The Road to 40 Day 75/365: Get moving Wednesday

The rains haven’t stopped, but at least the skies are clearer than the last few days.

Vino has been asking to swim, but I don’t believe the management will allow swimming at this weather. I do remember making jokes that you can’t swim because you might get wet, but that has been the case when there’s a lifeguard present around a pool.

I woke up at around 6am but decided to sleep it off again. Next thing I know, it’s 8:44am and Che was going off to work. I wasn’t able to whip up breakfast for her, but she bought bread the night before so at least she had something to eat.

We had some leftover tinola and rice, so I decided I was going to finish it for breakfast. For Vino, I thought it was time to introduce him to Vienna Sausage. It was brunch, basically, because he got up at around 11am and finished eating at around 11:45am.

It was already around 3pm when we decided to go down for lunch. I was dead set on eating at the food court across the street so that we don’t spend at least 1000 pesos between just the two of us. After going one round, Vino chose to eat a burger, so we went to Zark’s.

There, we learned they sold hotdogs, so that’s what he got. I got the ultimate burger.

I’m not sure if I ate Zark’s before, but knowing what I know now, I feel like it’s just a bigger version of Burger Machine. The patties taste like processed meat more than beef patties. I get that it will be filling, but I’d get the same pleasure and fulfillment if I got a buy one-take one offer from Burger Machine at half the price.

With just the two of us, it was a bit tricky to leave the food court table, so I was a bit frustrated when Vino asked to go to the toilet right in the middle of us eating food. Thankfully, the toilet was within my view, so I told him to go by himself while I watched from the table.

Later, he asked for water, which I thought would be a good chance to let him apply his math lessons. I gave him 40 pesos in coins and asked him to buy it himself. He was a bit anxious, but I assured him he could do it. He kept looking back as he approached Turk’s.

The shop didn’t look busy and I didn’t see anyone order, but for some reason, the lady was making a shawarma wrap and couldn’t stop to accomodate Vino’s order. He kept looking at me and shrugged his shoulders because his order wasn’t ready yet and the lady didn’t seem like she was getting it.

I signaled for him to just be patient. Lady finished making the wrap, opened the fridge under her and got him a water bottle. Vino had a satisfying smile at the end for accomplishing his task.

He wanted to go home already, but I said we should walk more just to stay active at least. We got to Market! Market!, which was a bit of a walk. There wasn’t a lot of rain, so at least we got there safely.

We were still on a quest to find Pugsy, the toy he slammed to the ground but broke after a couple of days of slamming. After that experience, you’d think we learned our lesson and not buy it again, but here we are looking for it.

The mall offered nostalgia for quick date nights before. We never watched a movie there, but we did go to the department store, the thrift stores, the cellphone repair kiosks, Mercury Drug, Sbarro, KFC, Shakey’s, and the outdoor food court. For such a big mall, it wasn’t a place we liked to stay in for a long time.

We did the same thing today, just checking out the party shop and a toy place. We decided to go home right after that. We passed by Gentle Monster and he saw that the eye was blinking again.

Last time Che’s sisters were here, he showed them the eye but it wasn’t blinking, which kinda disappointed him. So he asked to take a video now to show them that it actually blinked.

When we got back to the hotel, I indugled Vino into playing 99 Nights in the Forest on Roblox. He kept talking to me about it while we walked, so there was no way he’d let me brush him off again.

Knowing I wouldn’t be able to cook, I ordered R&J’s Bulalo from Grab. It was another favorite of ours back when we were still in the PH.

Located near Mandaluyong Circle, it’s a 24-hour shop that serves bulalo – a beef-based soup dish. My family has eaten here, my cousins and I went here after drinking, Che and I went here with friends after school and after work. The weather was just perfect for it.

It arrived early, but I knew it was no issue since I could re-heat it in a pot later when Che came home.

Che found us in the living room playing the Roblox game and had to cook rice herself. Thankfully, unlike our own rice cooker, this one did not take 45 minutes to get rice ready.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t too much to Che’s liking. It felt like it had too much MSG for flavor and it was not as enjoyable as she thought it would be.

The MSG part got her later, as she didn’t have the energy to stay up and crashed even with her hair wet. She was even able to sleep through me and Vino playing Roblox again.

Another night ended with us hoping that the rains would stop already.

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