I'm looking forward to going back to the Fuente Osmena Circle this evening with my good camera. We went inside the circle's park last night for the first time since they put up this year's xmas tree. New years Eve tonight, and non-stop Sinulog Festival happenings for the next month or so. Live music, barbecue, bright clored lights, smiling faces and picture takers. I love being in the center of the city like this, with our island in the sky. Just go downstairs, and there are so many things to explore and do close by. Crossing the road and getting into the circle park was interesting. I felt like a Wildebeast in a gathering group of many waiting for a few of us to step out first into the circle's traffic, making eye contact and and waving our hands in front of the cars and motorbikes..., and when we were in the middle of our thrust forward, out comes a guy with a yellow vest from the other side putting his hands up in front of the traffic. Haha. One thing here though, is that there are very few accidents. If you hit someone, off to jail you go, immediately. Swift punishment. My personal strategy, just like when I'm walking at home: I'm like a bobblehead, with my head looking right and left, again and again, making eye-contact with the drivers, and putting up my hands, etc. Insert praying hands emoji here...

We have a NW view from our place, and since we have a corner, our side windows are looking WNW. Sitting and/or standing and looking out through our windows are the bookends for my days in Cebu. I think the upside down "L" pole in photo #4 is/was a communications antenna for the Metrobank next door. It stood straight up before Typhoon Odette. I got out my Canon recently, so these shots are not cell phone photos.

from a walk around the neighborhood in Bothell WA 25Nov2019

Sagwa, in the background, left us not long after these photos were taken, 15Dec2015. I like how his eyes are glowing in the picture with Neo. Sad, but part of life. Sagwa joined our family when Nate was a toddler, and Nate is now 27yo

"I think I'll give up living, and go shopping" :) I'll find and share a video of BB King's full song another time, but I wanted to share this clip from one of his later concerts. I saw him perform at a rock festival somewhere in Illinois or Indiana when I was on a road trip back in the 70s. I thought about those lyrics when we were shopping at our local Mr DIY store yesterday. It's a home improvement retailer with more than 1,500 stores across Southeast Asia, including the Philippines. I love that store! All kinds of things we could use, mostly good quality, and excellent prices. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9vcEThQ1-I

I took these photos 4 years ago. on one of my early morning walks. Apple Fritters have always been my favorite pastry, just edging out the Croissant and cafe au lait breakfast I remember from Paris. The Hillcrest Bakery, "family owned and operated since 1934" is right across the street from our first place in Bothell. Their specialty is their apple fritter. They have three small booths, their coffee is good, and they open at 6am!

from 9Dec2015 the old guy Phil, and my umbrella sword: Phil - I didn't know his name for the longest time. The old man Phil was this old guy walking along the street every morning when I passed by on my way to work. He had this angry look on his face, and I thought "angry, old man". I retired in Jan 06, and I continued to see Phil on his morning walks... Around 4 or 5 years ago, I noticed that he was slowing down. Visiting with a neighbor, I realized that he wasn't angry so much as just fighting off old age, and death. I watched as he moved from a slowing pace to one cane. Then two canes, followed by a walker... Then no more Phil. I miss that old guy. He was one of my heroes. Sword - Yesterday morning, the rain stopped halfway through my walk. It was a heavy rain when I started walking, but like many North-westerners, I don't like using umbrellas unless it's REALLY raining! I rolled up my giant yellow and blue Ikea umbrella, and realized that it turned into a sword like thing. I thought to myself, "I can now protect myself against those Muslim Terrorists!" re - one of the Donald's latest proclamations...

You don't get this in Bothell. We're walking home from shopping, and we stop at a cart filled with coconuts. "Two please". One of the guys knock on a coconut or 2 with his knuckles before he hears the sound he wants, and using his small bolo knife, hacks an opening in the top of it. He pours the coconut water into a plastic container and hands the husk to his partner, who then scrapes out the coconut shavings and dumps them into the water. Ditto the second coconut. p45 each, and we give them a hundred. Probably less expensive in the countryside, but we're happy customers! 45 peoso is 81cents US$ today. I'm having a glass now, as I go through my morning computer routine.

3 years ago on this date (11Dec2020) - me, reflecting on a cold Bellevue WA street

I love this photo of the twins working on/figuring out how to connect the straps of their booster seats. They're 6 years old now...

Dinner Date - We decided around 5/6pm yesterday to go to Banawa for a dinner date. Google said it was only 1.5 km and 4 minutes away, but yesterday was a holiday here, and it was a Friday, so the Jeepney Buses were full. Jeepneys too of course, but I have to watch my head when we get into one of those anyway because of my height. We hailed a taxi, and we had one of those meandering early to darken tropical evening taxi rides. I'm going to get out my GoPro one of these days and record one of those rides. We wandered around the Paseo Arcenas Center after our ride to Banawa, which took longer than Google said it would take of course :) We had a Vietnamese meal, missed out on the yummy looking Empenada's I wanted to get (they sold out and closed uo their booth before we returned), and bought some groceries at a newly opened Metro Gaisano grocery store there. We then proceeded to look for a taxi. That's when we realized that we were in a Filipino version of suburbia? Most of the cars parked in the Paseo Arcenas Center parking lot were privately owned cars, and taxis here were far and few between, even up on the main road. It took around 20 minutes or so to flag an empty one, but I enjoyed the people watching, and we had Ronald NcDonald behind us on the sidewalk. All and all, another pleasant evening in Cebu...

5 years ago SeaTac Park, Seattle WA 10Nov2018 My walk that day had me walking along some paths with more leaves, because there was a bicycling event happening...

I walked over to the pedestrian overpass nearby yesterday. It's not far from the Fuente Osmena Circle where this year's Big Xmas tree is located, and I wanted to get a shot of the tree during the daytime. They call the overpasses here "flyovers". I'm posting three shots of the tree today, and one shot from the lighting ceremony we attended the other night. The building in the background left is "the building that never got finished". They ran out of money way back when, and it's just sitting there, frozen in time...

Since I'm not very good at organizing my photos, etc, they're often lost in cyberspace or wherever. This image popped up in my FB Memories folder this morning. It's a photo I took of our Mt Rainier from somewhere in south Seattle, with some editing. I clicked the link I had attached in the post, and Voila! another trip down nostalgia lane...it's from an earlier blog of mine: http://crlazlo3.blogspot.com/ The first post is dated Thursday, May 15, 2014, and it's a building facade in Renton WA, plus a montage of the staircase in the "Eagles Landing" park near Burien WA on Puget Sound.

For those of you good people who are checking in here, I'm back on FB again. I'm going to resume my routine of posting things here before I share them on FB.

These shots are from the "Visayas Art Fair" I attended in early December, 2021. It was held at the Montebello Villa Hotel here in Cebu. I'm hoping to find more "arts and crafts" focused happenings during this visit as well.

I've always liked shadows. I remember riding in the back seat of my Dad's car, going back home after visiting relatives or something. I was 5 years old or so, sitting in the back seat, and I would lean back and watch the shadows cast by street lamps etc move through the car. I took these shots with my cell phone this morning. I looked up at the ceiling after I finished my meditation, and there they were.

I finally got out my Canon yesterday, just in time for the lighting ceremony of this year's "Christmas Tree of Hope". This was my first time to experience this. I posted in an earlier post that the tree in 2021 (when we were here last time) was destroyed by Typhoon Odette. This year's tree is wonderful. It's different every year, and the fireworks were exciting! Some fireworks were set off across the street from us before the official lighting happened. https://cebuinsights.com/events/christmas/fuente-osmena-circle-tree-of-hope/

We brothers would go visit our Mom at the Senior living place she lived the last 10? years of her life. It was nice, a Catholic church facility, and she actually was an employee there for a number of years when she was in her 50s? FB Memories: On this day,8 years ago, 1Dec2015 "Visited Mom today. She said "It's so nice to have my children visit me. Some residents only get visitors on holidays..." I told her she's lucky because she had 8 children. "8 children!? (pause) Really!?"she said. "Yes, I'm the oldest, and then there's..." We went down the list. Several times. 🙂" ps - depending on schedules, it would be different combinations of bros and bro-in-law Bob. This one is me and Mike.