IT'S SATURDAY I MUST BE IN....LISMORE

(oooh oooh, I got an even better title for the consular outreach mission we just finished...)

LISMORE FUN IN THE PHILIPPINES

(Gold)

Our eight-hour road trip and whole-day mission to Lismore was indeed enjoyable, yet actually uneventful - in a good way. While the whole of New South Wales was in the midst of a drought, the cloudless weather at the time made our journey safe and easy, because although this was beautiful river region...

...during last year's outreach mission heavy rains breached the banks and COMPLETELY FLOODED THE TOWN

holy crap, that's the hotel we're staying in

Lismore appears to have bounced back since then, the Fil-com remain in good spirits, and the consular mission went plain sailing...

we didn't even need to break out the mahiwagang keychain for kids

On the way home, we stopped by a town called Ballina because we heard it had an even bigger river... 

"So a boy lawyer and a girl lawyer were walking along the banks of a river. The boy lawyer takes the girl lawyer's hands, looks deep into her eyes, and whispers...'alluvion'" 

...and we also heard that Ballina had OHMYGOD THE STORIES ARE TRUE THERE'S A GIANT PRAWN AT THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

we'll hipon coming back

SHANGRILAP!

Huuwwaat?? The Consulate, the Trade Office and the Tourism Office are helping stage a 10-day Philippine Food Festival in Sydney, and the host hotel flew in chefs from their famous Manila branches for the event, and all they need from moi is to emcee the ribbon-cutting?! Well OF COURSE I'm there and I'll do it and I'll take the family and bring pang-take home tupperware and forget all about health and diet no regrets

Correction: we do regret wearing slim-fit clothes to a Pinoy buffet. We shot ourselves in the foot here

And oh what a spread it was! The hotel manager told us that the weekend dates were immediately fully booked and that the remaining weekday slots were going fast online. Our own eye test confirmed that the festival was a roaring success and enjoyed by throngs of Pinoys and non-Pinoys alike. There probably weren't enough gym memberships in the city to work off all the exponentially expanded waistlines of the lucky happy Sydneysiders.  

puwedeng pabalot?

So, lifehack folks: instead of going to gym after a pinoy handa, just get your kid to walk in front of your burst belts until, oh I don't know, Christmas noche buena

solb!