Day 136 - Craving Chicken

The best part of Max's Restaurant menu, IMHO. BTW, look, they actually have "chicken sisig". I wonder what that tastes like.

During the roadtrip back from our Bicol trip, my mom kept talking about how we would stop over somewhere in Quezon to eat dinner at Max's Restaurant. Unfortunately, before we got to any area with a Max's Restaurant, we were too hungry, and so ate dinner at the first food establishment we saw instead, which was Jollibee. Not that there's anything wrong with Jollibee, it's just that we were already thinking of Max's chicken for several hours.

Days later (that's today), my dad and I still hadn't gotten Max's chicken out of our minds, and so after mass, we went and ate dinner there. It's a total indulgence -- my budget conscious mom just conveniently happens to be out of the country today, and I think my dad wanted my brother to miss out on something since he passed on going with us to church.

P.S. Today is Halloween. But I didn't even realize it until I wrote this and looked at the date on the calendar. Obviously, that means we didn't have any Halloween celebrations or anything. I did see Facebook posts of my friends who went to parties in costume, though. It made me feel like an outsider, like I'm from a parallel world where Halloween doesn't exist and so I find it strange that there are people who actually make a big deal out of what they're wearing today.

Day 135 - Merienda

PALITAW AT LINGA - Yup, the Tagalog word for sesame seeds is "linga". Who knew?

Would you believe it if I told you that it was only after college that I found out that not all households serve merienda (afternoon snack)? OK, so maybe I knew it all along because of course, not all households have the same eating habits, but it was really only a few years ago when I was talking with my officemates about food that I talked about how we usually had merienda on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and they told me that that's not a practice in every household. And once more I was reminded of how lucky I am that my family likes to eat. :)

Anyway, I took a photo of our merienda today because it's one of my favorites. But actually, I like almost all merienda food - bananacue, kamote cue, turon, bico, etc.

Day 134 - Red Velvet

Today is the 31st Wedding Anniversary of my parents. Congratulations to them!

To celebrate, we ate steak, turbo chicken, ice cream, and cake. I wanted this Red Velvet Cake from UCC but since it's too small (as you can see, it can fit in the plastic box that you normally use for cake slices), we went to Red Ribbon to buy a bigger one. Chocolate Fudge. Still not as good as Mer-Nel's Chocolate Cake, but good enough. I can't wait for the next occasion so we can pig out again. :)

BTW, you can't see the usual dining room wood table underneath because I took this photo while I was in our kitchen, where the counter top is white tile. Why was I in the kitchen, you ask? That's because I was hiding out. Cakes like these aren't for sharing ;) hehe!

P.S. I skipped some days again. I just completely forgot about this project the past 2 days! @_@ Plus, my body clock is playing tricks on me again, waking me up at night and making me real sleepy during daytime.

Day 133 - Legaspi City

The bird flew into the shot at just the right time. It was totally coincidental. :)

This is the view of Legaspi City from Ligñon Hill where my dad and I tried the zipline. :) On the other side is a view of the Mayon Volcano, and I would've posted that, except the clouds were blocking the view again. :( I'm kind of sad that nearly all the times I've been to Bicol, Mt. Mayon has always been covered by clouds. OK, so I was able to see it last night, and there were no clouds then, but it was nighttime, so it still wasn't clear. Oh well, I guess that just means I have to go to Bicol again and again until I see it.

P.S. This is the last of the photos taken with my brother's Nikon D90. It's back to my point and shoot and cellphone cam tomorrow.

Day 132 - Kalabaw ng Cagsaua

We passed by the Cagsaua Church Ruins today. That's the site where the most famous pictures of the Mayon Volcano (the icon of Bicol province) are taken. Here's a sample:

Image from http://www.hawaii.edu/cps/maycag.html

But because that picture is too common already, and when we went there, clouds were blocking the view of the volcano anyway, I'm choosing to post this picture of a carabao instead:

We found him (or maybe her, but for some reason I think all carabaos are male) outside the "official" area of the church ruins (that is, wala pang bayad 'pag tumigil ka sa area na'to kasi hindi mo pa kita ang Cagsaua Ruins), beside these rocks and some ponds. Some of his friends were bathing in the ponds and I took pictures of them, too, but they were too submerged in the water so you can't actually see them clearly.

Anyway, I think carabaos are some of the friendliest animals on the planet. I don't really know though because I've never been really close to one. But I've only ever seen them resting or helping people, so to my mind they're very nice and friendly. :)