I’m not a religious man, but I do maintain my rituals. And not all of them involve beer. Even on Easter Sunday, we hit the road for a Sweets Stroll. But instead of calling Swan the Candy Girl, I declared that the Easter Bunny was in the ‘hood! Here’s some of what we saw on our walk:

The last three funeral banners I’ve encountered have all been older than me, which is very rare to see. Maybe there is hope that my turn, turn, turn can be similarly delayed.

And then we changed things up by inviting Swan’s extended family to join us for Easter dinner at The Rite Spot On the Roof.

We kicked things off with the traditional Easter egg hunt for the kids. We didn’t have any chocolate eggs, so we substituted candy bags left over from the morning walk.

After dinner, the Filipino adults in attendance played a weird game. Kinda like hopscotch, but with dice and drinking.

That kind of fun is not my style, but I had an ice chest full of San Miguel Light to keep me company.

The party was still going strong when I ran out of gas, so I said my goodnights and headed to the comfort of my bed.

It was nice to see Swan enjoying some family time, and they all seemed to have fun at The Rite Spot.

Facebook memories reminded me of an incident that happened eleven years ago. I was still a smoker back then, but as a long-time resident of Korea, I tried to use my limited ability to speak the language as a sign of politeness and respect. So, I could do things like order a beer and get a pack of cigarettes in Korean. Or so I thought until that night at the local 7-Eleven store:

I went to the neighborhood 7-11 to buy some smokes. As is my custom, I told the clerk, “Dongbae Marlboro silver chuseyo.” He pointed at the black pack, and I said, “Anio, silver.” He pointed at the gold pack, and I repeated “silver”. I finally had to gesture to where the ones I wanted were. He pulled them from the rack, pointed at the word silver, and proceeded to instruct me in how to pronounce the word “silver”. Apparently, it’s “sil-buh”. Who knew? Still, it was a unique experience having a Korean try to teach me how to properly say an English word.

Good times! I quit smoking tobacco shortly thereafter.

From the July 2018 LTG archives, my first relationship in the Philippines came to an abrupt end. I was all full of wisdom and accepted that it was for the best, as we were obviously so wrong for each other. Spoiler alert: the wisdom didn’t last. Oh, and that Muslim gal I was considering never happened. How can I date someone who doesn’t enjoy grilled pork?

In today’s YouTube video, the Filipina Pea is back home in the Philippines, sharing her pasalubong with her family. The surprise encounter with her mother after not seeing her for a year was pretty hilarious. The Pea is always a fun watch.

You knew these were coming:

And now it is time to prepare for the Easter Monday Hash. I won’t be doing the mountain climb this year, but the “easy” trail is long (around Easter Mountain instead of over it), and it’s hot outside. That’s plenty challenging for me. Come back and read all about it here tomorrow.