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!

I CONTINUE TO GET SCHOOLED

Happy to have made a quick trip back to Manila to attend the Department's continuing education program for its diplo-lawyers -- my first (and so far only) return to the mother ship since my Sydney posting. So many updates! So many things discovered! To wit:

* do a trip advisor search for hotels to stay at near the home office, and you won't be disappointed in the range of results    

 this is what happens when you use "rating", "distance" and "masarap raw ang pansit" as your search filters   

*  the home office lobby now has sleek flat-screen monitors and cool hotel lighting

 trip advisor, take note

* there're more batchmates still at the home office than I thought

 as batchmate ALIAS DEMON ANUS (center) said, "every now and then, we need more than one car to go for a batch dinner" 

* hey, speaking of dinner, the construction at the corner lot next to the home office turned out to be...a premium steak restaurant! 

 for a while there we thought it would be another Ms. Universal, or something that would show up in trip advisor filters

* batchmate ABHORRENT ROTTEN ODD ASS (center) has left the foreign service but remains most helpful to it.

 our little boy is now all grown up and lecturing senior diplomats on the law of the sea

*  it's the return of my doppelganger "Cat" and, how shall we put this...he used to be my body-double; now he's double my body 

 and yet everyone at the home office still confused the two of us!  

* IBP now has merch

 but no swag

* my first-half of seminar seatmate - who happened to also be my seatmate during the last FSO oral exams (and went on to be batch topnotcher) - is so high midi-chlorian talented I found her casually doodling portraits during lectures 

 impressive...most impresive

* as for my second-half of seminar seatmate...sigh

more like sithmate, amirite?