Dec24 - Day 10
So usually at home, we save most of the Christmas festivities for actual Christmas Day, but in the Philippines, Christmas Eve is just another excuse to get the whole family together to eat hella food, take hella pictures, and just have fun. Christmas Eve consisted of the 3 pretty standard F's of get-togethers: Family, Friends, and Food, of course :)
Everyone was having fun getting the update on the family over some great home-cooked meals
A bunch of the younger kids got together and played some Little Big Planet on our PS3.
...and I helped my little 5 year-old nephew, Ethan, traverse each level, bit by bit
Aside from videogames, there was plenty of in-house entertainment...
...consisting of the younger great-grandkids putting up any kind of performance for the family, with the intention of being rewarded with a crisp dollar bill from Grandma, or a P50 bill from my mom. My brothers and I did some beatboxing and rapping as well, of course.
And after that we posed for a few family pictures
Snapped a pic of the three tallest Aliga cousins, with me now being the tallest over Kuya NJ and Kuya Raldy :D
Snapped a pic of all the Aliga boy cousins present at the event
Followed by a picture of all the male Aligas present, along with Grandma Aliga, of course
And who can forget the usual Christmas Family Picture?
Mann, Riz is getting tall... watch out, Xavi, haha
Dec25 - Day 11
We spent Christmas Day at Ate Grace's place a little ways out of Quezon City. My parents rode with Uncle Tito and Auntie Nita, while Xavi, Riz, and I rode with Kuya Vernon. The plan was for them to go ahead, while we went and picked up Vernon's girlfriend, Michelle, whoe lived kind of on the way there, heh. No pictures of this part unfortunately :(
But once we got there, it was the usual fun: Family, Friends, and Food :)
To be honest, I spent most of our time there sleeping xD We were up pretty early for some activities in the grass, and I was starting to feel the initial symptoms of allergies, so after stuffing myself with spaghetti, pasta, and chicken, I took a nap on the couch :P When I woke up it was time to go, so I grabbed all my stuff, went outside, and we snapped one last family photo
And after that we went with Ate Elaine and her Fiancee, Kuya Paul, to one of the local, more small-scale malls.
"Tiendista", or something like that. I followed Xavi around to go look at some cheap shoes and t-shirts.
And before I knew it, I have no idea how, but I ended up buying a pair of retro Jordan 1's
Sure, they may be fake by some people's standards, but as far as I'm concerned, they look really nice, and most people aren't going to interrogate me about their authenticity because most people have better things to do than worry about if people's Nike's are fake or not xP
Dec26 - Day 12
We started the day off at 1000hrs, and just like the previous day, we headed out to the Sunken Garden at the University of the Philippines Diliman campus, for another game of Ultimate Frisbee with Kuya Vernon, Ate Elaine, and Kuya Paul. We had actually gone the morning of Christmas Eve as well for the first time, but this time, we brought our camera along.
Kuya Vernon taught us everything he knew in terms of technique, stances, and tactics
I helped set up the cones that would dictate the field and the endzone
And Riz practiced catching some throws.
Pancake catch, Riz, catch it like a pancake!
As Riz was practicing, we chilled in the shade; it was already getting pretty warm
Here's a picture of the dream team, consisting of Kuya Paul, Xavi, and I, vs. Kuya Vernon, Ate Elaine, and Riz.
The day before, we won 7-6, where I caught the winning point after slipping and falling flat on my back, aww yeeaaahhh. That day, we won 6-0 xD
After that, we followed Kuya Paul to his friend's apartment so he could drop off his bike and ride with us to get lunch.
Once we had regrouped, we all had lunch at a local burger joint, Bite Club (its menu consisted of a bunch of Fight Club-themed burgers, haha)
After that we went to Kuya Vernon's condo near GreenHills shopping center to shower up and get some rest before meeting our parents at GreenHills to do a little more shopping.
We spent most of our time walking around the chaotic collection of boutiques selling anything from handbags to shoes to t-shirts, and other random stuff
This picture pretty much explains how disorienting of an experience it was, haha
Afterwards, we met with the rest of the family once again to have dinner at a high-end Chinese restaurant in Eastwood Business Center/Shopping Center
And how could we resist another family photo?
Day 13 - Dec27
Saturday was another free day for us, so I asked Kuya Vernon if he could let me learn/practice driving stick shift, so we took Xavi along in the Toyota Revo, and went to the local church, which has a relatively empty, and easy to navigate parking lot. All the pictures and videos I took are on Xavi's phone, so I'll have to upload those some other time.
To summarize, I finally got the whole even out thing down. Just needed to rest my heel on the floor and use muscle memory to manipualate the clutch more accurately; I can even get the car rolling without having to give it gas, and I can even get it started from a complete stop facing up a slope now :D I even got to drive aroudn the village a little, nothing too difficult or dangerous, haha. After I had had my fun, we even let Xavi have a go, and believe it or not, this being only his second time ever driving a car, he got it down pretty damn fast.
Our afternoon was pretty much free, and earlier in the week, Kuya Jon invited me to come along with him to visit his Ninong Frankie, who collects and restores vintage cars of all makes and models. Owner of 20+ vintage cars. Very nice. Jon's dad and mom were friends with Ninong Frankie back during their days studying Law at UP, all of them went on to become attourneys. Ninong Frankie, however, has since moved into the car collection and restoration business, where he collects and restores cars for himself, as well as for others as a private business.
His collection comes from every corner of the world. For American muscle, he has a Chevy Camaro,
With some equally beastly internals...
Pontiac Firebird,
Ford Mustang...
Chevy Corvette,
The shell of an ultra-rare Ford Escort, specifically built for WRC
(This car was built to compete with Subaru's Impreza STI and Mitsubishi's Lancer Evo)
A '57 Chevy "Tank", similar to the one my Lolo Ben used to have
just to name a few :)
For Japan, he's got some old-school Corollas,
And a Nissan (then Datsun) 240Z
His all-time favorite, however, is none other than this old-school Mercedes Benz
On top of that, Ninong Frankie is also an avid collector of scale models as well. The AE86s caught my attention, of course :P
And that wasn't it either...
After showing off his collection, we took us out for a spin in his Camaro; fun stuff :)
And Ninong Frankie himself:
Anything you wanna know about vintage cars, he's got the answer, I guarantee you that. He knows all the history behind pretty much any historic car you can think of. He may be in his 50s, but believe me, he is very much young at heart :)
Afterwards we headed out for some dinner at a near-by McDonalds; my first time eating McDonalds in the Philippines since my last visit in 2003.
Decided I'd have my usual favorite, the BigMac meal. Little did I know I had supersized on accident, but it turned out to be a good thing. This is what super-sized fries and drink is to them:
Kuya Jon commented on how portions are so much bigger in the states, and it definitely became very clear at this point. This is the regular size back in the US, if not smaller, if I remember correctly :P
After that, it was back home for me, and time to start packing up; we would be leaving for Baguio the next morning.
More to come tomorrow...
-nesqu!k
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