More Family Reunions (and a lot more FOOD)

Peering out from a tent at the wake park

This week involved a lot of rain.  Also a lot of food. (Its a long post, but there are a lot of pictures!)

Saturday I went wake boarding again, this time only with Marc, though one of his friends did join us at the park.  Again, generally, I was a failure, but I did much better on this occasion.  I completed one full run without falling off.  Our day was interrupted by a torrential downpour though, so we left off early after just 5 runs.

On the way into the house.

Sunday, after church, we went to see more family.  This time we had lunch at the house of my Lolo Bart, who is one of my Grandfather's brothers.  He also happens to own a spice/condiment manufacturing business (Mama Sitas) here in the Philippines which ships worldwide.  He also is an avid hunter and his house is like a jungle and is decorated with the heads of various large game (antelope, zebra, giraffe), skins, and butterflies.  His house contains a rock climbing wall.  He could be a candidate for one of the world's most interesting men.  Several other relatives, including some of his adult children, were also in attendance.  

A selection of the fruits

As is the case with any Filipino family reunion, as I mentioned before, there was a lot of food.  There was noodles, lechon, a delicious beef stew, soup, and lumpia.  And that was just the main course.  Afterwards we had ice cream.  

Fried Banana

Coconut and Egg Bread

But then, as we were sitting, and presumably digesting, over some very interesting conversation other various sorts of food were brought out.  First there were peanuts, which are grown here in the Philippines and are very common.  In fact my favorite brand of peanut butter is Filipino.





Then there was every fruit imaginable.  We had watermelon, oranges, bananas, mangoes, lychee, and a small brown fruit which is similar to lychee.  I'm not sure of the name of the last one but it is slightly smaller, rounder, and blander than lychee.  I also tried a fish paste of sorts which is put on mangoes. 

It was good, but seeing how irregularly I get to eat such good mangoes I'd rather not adulterate them. Then there was cassava and sticky rice that was cooked in banana leaves.  I didn't try the rice ones, but the cassava wasn't my favorite. Next a light bread with eggs cooked into it and shredded coconut to put on top was brought out.  Finally there were the ever-pleasing fried bananas.  

Sticky Cassava

All of this food was peppered with comments about Filipino genes.  I don't understand how everyone here manages to stay so skinny!

Classes this week were fairly run of the mill.  

School was called off after 1 on Tuesday because of flooding.  This had little impact on me, however, because I was done with classes at 1.  Though Tuesday evening I spent a fair amount of time refreshing the DLSU website to see if school would be canceled on Wednesday also.  It wasn't.  The experience was very similar to waiting for a snow day.  

I received the results of last weeks Industrial Organization exam.  I did fair to middling, probably top third of the class, though with minimal effort - and I was the first one done.  This class doesn't count for anything in the states though, and I'm not certain who will ever see my transcript from the Philippines.  Grad Schools maybe? It makes it awfully hard to study though.

After school one day I tried one of the more curious offerings at McDonalds: Ube Coated ice cream.  While Filipino McDonalds has nothing on Japanese McDonalds in terms of strange food it does have its local flavors.  Most things come with rice instead of fries, you can order fried chicken, not just strips/McNuggets, there are brightly colored ice cream floats, there are only Oreo McFluries, everything is smaller, and there is Ube (same as Tarro) Dip for ice cream cones in conjunction with the chocolate and strawberry shells.  In conjunction with my love of all things purple I quite enjoyed it.

In other news I purchased a block of imported cheddar from New Zealand and it was delicious.  My cousins didn't seem to like it, preferring the Kraft/Velveeta variety.  So sad.  I also purchased bug lotion from here in the Philippines and it seems to be far more effective than the kind I brought with me.  Go figure.

Finally, Thursday was JanVit's birthday, so we had cake last night.