Please note the following extremely important basic requirements in grocery bagging protocol:
HEAVY STUFF AT BOTTOM, MUSHY FRUITS ON TOP.
Violation of this priority protocol will be punished with a stern glare.
Jan 2006 NJ/NYC Trip
It was foggy up in New Jersey and New York over the long weekend. Amy and I hung out with her family, and ventured twice up to NYC, one day to browse galleries at Chelsea, and another to have a half-price lunch at Sushi Park with newlyweds Raffy and Carla (who very kindly lent us their veil for the cord and veil part of our wedding).
We also polished off two (of six) more sessions of premarital counseling with P. Keith, tested a sound system, and paid a visit to our planned reception hall, Bridgewater Manor, to choose the cake, tablecloths, and reception dinner menu items. (Oh, you should totally see the menu. It’s scrumptious. And the food looks good, too.)
Yes, it was a very wedding-y trip, but I also got to see Rockefeller Center for the first time (it’s smaller in real life than it looks in the movies), and looked around Toy Tokyo, where I found a dubious-looking starship on a robot box. (Below, left) Oh, and we also found God on a pew at Amy’s church. (Below, right)
DC Metroblogging and Washington Post Blogger Summit
Following a few communiqués with Tom, I am now writing for DC Metroblogging, with all the wild fame and fortune that entails.
I agonized for days over what my first debut entry would be, until finally, sitting at the WaPo Blogger Summit last Tuesday, I decided to forego all introductory niceties and just jump into the mix with a Liveblogging Stream of Consciousness. Since then I’ve posted secondhand neighborhood humor from City Desk and a Metro alert, and I have a few other ideas for content bubbling up.
I’m not sure what I’m doing, agreeing to write for DC Metblogs for free when I barely have time to write for my own site and attend to my current situation of professional and premarital chaos, but perhaps some good will come of this, if only from the general DC audience’s enjoyment of my razor sharp wit. All my entries gather here.
As for the blog summit, it was interesting, especially when they demoed their new upcoming local weblog directory. More on that from my entry, David’s entry, Marc Fisher, And I Am Not Lying, For Real.
Foggy DC
This photo I took of a fog-shrouded Washington Monument, seen from Lincoln Memorial, has recently gotten a little more attention by being cited in DCist’s “Weekly Feed: Little Cat Feed Edition.” The photo is part of the Foggy DC photoset, the visual fruit of an unusually warm, moist Washington morning just over a year ago.
As you can see from the archives for that month, I wasn’t posting much at the time, engrossed as I was in getting Jopogo off the ground and seeing to a mile-long list of online and offline chores (many items of which list remain to this day, but here I am, posting more frequently than before, go figure), so I couldn’t really give the fog photos as much attention as I would have liked beyond a cursory pair of thumbs. The DCist mention has reminded me of it, however, so I would invite you to peruse Foggy DC, about a year late, but still worth checking out, if I do say so myself.
Philippine Vacation 2006 Photo/Video Roundup
Photosets
– Club Noah (plus diving photos from my dad and brother)
Videos
– Assorted Travel Clips: Plane Windows and Airport Subway (Includes: View from a United 747-400 window on a transpolar flight, Hong Kong Airport automated people mover subway, and view from Southeast Asian Airlines Let410 UVP-E window on takeoff from Palawan)
– Club Noah Sunset Timelapse (Taken from cabaña balcony at 10 second intervals, 5:30PM to 7:00PM)
Palawan Mountain Flyover Wiggles
Just a couple more photos from my ride aboard the Let410; these lenticular wiggles of mountains in Palawan:
Virra Mall: After the Renovation
One thing I failed to do on my previous Christmas visit to the Philippines was follow up on old Virra Mall after its 2005 renovation. This visit, I was able to muster up some time to check out the new “V-Mall,” as it’s now called, (though it’s still “Virra” to me) and take some photos of the new interior — see the V-Mall photoset here. I forgot to print out references from my old Virra Mall photoset, so I still don’t have a perfect “Before/After” series to compare with the renovated V-Mall, but I’ll try and do that next time I’m in the area. For now, here are the closest approximations I could get to show the changes: (click thumbs for full size)
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Me and Turtle
Here’s me with a moderate sized pawikan, or sea turtle, which we found feeding on sea grass in the sandy shallows as we were wrapping up the Club Noah checkout dive. (Photographed by my brother Francis with his Sea&Sea film camera; he just sent me the scans tonight.)
Club Noah Sunset Time Lapse
Around 5:30PM to 7:00PM, at 10 second intervals, as seen from the balcony of our seaside family cabaña at Club Noah, 1st of January 2007. Lots of clouds, so it wasn’t quite as spectacular as it could have been, but the clouds themselves make some lovely formations.
The Long Trip Back to DC
Manila to Hong Kong
We wake up at 4:30 AM. Today my brother and I are travelling together via Cebu Pacific and United Airlines. He will get off at Chicago O’Hare while I continue onward to DC National.
We are dropped off at NAIA around 6 AM. Check in at Cebu Pacific counter for first leg of trip connecting in Hong Kong. Cebu Pacific staff willing to check through bags onward to United flight (see the Long Trip to Manila for related troubles with United earlier on), but unwilling to raise baggage allowances above their ludicrous maximum weight of 2 bags totalling 20 kilos. The limitation is bad enough, but even less reasonable is their inability to accept credit cards or US dollars for the overweight penalty. Much wrangling at the counter with intractable Cebu Pacific staff, after which my brother must go to a nearby ATM to withdraw the penalty fee in Philippine pesos. Finally we are checked in and given boarding passes. Passengers checking in right behind us are told that the flight is overbooked and they will either not be able to board this flight, or they must wait for other passengers to give up their seats. Either way, someone is going to be left behind by this plane, with a free travel voucher for compensation.
We are last on the plane, and I am stuck in a seat near the rear, wedged between two passengers. Fortunately the flight is short and the passengers on both sides of my seat, a talky Arab man from Hong Kong and a talky Filipina woman who loves her new Motorola Razr, are friendly.
Hong Kong International Airport (HKG)
Eight hour layover. First things first: breakfast. We go to Cafe de Coral in the HKG Promenade for congee. I have long wanted to try Cafe de Coral because every time I pass through HKG the only customers I see ordering from it are airport workers, flight crew, and Chinese locals, therefore it must be more authentic than other airport fare. The menu, of course, is mostly in Chinese, but we man up, approach the counter, and order shredded pork congee, and roast duck on rice. My brother receives his roast duck, but I receive chicken and century egg congee, and a mystery food item wrapped in fragrant leaves of some sort. This is very exciting. Unwrapping the leaves reveals a meal of roast pork and mushrooms with Chinese sausage in sticky rice. Someone tell me what they call it in Chinese, because I want to order it again. (Update: So it’s called machang. Thanks, Rian!)
I also buy something called a “Cutie Wife Cake,” stuffed with lotus seed paste and green tea filling.
We spend the rest of the day at the Premium Lounge, paying US$40 each for five hours in comfy leather chairs, with a power outlet for our laptops, free wireless, and the option for a two hour nap in a sleeping cubicle or a fifteen minute massage. I get the massage. It hurts.
On the way to our flight later that evening, I stop at the terminal prayer room to get some photos to add to my collection of airport chapels.
Hong Kong to Chicago
Fourteen hours of mostly sleeping, eating, and reading. We are seated in row 59, which on a 747-400 is two rows forward of the rear, where the fuselage of the plane tapers to such a point that the window seats go only two deep rather than three. This way, my brother and I can sit together, without anyone being seated between two people, and with lots of extra storage and foot space between the seat and the window. These are good seats. I try to watch The Queen, but the section’s movie projector constantly blinks off and back on, which makes viewing intolerable. Flight crew later distribute complaint forms via which one can receive compensatory frequent flyer miles or travel certificates for certain failures of service. The fourteen hours pass rather quickly at some point after the sixth hour. For most of the flight, flight attendants ask passengers to keep their windows closed so as to keep the sun out, so I don’t get to see much.
Chicago to DC
Immigration, baggage claims, baggage re-check, say bye to my brother as he heads for home, then take the train to the departure Terminal. O’Hare is a noisy, crowded, overwhelming airport, with laptop-owners huddled around every available outlet so they can use the $6.95 wireless internet. It is a relief to get on the relatively non-crowded United A319 to DC and alternate between dozing and watching driving precipitation form patterns in the strobe of the plane’s flashing running lights. As the plane makes the “River Visual” approach to National Airport, I attempt to snap photos of the view, but they all come out blurry.
Baggage claim after landing is easy. Cab from airport to my apartment takes just six minutes. Generous tip. Home. Warmth of Amy’s embrace. Day spent in chores and unpacking.