center so the car would meet the occupancy requirements. LOL

    Bangkok sucks but they have actually done a very good job in expanding the subway system.

    Realistically however, traffic sucks in any of those cities on the list.

    Re: talent show video. Audio wasn’t too good, but I give the girls who sang credit for trying that. The others didn’t really show much talent; languorously moving around on stage to music. Guess it is no different than work for them. LOL

  3. Brian, yes, the lahar is being harvested. It is used in concrete, and I don’t know what else, but those loaded dump trucks take it to a dock, and it is loaded on ships for export.

    I’ve not visited Jakarta, but that law is typical of government mindlessness. Sorta like that bullet train going nowhere in California. When I was in Bangkok, I thought that it was like a nicer version of Manila. What makes Manila’s traffic especially bad is that Filipino drivers are the absolute worst I’ve seen anywhere in the world. No skills or common sense at all.

    I agree with you regarding the “talent” show. A bargirl dance routine doesn’t display much talent. I was a judge a couple of years ago, and the gals who could sing got extra points from me.

  4. I’m not sure why that is, Terry. Maybe because the barangay Captain lives nearby. Hmm, maybe I should just move in to one of them and see what happens…

    The story I heard was that the houses were built and owned by Lewis Grand, who had a huge hotel in Angeles City. Apparently, he pissed off the wrong people and got disappeared a few years ago.

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