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.

Seattle's Pike Place Market 14Dec2015

A few thoughts on "walking" here. They don't. There are some walkers, even a few joggers. But with the warm climate, the abundance of Jeepneys, buses and taxis, etc., walking like I do is not the first choice for many people. Once, 3 or 4 years ago, I got confused about where I was and I asked a Security Guard at one of the big buildings in a downtown area "which way to Fuente Osmena Circle?" He replied "04L", the Jeepney number, and I gestured with my fingers that I'm walking and pointed which direction? I told him I'm walking again, and he replied again "04L". This crazy foreigner was walking?! Also, this is not meant as a whining rant, but there are far too many cars for this old city. I could be wrong, but when you get to a certain income level, and there being some very reasonable financing options, I guess it's a status symbol of sorts to have your own car. When I just googled my route from this morning (I'm guessing the traffic is a little less right now), it shows by car = 13 min; Jeepney/bus = 25 min; and Walking = 33 min. Even with the Jeepney stops this morning, I doubt the car time is that much faster than the Jeepneys. I was gaining on cars stopped in traffic or at intersections many times during my walk. But what do I know? I do know that it's cooler to walk in the mornings, or the early evenings. ps - I also realize that there are many people, for all kinds of different reasons, who have benefitted greatly from their car ownership. As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say on SNL, "never mind"... :)

VAF #5:

Airbnb rentals: I decided to do my exercise walk inside the building the other day, going up and down the stairs, exploring the different business floors, etc. Post Covid, there has been a surge in Airbnb rentals throughout Cebu, and in this building as well. I do understand the incentives and benefits of renting out one's place, but it's been an adjustment for some us owners who actually live here. I should note that we also rented out our place, for 6 months earlier this year. One and done. When we returned in November, there was a separate counter set up in the lobby specifically for Airbnb guests. Back to my walk, I walked down our hallway and past the elevators towards the other end of the building, passing 4 or 5 people before reaching the stairs door at the other end. I said "good morning" to a few people, and they said "good morning" back to me. People were still streaming out of the room they had rented, 12 or 13 in total. Please note - I still love this place... Going down the stairs, I stopped on the 9th floor, one of several floors designated as "Entry door" floors. It was shut and locked. I walked down to the 8th floor, which had a "No Entry" sign, and I went through it. Evidently, in pre-Covid time, they had a bunch of offices and businesses operating on that floor, there were public restrooms, etc...a nice area. I meandered through the hallways until I reached what I thought was one of the hotel next door elevators, and pushed G thinking it was their lobby. We're all part of a larger complex. When the elevator opened, I found myself in the lobby area next to our own apt lobby. I had ridden that elevator only once before, when we saw the singer Vina Morales in the Casino during last January's Sinulog festivities. I walked around the second and lobby floors downstairs, walked by the singing Santa Claus, through the glass door going past the in-house mini-market and over to the hotel next door. I walked through the hotel lobby, out onto the sidewalk and over to our building's front door. ps - It's fun to look at the MapMyWalk maps after my walks, and when they're over a relatively short distance like this one, all the squiggly lines are interesting. I recognized the "Sky Experience Adventure" ride thing on top of the Crown Regency (Typhoon Odette did a number on that in 2021), but the "Consulate General of Japan"?, and the "Cleverlearn English Lang. Institute" with the green dot? I'll have to put on my detective google hat...

One of my favorite photos of the little ladies. You always check to see what they're doing when it gets quiet, yes? Click! They were figuring out how to click and un-click their booster chair straps. I have shared this a few times :)

Being 79 now, pfffft...where did the time go? I was just thinking about Eric Hoffer, the "longshoreman philosopher". He worked on the San Francisco waterfront for over 20 years, and became famous when he published his first? book in 1951. Being a Union person/worker, retired, I've always been fascinated by the man. - https://keep.google.com/#NOTE/1I3cMyfRQhy75NeJ_WW5XeSBgC8X5DuCv7fc3LfOttclI2JtQVgIWS3KOkWUEm0g - the last sentence: - "Scholars of Hoffer (generally conservatives themselves) inevitably note his working-class bonafides, but they don’t mention or analyze the irony of his membership in the leftist ILWU. In that way, they’re similar to all those, Hoffer included, who forgot that the labor movement brought us the weekend and much more."

Airbnb rentals - Pt 1: I decided to do my exercise walk inside the building yesterday, going up and down the stairs, exploring the different business floors, etc. Post Covid, there has been a surge in Airbnb rentals throughout Cebu, and in this building as well. I do understand the incentives and benefits of renting out one's place, but it's been an adjustment for some us owners who actually live here. I should note that we also rented out our place, for 6 months earlier this year. One and done. When we returned in November, there was a separate counter set up in the lobby specifically for Airbnb guests. Back to my walk, I walked down our hallway and past the elevators towards the other end of the building, passing 4 or 5 people before reaching the stairs door at the other end. I said "good morning" to a few people, and they said "good morning" back to me. People were still streaming out of the room they had rented, 12 or 13 in total. Please note - I still love this place... Going down the stairs, I stopped on the 9th floor, one of several floors designated as "Entry door" floors. It was shut and locked. I walked down to the 8th floor, which had a "No Entry" sign, and I went through it. Evidently, in pre-Covid time, they had a bunch of offices and businesses operating on that floor, there were public restrooms, etc...a nice area. I meandered through the hallways until I reached what I thought was one of the hotel elevators, and pushed G thinking it was their lobby. We're all part of a larger complex. When the elevator opened, I found myself in the lobby area next to our apt lobby. I had ridden that elevator only once before, when we saw the singer Vina Morales at the Casino during last January's Sinulog festivities. I walked around the second and lobby floors downstairs, walked by the singing Santa Claus, through the glass door going past the in-house mini-market and over to the hotel next door. I walked through the hotel lobby, out onto the sidewalk and over to our building's front door. To be continued:

VAF #4:

Prey or Predator? I'm not sure what I am, but I watch a lot of Nature things on YouTube when I'm tiring in the evening. Being a day-dreamer, I thought about this last week when I was waiting for a ride to the Arts Fair. I was standing down on the roadside where the Jeepneys, buses and taxis flow by, and me being a foreigner, I was getting a lot of quiet honks, headlight blinks etc from the taxis. I was focusing on the "Modern Jeepneys": they're cheaper, larger than the regular Filipino Jeepneys, and you can even stand up in one of them when they're crowded. I eventually got on one of them, and went as far as the Ayala Mall area, where I hailed a taxi for my second leg to the Oakridge Business Park venue. Later, after eating at "Big Toms Charbroiled Burger" (I got a Hawaiian Burger with fries and a coke), I got a taxi for my return trip home. It being a Sunday, the traffic was less, and the taxi driver was fun to talk to - p150 I think it was. That's $2.54 in US. A little bit of a splurge, but after 5 hours or so of perusing Art, talking with Artists and Craftspersons, I was tired,...and happy. These are my people. Going back to my first sentence, after what seemed like 10 different taxis slowing down and saying "take me...", I thought about the nature shows I watch in the evenings :)

VAF #3: