A Royal undertaking

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Today was grocery shopping day. My driver arrived at the appointed time and as we headed to Olongapo he asked if I wanted to shop at Royal. I told him “yeah, but it is not open to anyone who doesn’t live on SBMA” (the old Navy base). He told me that he knew the security guard so I shrugged and said okay.

We arrived and sure enough, the guard waved us inside (after taking my temperature of course). It felt like coming home again! Almost all the hard-to-find things I’ve been longing for were waiting for me on the familiar shelves. So I stocked up.

I crammed $300. worth of groceries in that cart.
And kept my distance from the cashier…

Oh, and about that security guard controlling access to the store? He’s not exactly a friend of my driver, my driver just knew how to get him to let us in. And that was 200 pesos (around $4.). I guess we can be polite and call it “a tip”. And of course, that’s just the way things work in this country, from top to bottom. Today I came across this short article from the USA talking about corruption in the Philippines. Give it a read if you are so inclined.

As I staggered walked home after the Hash yesterday, I popped into Sit-n-Bull for some grub. They are doing dine-in now, but I still got mine for take-out.

That’s what the country fried steak looked like. Sit-n-Bull is one of my favorite eateries here, but this dish was only average at best.
It did come with two sides, so I had a double order of coleslaw. That was most excellent!

This morning my dogs brought a smile to my face when I saw this:

I guess they are besties.

Alright, that’s all the news. And here comes the part I know y’all have been waiting for:

The post about yesterday’s Hash!
It was a short trail (the Hare’s said 5K, my tracker said more like 3.7. But starting on the mountain means getting there, which was another 3K for me. And a little more than that getting back home.
Once again, we met up at the “4 corners” intersection of My Bitch.
One thing that was different this time is that the Hares (Pubic Head and Blow My Pipe) actually laid trail in advance with powder and paper in the traditional manner. I enjoyed that aspect, especially since I’m almost always DFL (dead fucking last) on trail.
Hashers doing what Hashers do…
More Hashers on trail…
On and on we go…
There are some benefits to be bringing up the, um, rear…
The view from here…
…and here…
Zoom view of the bankrupt Hanjin shipyard. Rumor has it the Yanks are going to take it over to service the U.S. Navy. We’ll see.
And the valley view…

Here’s something a little different for you. Scott/Pubic Head took some photos of the locals while he was out marking the trail. I shamelessly lifted them for the SBH3 Facebook page:

Greetings white man…
Kids in a tree.
A hard-working woman…
And a farmer at rest.

And I will close this out with a couple of shots from our On-Home at Derelict’s place:

That’s our host Derek/Derelict in the middle…
Everyone’s favorite: Filipinas on ice!
I do love my beer and I’ve got the belly to prove it! That’s our newest named Hasher on the ice–I never fucked a chicken
That must have been one hell of a fart!

And I reckon that’s as good a place to leave things as any…

2 thoughts on “A Royal undertaking”

  1. Is that what happens at the end? You guys break up the ice block?

    Glad to know you could get some normal shopping done.

  2. Yep, normally they chop it off to better dispense with it. Yes, shopping today was a treat for sure. Although I’m remembering now all the things I forgot to look for!

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