Well, for at least sixty more days, anyway. Yep, Immigration has once again seen fit to extend my tourist visa. Lucky me! This being Holy Week and all, I was a tad concerned that Immigration wouldn’t be operating. The holiday schedule posted on the door showed my timing was right–half day Wednesday, closed Thursday and Friday. Still, when I arrived shortly after the opening hour of 8 a.m., only a maintenance worker was in attendance. She kindly told me to take a seat and offered to get me a cup of coffee while I waited. That was a first. I guess having been here almost seven years now, I’ve achieved regular customer status. The actual immigration officers arrived around 8:30, and I was processed in and out in short order for a paltry 3000 pesos. Yay!

Next stop was the YBC supermarket, conveniently located nearby. Only two cashiers were working, which made for irritatingly long lines at checkout, but again, this Holy Week stuff is serious business in the PI, and lots of folks head home to the provinces to celebrate Easter with family.

Then, we were off to Royal for the remainder of our weekly groceries. No shortage of cashiers this time, and I was relieved of another 10,000 pesos in short order.

When it was that time of day, we hoofed it out to Baloy Beach for some toes in the sand and quaffing of beverages on the Kokomo’s floating bar.

The floater isn’t anything like a dancing bar, but once in a while, the girls get up and put on a show. I made a video of the routine they performed during yesterday’s visit. (As I feared, YouTube advises that the background song is copyrighted, and this video is blocked in TWO territories. Hope you can see it where you are.)

I like watching this more than the dancing:

Then, it was home to enjoy the remainder of the evening.

Over the years I’ve been blogging, I have occasionally had a chance encounter with a stranger that was a reader of LTG. That was the case when I met Neil (aka Thirsty) in December 2006. He was a frequent commenter for quite a while, and then, like most of my readers over the years, he eventually disappeared. I guess there is only so much of my drivel that can be endured.

Today’s YouTube video delves into the question of where Filipinos come from (from their mothers, of course, but we are talking about their DNA roots). Living amongst the people here, I see faces that appear like they have Spanish ancestry, others resemble Chinese, and some look like they came from India. Light skin is almost worshipped. When I first visited, I was surprised by all the billboards advertising whitening lotions and thought about the women back home who paid big money in tanning salons. Skin color doesn’t matter to me at all, and honestly, the darker gals are just as sexy as their fair-skinned sisters. Of course, this video talks about ancient roots from thousands of years ago, but I never met any of those. I have been curious about the Aeta natives who look almost African.

Today’s lame attempt at humor:

That’s all I’ve got for today. But there’s always tomorrow!