A fiesta and the big 4-0

This year, I turned 40. Getting older and hopefully getting better and wiser, but I'm not so sure.

We spent the weekend in Baler, which celebrated its town fiesta on the same day. Patron saint is San Luis Obispo, thus the name Luisa (tempered by the Maria in front). For a while I thought we wouldn't be able to go home, no thanks to supertyphoon Egay. Surprisingly though, the weekend was relatively calm, and Ben and I were able to watch the parade on Sunday (19th) morning. It was a bit of a disappointment. I thought there were going to be street dancing and stuff, but it was mostly just people parading with a few floats of Little Miss Baler runners-up and winner and bands from the different school. Still I think Ben enjoyed it. After the parade, we passed the day basically doing nothing, just relaxing, then we had spaghetti in the evening for long life. It was nothing major, but I felt that I really had a great birthday celebration.

Like I always say, it's always good to go home to Baler, and this trip, the roads notwithstanding, was worth it. I would've wanted to stay longer, but work and school called us back to Manila. Here are some photos to share:

Ben with Abraham and Gabriel, two of his friends in Baler

One of the bands...

And Ben looks on...

I have no idea...

Kids in costume...

Ben and his Lolo Emon doing one of their favorite pastimes

That's me with Papa and Ben

Ben and me under the lateris tree

Gaming on the computer

Ben with his Ate Jackie and Ate Roxanne

Family Day

Last July 28 was Family Day at Claret's Child Study Center. It was a half day of program and games for Ben, so Auntie Iring and I went with him. Their class sang one song, and then all the CSC children sang another song together. I tried to videotape it but my videocamera was running out of battery, and the video taken with the cellphone is too small (I need a new digital camera with a video taking function to it). Besides, Ben, being one of the taller kids, was relegated to the back again so it was difficult to get to him with the camera. Still I did take some pictures which I'm sharing below.

The children also made little paper necklaces for their parents with a heart pendant and one of the pictures show me (looking horrible as usual--why oh why oh why!) with Ben after he put the necklace on me. It's really sweet and touching to see him running towards me to give me his little gift. Last year, it was a card. Anyway, here are some pics:

Ben with his Teacher Caei and classmate Yvonne

That's Ben in the last row, almost center

That's me and Ben after he gave me the necklace

That's him in the last row, 2nd from the left after they finished singing "I Won't Last A Day Without You."

And here's the video from the cellphone of them singing I Won't Last A Day Without You. It's not complete, because my knees started to hurt from kneeling and it's quite blurry, but I thought I'd upload it anyway. Again, Ben is the second kid from the left on the last row.

Ben and Bailey

This video clip is a few weeks old. I think this was taken when during my cousin Tricia's birthday celebration. Anyway, Ben is holding on to her puppy, Bailey. I'm seriously thinking of getting Ben a dog in the near future.

Ben turns 5, and Auntie Delan celebrates 80

This past weekend, there were back-to-back celebrations in our family. The first was Ben's merienda birthday celebration on Saturday (his birthday was actually last Friday), and the following day, the Tan family got together for Auntie Delan's (Papa's eldest sister) 80th birthday (which actually was on Monday, July 9).

Ben's really grown. He's quite big for his age, and although he isn't the biggest kid in his class, he's one of the bigger ones. He's now 117 cm and weighs a little over 24 kg. I just feel that time is passing by so fast. I really try to hold on because I know time will come soon enough when he'd like to do things on his own. For now, while he still asks for me to keep with him, I do. Here's a picture of him taken on his birthday, just before he went to school (he's in kindergarten now, I think I mentioned that in an earlier post).

Funny expression, I know. Unlike before when I could get him to smile naturally when I take his pictures, these days, he likes to make funny faces.

On his birthday, he also took part in a contest in school. He was one of the finalists. The winner would represent Claret School CSC in a quiz show in one of the local cable channels. He had a good chance of winning, but he didn't because he wasn't paying real attention to the quiz master. Still he managed to come in third (which means after he was eliminated there were only two contestants left). Anyway, we didn't have a birthday celebration in school because I think Claret actually discourages school parties. So rather than celebrate in school, we decided to have a merienda celebration the following day. I tried to work out a dinosaur theme into the "party" because Ben has morphed into a dinosaur addict over the last few months. Since our house is quite small, it was kind of cramped what with about 30 people together at once, but it was fun. I wasn't able to take a lot of pictures because I was busy trying to get things to work right.

In line with his current dinosaur fetish, I tried a dinosaur-themed merienda party.

Blowing the candles took a bit of an effort. A couple of stubborn candles took some time to blow out, thus the laughter.

All in all, it was a good celebration. Ben was quite happy with it, more so with the gifts he received.

Then the following day, it was off to Club Filipino for lunch to celebrate Auntie Delan's 80th birthday. Quite a milestone, and it's nice to see her looking quite well. Here's hoping we'll be sharing and celebrating quite a few more birthdays with her. Here are the pics from that get-together. I need to have these pictures printed for her too.

The birthday celebrant...

...and her cake!!!

Miguel, Daniel, Jovin, Ben, Josella, and Janina

With Kuya Tony this time

Ben and Jaden

Janina, Ben, Jaden, and Josella

Janna, Janina, Josella, Ben, Jovin, Jaden, Daniel, and Miguel

Ben and Jaden playing jack-en-poy

Daniel and Ben doing their WWE imitation

Piggy back ride with Jovin

A kiss for the celebrant

Papa, Auntie Tik, Auntie Jovit, Auntie Delan and Auntie Iring

With the "apos"

With kids and other relatives

With more "apos"

With kids, nieces and nephew, and an apo, I believe

It's nice to see that Auntie Delan enjoys these get-togethers, and I think they give actually give her a boost. I should add that I enjoy these too. It's nice to get the family together, although somehow we never really manage to get everyone in most of these gatherings. Still, it was a fun time and I'm looking forward to the next one.

Up on High Street

Recently, we went to The Fort to check out High Street and of course, Fully Booked, which I read had opened. It's our second visit there, and Ben likes the place because of the several fountains they have. He is particularly fond of the big boulder fountain. Anyway, I'm posting here some pictures that were taken during our first visit sometime in May (I've posted some photos earlier) and the ones from our last visit a couple of weeks ago. The pictures were taken using phone cameras so they may be a bit blurry, especially the ones from the first visit.

May visit:

By one of the fountains at Serendra

Strongman Ben

From recent visit:

With Lola Iring at his favorite fountain in High Street

Ah, LeBron

I really like Bonifacio High Street, not just because of its huge Fully Booked branch, but because it's a nice place to just have Ben run around. You can really tell that Ben lives in a cramped place because once you get him into an open space like that in High Street, he's off and running around. And very difficult to catch. Maybe we'll visit again soon.

More KL pix

More KL pix c/o my friend Carrie at (Desperately seeking Petronas). Enjoy.

A mini-romp in KL

Ben and I, together with Carrie and Terrie (two of his godmothers) took a short trip to Kuala Lumpur last week. Thanks to my boss, Conny, and Air Asia (a low-cost airline), we were able to fly over for a three-day stay. Needless to say, the time was too short to really do everything we want, but I think we all had a great time.

Thursday (21 June) morning, we took the bus to Clark Airport, about 2 hours north of Manila, to catch the Air Asia flight to KL. Thankfully, we didn't have a long wait outside the airport (it was too hot! I don't understand why they don't build a more passenger-waiting area there, considering that quite a few people and air lines already use and service the airport.) and were able to check in and stay inside the terminal to wait for the plane. We left just before noon and arrived in KL (following a very bumpy flight) just a little past 3pm, half an hour ahead of schedule. A welcome surprise after Conny told me that Air Asia is notorious for being delayed. Anyway, here's a picture of Ben just after we got off the plane and were making our way to the arrival/immigration area.

That's the plane we took in the back (sorry for the backlight).

While waiting for Conny to pick us up from the airport, we had ice cream cones and french fries from...McDonald's!!! Haven't missed patronizing a McDonald's outlet in any of my overseas trip yet, and I wasn't about to.

On the way from the airport to Conny's house, which took about 45 minutes via very nice and roomy tollways, Ben was yapping and yapping in a mix of English and Tagalog. As usual, he had trouble keeping his mouth shut. Good thing Conny seemed not to mind. Conny's house is in Kayangan Heights, Shah Alam. It is a residential area nestled in a hilly area, and was just lovely. I made the mistake of not taking a picture of her house when there was light so there is no picture of it, but it is really nice. Ben and I were put in a guest room downstairs, Carrie and Terrie upstairs.

Ben was immediately friends with Preethika and Joshua, Conny's 6-year old daughter and 4-year old son. It was so nice to see Ben get along so well with them. That first night after dinner, we drove to the Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Mosque, which is one of the biggest in Southeast Asia (photo below). I can't remember if Devan (Conny's husband) said it has capacity for somewhere around 25,000. Anyway, I read somewhere that it's also known as the Blue Mosque. Well, it sure was a nice sight to see. Very, very big.

Anyway, this isn't a very good shot. Check out the web for better shots, but this is the best I could take. This photo in no way does justice to the splendour of that place.

On the way back home, Ben fell asleep (he did have a very long day that day, and he hardly slept during the bus trip to the airport or the flight to KL) in the car. Here are some shots, with Preethika and Joshua clowning around a sleeping Ben.



The following day, the plan is to go to the city center. Before going though, Ben played around the yard. Here are some photos:

Ben on Preethika's scooter

A view of Conny's house and driveway

More of Ben and the Scooter

Ben with Conny's dog, Sheffield

Then it was to the Kuala Lumpur City Centre. I gotta say, the roads are really great, roomy and smooth. And the nice thing is the KL is the fact that the city is one of the greenest big cities I've ever seen. So trees, plants, and flowers are everywhere, and it was nice to take in all that. Some of the roads were also made by blasting through hills so there are some rocky outcrops, with greens on them. Very nice. Anyway, on the way, we stopped at the Tugu Peringatan Negara Malaysia, which I think is their war memorial. Ben loved it because there were fountains and pools. It's a pretty big memorial, with a big monument of soldiers. Here are the photos:

Ben by the entrance to the memorial with Carrie and Terrie

Ben and me at the entrance
Ben, me and Carrie inside the memorial

Ben in front of one of the fountains

On the base of this monument, it says: "Dedicated to the heroic fighters in the cause of peace and freedom. May the blessings of Allah be upon them"

Then it was on the KLCC. First stop was the Petronas Towers, one of the tallest twin towers in the world, and were the tallest buildings in the world for a few years. It's really awesome. We wanted to go up to the skybridge, but they only give out so many tickets per day and we were too late. So we just walk around and took some pictures from outside the building. Following are the photos.

Carrie, me, Terrie, and Ben in front of the Suria KLCC shopping center which is just by the Petronas Towers (so tall we couldn't fit it in the picture)

A closer shot

Ben with Conny, with a whale sculpture in the back
Mother and son

Taken at the park in front of Suria KLCC, that's the KL Tower in the back

Another shot with the Towers in the back, still at the park near the Suria

We then went to Aquaria, which is an underwater park located beneath the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Of course, being a fish lover, it's something Ben would love, so we spent a about two hours there.

Carrie, Terrie, and Ben enjoying the interactive information computer just outside the entrance to Aquaria.

That's a real scorpion believe it or not, which partly explains the expression on Ben's face

Carrie and Ben on the conveyor belt inside the 90-metre long underwater tunnel taking in the sight

The expression on Ben's face reminds me of his expression when we were at a similar place in Ocean Park in Hong Kong

Face to face with a manta ray (ok, so not exactly, but close enough)

Those are jelly fish, I think

That's how big a shark's mouth is???

After Aquaria, we went and had lunch at the Suria with Conny, then headed off to Kinokuniya, a huge bookstore, where we browsed for about half an hour before heading off to the KL Tower (Menara Kuala Lumpur), which is a telecommunications tower. It is one of the tallest in the world, I think, at about 421 m. Because it is situated on a hill, it looks even taller than the Petronas Towers. It is also supposed to house the highest McDonald's in the world. The observation deck offered a very nice view of the city.

Ben enjoying one of the scopes at the observation deck

Obviously, he enjoyed it. There are several scopes around the deck and he was actually upset that he had to line up for some of them.

Ben by the fountain and pool fronting the KL Tower. He is facing the Tower in this picture.

Another shot of Ben by the fountain and pool, this time with the Tower in the background. Too high to fit in the photo.

I'm not really sure if these are called kulintang by the Malaysian

Me and Ben

Carrie, Ben and Terrie by the pool

By the entrance to the KL Tower

After the KL Tower, we headed back to the Suria to visit Petrosains, a science and technology museum. Unfortunately, we were too late and they weren't selling tickets anymore. Good thing there were some exhibits, including a formula1 car (or a replica of it) that were just outside the main museum. Of course, Ben had to have his pictures.

The following day (Saturday) began with and Indian breakfast at a local restaurant. I liked the crepe-like bread and the coconut rice. Then Conny took Carrie, Terrie, and me to the main tourist markets (Central and Petaling Street). Ben stayed with Conny and the kids. He reported to me later than he enjoyed the bath he took in the jacuzzi at the house (and begged for one to be fitted at home). Later that afternoon, they went to pick up a new puppy and Ben fell it love with it. Here are a couple of photos.

Ben playing with Precious (daschund puppy) while Preethika plays

Ben enjoying time with Precious

Later that evening, I joined Conny for an anticipated mass. Their church is really really nice, with a beautiful altar. Conny told me some of the materials used in the altar were from the Philippines, one of which is a wooden relief of the Last Supper.

After mass, we had dinner at a local outdoor Chinese restaurant. Here are some photos.

Ben with Conny, Joshua, Preethika and Devan
Preethika and Ben
Ben and Devan
Joshua, Ben and Preethika clowning around
That's us
More clowning around

The following morning, we got up very early since our flight back to the Philippines leave at 720am. I don't think any of us got a good night's sleep, and that became evident on the flight back home, when Ben threw a major tantrum in the plane. Suffice to say, he didn't stop until he got a stuffed toy plane.

Ben on the plane back home

Anyway, the trip was just too short, but I really didn't want to impose on Conny anymore. Nevertheless, it was a fun trip, and I was glad that Ben, Preethika, and Joshua got along so well. Someday we'll visit again.