You might wan to turn down the volume. I've always been an early to bed and early to rise person, even on New Years Eve. We woke up at midnight to the sounds of 2025! Going downstairs and looking out, this is pretty much what we saw, and heard. I just pointed my cell phone at my computer screen and pulled this off of the internet. The explosions of color and sounds were mesmerizing. As for this coming year, my fingers are crossed...

St. Nino Cathedral on Christmas Day, #1: early in the morning, balloons and candle ladies outside, quiet meditations inside

One of my favorite walks when we lived in Tukwila WA was a park just North of the SeaTac Airport. I loved aiming my camera up through the trees when planes were coming in for landings. This one was from 2015.

walking along the road above our neighborhood in Tukwila WA, in the fog, 2015, in sepia...

Something I always look forward to is visiting my sister-in-law's house. I have a brown thumb. Plants cringe and wilt when they see me coming. My sister-in-law has a green thumb...

I had my longest walk of the month this morning: 6.67 miles (10.7 km). I got lost. The compass I ordered from Lazada can't get here soon enough. I walked down to Magellan's Cross and into the St. Nino Cathedral. From there, I wandered around, passing by Fort San Pedro and the new National Museum in Cebu. I ended up at the Heritage of Cebu Monument. I decided to head on home at that point, and promptly got lost. I asked for directions...one man pointed and said "go that way". Another guy pointed the other way, and said "go that way". One studious looking fellow said "let me write down some directions", and a monk said "I don't know about that". Finally, two guys said to me - "follow us! We'll get you home!"

it doesn't have to be a blue sky and puffy white clouds day to have a nice walk along the beach...

"you looking at me?"...merry xmas

taxi ride photo shoot #1 I did my first taxi ride photo shoot yesterday, with my Canon SLR. I shot with the regular "Auto" setting, the one I use most of the time. If I had used the Sports setting with the faster shutter, more images would have been in focus, but I would have ended up with far too many photos. The end result is that I have more "keepers" than I usually get with my cell phone camera. My niece asked me yesterday "what do you like about Cebu?" I replied "the People..." And like my brother in law, a fellow American, once said: "it's a feast for the eyes!"

Cebu Dec2024 walk photos #2 - Looking at my photos from yesterday, I decided to walk around the left (SW) side of Fuente Circle park. The first shot shows a yellow and blue helmeted couple on a motor bike on that side. Looking back from the other side, you can see the new BDO (bank) Tower building going up, and the area's "ghost" building to it's right. The ghost building has been there for as long as I can remember. They ran out of money or something, and they just left it as it was. Looking at the promo photos of the completed BDO Tower, I'm thinking it might become an iconic part of the Fuente Osmena area. ps - I shot the Ghost building photo through the wires because I liked all of the black lines.

We've been back in Cebu for 1 1/2 months now, and yesterday was the first day I actually went out on a photo walk with my Canon. It felt good, and I got a few "keepers". I crossed the street and walked through the construction area below us where they're putting up one of the stations for Cebu's Bus Rapid Transit system. It sort of reminds me of the LRT construction coming through Tukwila in 2009, linking downtown Seattle with the SeaTac Airport. It seemed like it was taking forever, and now that it covers so many of the outlying areas, I love it! Cebu is different in many ways, but I'm optimistic. I walked up the other side of Osmena Blvd towards the Fuente Circle xmas tree. I wanted to get some day shots. Hopefully, I'll get over to the Park and get some night photos soon, like I did last year.

from when we lived in Tukwila WA, 20Dec2013 - the Green River was a 10 minute walk from our house....

My plan was to walk over to the Handyman Store at Robinsons and get some Liquid Nails yesterday morning, and then go to a computer store about 15 minutes away for a cable. A short excursion. After Handyman, I remembered the letter I had in my backpack, so I went up to the 3rd floor to a PO outlet and sent it off to Colorado. Regular mail, not registered: p71, which = $1.21. On my way back downstairs I noticed the shop called Digi something that I had never gone into before, and voila! they had the cable I wanted! I then walked over the flyover (pedestrian overpass) to the bank to get some pesos and went back to our complex. I walked next door to take care of some miscellaneous bills etc, and then I decided to check out a recently opened pool and patio thing on their 17th floor. That all added up to a 2.32mile walk supposedly, lasting 1hr and 14 minutes in my MapMyWalk app. What is fun about this walk is the images I pulled up just now - a whole bunch of squiggles here and there and everywhere, all within a 1 block radius.

Inday walked with me on this route yesterday. 2.16 miles in 40 min or so one way, first to the Ayala Mall, and then over to Landers, our local Costco wannabe. Actually, we cheated. We ended up shopping at Ayala too, so we took a taxi for the short ride to Landers from there. And after Landers, we were really loaded up!, and we took another taxi home.

A little shout out here to algorithms...those goblin-like characters who are watching what we type, search etc. Some people say "oh no! They're watching me. What about my Privacy? etc" We had a recent event in the US that will remain un-named here, and things related to it pop up on my FB page very seldom now!! I mostly click on things like photography, art, etc, and Mr/Ms Algorithm has given me a helping hand.

I walked around 4.32 miles on Saturday, roundtrip. That includes some wandering around the Ayala Terraces Mall. Once again, I walked from the Fuentes Osmeña Circle to the Ayala area. It took me 42 minutes one way, but that includes wandering around the Mall, trying to find the place where I was going to meet a friend. I always get lost there. Their directional signs aren‘t very helpful. I think their strategy is to make you go by all the different shops, stores and restaurants while you search for the store you’re looking for. That place is huge! I’m guessing just under a million or so... haha. I forgot to turn on my Walking app for the return walk. The red line would have ended up making a rectangular shape box (sort of), beginning and ending with the green dot in this photo.