Today I was on a quest to find a back way out of the subdivision that would give me a more direct route the Purok Barangay I’ve been exploring these past couple of days.  I started as pictured above on a dead end street where I sometimes walk with Buddy.  I’ve never ventured off the pavement this way until today.  And I’ve certainly never braved a new trail into the wild unknown all by my lonesome. What’s life if you don’t live dangerously, right?

As I proceeded there were a couple of forks in the path.  One just came to an in explicable dead end.  Another led back up into the subdivision club house area.  The only other option led in the general direction I thought I needed to go and only had a couple of spots that were a little dicey.  But it too eventually seemed to come to an end in someone’s backyard.  Well, we do walk through the common areas of these squatter villages during the Hash, but it was really uncomfortable doing it on my own.  There were kids outside playing and a couple of adults standing around so I just proceeded on like I had every right to be there.  I got a few “looks” but no one said anything.  After a couple of minutes I encountered an older woman raking the dirt and asked “is this the way to the road?”  She nodded and pointed and I found myself back here:

Anyway, the route I discovered today took about an hour to complete.  I really don’t like invading the space of these poor folks so tomorrow I’ll look for a different path out of the neighborhood.  But the main thing is I’m getting the confidence to venture out on my own into areas I haven’t had the courage to attempt alone.  I’m still not willing to tackle a mountain by myself, too much can go wrong with just one false step.  About the only precaution I took today was leaving my wallet at home.  Who says a fool and his money are soon parted?

What else?  Well, ’tis the season and all that.  And I don’t mean Christmas season, although it is that as well.  I’m talking about tourist season.  This is the first time I’ve been in the Philippines as a non-tourist so I’d never really noticed the difference before.  But the bars are filled with strangers, some of whom are loud and obnoxious or just otherwise rub me the wrong way.  Or maybe I’m just becoming a grumpy old man.  One of those.

Last night my dart bar was packed with these touristas and I just wasn’t feeling the buzz, so I decided not to play in the tourney.  Instead I made my way to the other side of town and visited the Arizona Resort’s floating bar.  I was surprised that it was not very crowded.  Easily found a table and settled in for a few cold brews on the water.

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Afterwards I headed over to the videoke bar Double D’s where I ran into my friend Cherry.

So there you have it, another day in the life.  Sometimes I feel bad about my daily output of meaningless drivel here at LTG.  But I know that readers looking for some meat with their potatoes will find their way over to places like Kevin Kim’s Hairy Chasms.  He’s been on a roll with reviews and political insights that I quite enjoy.  Then you can come back here for a dose of “gawd, I’m glad I’m not him!”.  Well, as a girlfriend once told me: no man is totally worthless.  He can always serve as a bad example.  I reckon that goes for blogs as well.

See you tomorrow!

UPDATE: one of the things that happens after fourteen years of blogging is the seeming inevitability of repeating the title of a post.  After publishing this one, I saw the URL was “steppin’ out 2”.  Honestly, I’ve noticed that in previous posts as well (once it was the fourth time I’d used the same title!).  So, I’m going to turn that bug into a feature.  Henceforth I will post a link to all previous entries of that name.  You may be asking yourself “why does he torture his readers like that?”  Well, because I can.  Here is the first “Steppin’ out”.