What to do with millions of pesos?

"I will travel the world. Right away, the whole wide world."

Where, you ask? Nowhere in particular, really. 

Source:
http://tinyurl.com/clevs5o

I want to go places. Go to NYC definitely, see and grab some pizza in Brooklyn. Take the subway to Manhattan, shop there then see broadway for a try. Buy a cup of coffee then take a stroll in Central Park. I must come to Times Square! Just go stand in the middle of the busy New York crowd, breathing.. and just feeling all of it. Try some hotdogs. I'll add mustard to it, fine. Go to a bar to grab a few drinks. Walk the night streets once buzzed, walk to the Empire State. Man, I'd climb that building to the top, I swear. See nighttime NYC, simply admire it all. I'd let the night roll on me, let whatever that should or could happen happen.

I want to go see other places. I want to go see, know, and meet people and lives. I'd fly to San Francisco, drive to LA. I'd watch a show in Hollywood and gamble my night in Vegas, and maybe wake up in Miami to enjoy the Florida sunshine. Then Boston to Chicago, and then coffee break in Seattle. 

I'd fly overnight to Paris, go out with a mademoiselle to the lovely Eiffel tower, jokingly propose to her, and kiss her bonne nuit, mon amour. Go "back in time" the next day in Rome, then to Pisa, then to Athens. Tour la España! Fly to U.K. in the afternoon, straight to a London pub to grab a few of their Brodie's special. Then maybe to Prague, to Oslo, then fly all the way to Vatican City, then sail to Venice and to Berlin. After, take the train to Hamburg to St. Petersburg  to Luxembourg and to whereverburg! Then, fuck it. Amsterdam. 

Find my way to Cairo after a night in dutch wonderland, be awed by the pyramids and by the sphinx. Be out in Africa. Go to some safari, camp out in the wild. Travel to Soccer City in Johannesburg, must not miss it. Ride camels in Arabia! Go to Dubai. Bring peace to Iran, to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Kazakhstan, and hope to God I don't get killed in the process. I'd go to India, be with the hundreds of millions of Indian people. Then jump to China, and be with the millions of hundreds of millions of friendly yellow people. I'd definitely go around Beijing, roadtrip to some province outside the city as well. Maybe I'd go try meditate in Tibet, or might just prefer shopping and touring Hongkong and Macau instead. Cross the borders to Bangkok.Then, I'd probably ride a train to Malaysia. Must secure a trick shot at the Petronas, definitely. Then off to Singapore with the merlions.

I'd harness my big brave soul to cross the Pacific just to get to Brazil after. Must reach the South Americas. I'd go to Rio de Janeiro for all inexplicable reasons. Go to Argentina, to Chile, to Bolivia, to Colombia, to Panama, to Ecuador, to Peru, to the Amazon River for god's sake. I'd make my way up to the Caribbeans. Drink water over there in Mexico City, before heading out up to Toronto, to Canada. Then might do a segway in Alaska with them lovely Eskimos and their ice fishing thing.

That's what I'd do. 

I will travel the whole wide world. I want to make memories all over the world. It'd feel so extraordinary and totally bizarre of an adventure to travel and explore the world, to embrace it.. to learn it.. to live it. Or at least, to just even try. 

Just go. Around the world, ahh-round the wooooorld! Travel without a map. Just go.

Source:
http://tinyurl.com/abcsnf4

"I was just constantly in awe at every new experience and place. Sometimes I had to stop and catch my breath. I needed a new word for amazing." - Lilliane "wanderlass" Cobiao

But first, coffee.

I love coffee in the morning.

I love drinking coffee in the morning.

I don't know if you've heard about this, but people say that Ilonggos are very fond of coffee. Indeed we really are, in the early morning.. in the late lunch.. right before sunset.. and probably in the midnight, too.

When I was a little kid, back home in our old town, my dad would get the mugs and the coffee blends on the table ready before my two sisters and I even wake up in the morning. The thermos's hot by the side, and a basket of pandesal is served. Hot pandesal. He'd probably be somewhere out already, gathering dried and fallen leaves in the backyard or chopping firewood, had his cup of coffee long ahead of us that morning, and has long started his "today". I've always loved that feel every morning when I wake up, and I always have thanked dad and the coffee god every time I make a cup of my own. Secretly.

"Step 1.. 2.. 3.. hmmm."

My cup of coffee is basically just a mix of hot water, milk powder, coffee, and brown sugar. No dimensions or measurements whatsoever. I put all the magic powders into my cup, pour the hot water, and stir with hope and pure delight. It just turns out to be as orgasmic and as hmmm as ever. Almost always.

And I'm well damn served and well damn good to go live the day.

Make a cup of your own coffee today. Drink and live!

"Coffee is always a good idea."  - said all the coffee drinkers of the world

The Catcher in the Rye

IF YOU REALLY want to here about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was standing (or maybe sitting), and what my lousy clothes were like, and how my friends were not there and were doing other things and all, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. Besides, I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam auto-imera-graphy or anything. I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last week or sometime just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here now and had to take it easy on my keyboard.

Seems familiar?

OKAY I'm sorry, really. The paragraph above, I confess, is my adulterated version of J.D. Salinger's opening paragraph in his novel "The Catcher in the Rye", that I actually am in the middle of reading right now. I thought it would be a helluva fun act to mess around with and all, but no. Apparently. I want to sincerely apologize, Mr. Salinger.

Anyway, it was the Monday of my monthly report to my college scholarship. I was supposed to go to their office by my scheduled week of visit, which was the week before that week, but I had not managed to. I went there in the afternoon.

I travel by public transport when I go there. Most of the time, I take the train from my place then go down the last station which is in Recto. Then I'd ride another one from the nearby station (of a different transit already) going to Libertad, go down there, and ride a jeepney or a cab to the scholarship's office.

I wish there were also trains in Iloilo City. There are no buses even that go around the city. Yet. Back there, the means of public transport are only by jeepneys or cabs.  

[Trivia:] The jeepneys in Iloilo City are "pasad" jeepneys unlike the "sarao" jeepneys here in Manila. Also, cabs back there have wi-fi connections.

Source:
http://tinyurl.com/cx9svk3
Inside the LRT 2 train in Manila

Going back, commuting here by train is actually one of the many things I love to do in Manila. Most especially not during the rush hours, when I can freely choose to sit on the seats or to just stand by the center pole of the train, depends on the mood; when the view of the metro outside the oversized train windows are clear and uncrowded by passengers and you can see busy pedestrians below and the smoggy Makati skyline from afar. And just like that Monday afternoon I was talking to you about, when I was just in my plain white v-neck shirt and rugged jeans, with a RayBan sunglasses and a novel book in my hand, and there was no sense of rush from the train-goers, it was a very good feel. While I was riding the train, a funky idea, one that is quite a peculiar thing to do when someone like me is bored for example, even sprang out-of-the-blue from my mind that no one has ever thought about!

I was seated beside this old guy who, I was quite sure, was a professor on foreign studies or something in a university. He seemed really foreign to me, his skin was pale and his nose bridge was clearly too high to be Filipino. Anyway, at that time when I was I think already on the third chapter of the novel I brought with me, I noticed and I think I saw him, through my keen peripheral vision, glancing at what book I was reading, and maybe at why I was reading it inside the train. I think that old guy found me odd and quite interesting for a young boy my age. That is in Manila, in a train. I pretended not to notice. Then there, the funky idea came to mind: I definitely should try riding the train, terminal to terminal, sit intentionally beside some old professor-looking guy, open a classic book that he'll surely notice, maybe give him one whatcha-lookin'-at-look or something like that, and go start creeping the hell out of him! Or maybe I, for my own selfish fun, could some time just go try and read a nice novel inside the train without going off the train until I finish the whole thing. Whoever the hell I'll creep out or something when I do that doesn't really matter much.

I must do this.

So anyway, after I got my report and my papers done at the office, I took the bus home, which is by the way also one of the things I love to do in Manila. I sat by the window, as I most usually do, and continued reading the novel I brought with me. Some passengers still, I felt and I can say, were also a little bit crept out about what I was reading and why I was reading it in the bus, but I could care less.

Oh I nearly forgot about the madman stuff that happened to me that I told you I'll tell y'all about! That afternoon, I realized how fascinating it actually is to commute by train in Manila, how fascinated I was and how it was a special kind of feeling to be fascinated by the most ordinary traffic of passengers and vehicles in Manila at that certain time. Also, that afternoon, I met this pretty girl who also went to the office. Her name was Monique and she definitely was the one who approached me. Brave soul.    

Source:
http://tinyurl.com/blp36en

I dropped by the bookstore first to buy Esquire's latest issue then claimed the money my boss remitted to me for the month before I reached home and finally got this entry for you to read. Hope you had a fun read.

Post Script
   The "David Copperfield", I am quite sure, J.D. Salinger was talking about in the opening paragraph was the David Copperfield by the author Charles Dickens, and not the magician. I actually thought of also replacing it, as I did with the phrases before it, by "Benjamin Button", who grew old to young, but eventually just did not. It was neither a good nor a bad choice nor a sensible one or something.
   Also, let me just explain "auto-imera-graphy": "imera" is Greek for "day" as "bio" is Greek for "life". I'll leave you at that to figure the whole thing out and the reason why that is that.
   Lastly, I was at the moment inspired of how J.D. Salinger artistically wrote his "The Catcher in the Rye" that's why, if you've noticed, I kinduv tried imitating his writing style (even his whole opening paragraph) at the start, and as well as the use of his terms "helluva" and "sonuvabitch" which I both find really odd and interesting.

Football ta!

"Football ta!"

(Hiligaynon, "football tayo!" or "let's play football!")

Source:
http://tinyurl.com/b4ocghj

Back in high school, I always hear this line. Especially after the school bell has rung long and twice. Particularly coming from my best friend's mouth, and with the football carried upon his waist.

We joined this little football club back in high school when we were still in second year. I really think it was a funny club to join in to. I don't know who dragged who or if it was out of pure volunteerism or interest from the two of us, but whichever indeed was the case, I'm sure glad we did join the club.

At around 5 every afternoon, we, along with the other football-playing and -enthused friends the club has managed to recruit that school year, meet up at the football field in front of the campus grandstand, strip off our white polo shirts,  take off our black leather shoes, and just start kicking and tossing balls to and in the field. Man, I miss kicking balls back there! Anyway, we'll play until the sun is out. Even if, for example, it's just a fun time play, we play hard. That's just how we all play.

I'm already in college, and for quite some time now, I'm an applicant for membership to a football club here, too. This club holds friendly football games every Wednesdays and Fridays at the sunken field.

I remember very well, at the end of one football game one afternoon, this visiting guy I happened to play ball with in the field who approached and asked me, "Ilonggo kamo ay?" (He asked me if we were Ilonggos) I was, at that time, with an Ilonggo friend, too, so he was definitely referring to us two, I thought.

Well, of course, I answered yes. If one happens to know and could understand Hiligaynon, then he could have surely recognized us two to be true, home-grown Ilonggos while in the game. We were endlessly cursing and mocking some of our useless teammates during the game you know.

He laughed at that, but cleared it out to us after that that wasn't really his main reason for asking us if we were indeed Ilonggos. He pointed out to us that anyone could learn how to speak how the Ilonggos speak. But only a few, and only the Ilonggos, have the potential to play and could play football so hardcore-ly and so skillfully just like that. According to him, Ilonggos move around the field with well-thought plans on where to go; they don't just move impulsively so just to make a shot or what. Ilonggos, he also added, seem to not feel petty pains or seem to not care about puny scratches on their knees or seem to not worry to dive or do backflips at all. That's during the game and while in the field. That time, I could not agree more with him!

Ilonggos do not just play with passion, but in passion.

Source:
http://tinyurl.com/axpuasw
Anyway, this is a photo of my high school football club after a friendly
match that the club organized at the Iloilo Sports Complex, Iloilo City last 2012.