Subic Bay

We were woke up by the damn dogs and roosters at 5am… I swear we’re gonna have some Aso Adobo (Dog Stew) if that dog don’t learn to shut up… and the roosters apparently don’t know that daybreak came and went 4 hours ago, because they just keep crowing… all. day. long. Having been fed and washed up a bit, we decided to trek into town again, using the jeepney, this time with Laurel in tow. She really got a kick out of it. Sitting on the benches and looking out the windows as the city sped by in a blur of colorful posters on the walls and different colored grates to the entrances of the houses and buildings. We made our way to the gates of Subic Bay again, crossing over the bridge of what my dad refers to as ‘shit river’ where apparently all of Olongapo’s septic drains into. And let me just tell you… the smell suits the name. My dad said when he was in the navy here, some of the men would throw coins into the river just to watch the little kids dive into the muck for the coins. I thought about what kind of jerks who could do that… but you know, that’s just how some people are. Anyways, we kept on our way, stopping here and there to look at things, different outside markets of locals selling their wares. Went into one store near what used to be the navy exchange, where things were dirt cheap. Got a new rolling luggage to replace the one that broke on the trip in. While waiting on the taxi to arrive, my dad ran into another American, previous navy, who led us further down to the waterfront so that we could see how much had changed. My dad was pretty upset by how run down it had got… time and neglect had made the sidewalks bad, as well as the fact that it was this big huge area where there were hardly any people walking around. A lot of space gone to waste. Hunger drove us to eating out again, at a place called Meat Plus… very appealing name… anyways, it had steak, and real American hamburgers and French fries as well. I ended up choosing salmon steak and rice…yummy. Cuz I NEVER eat salmon in the states, you know. Lmao. We decided to hike our way up to the Tricycle station and take that to the Jeepney station to get home. That was fun! Laurel was passed out by then, and so she and I climbed into the sidecar, and Boober sat on the seat behind the driver. Mom and Dad got on another tricycle and Grace sat behind the driver. The ride was fun…made me think of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, weaving in and out of traffic, crossing the street with no regard for the other cars headed our way! We stopped at a house on 20th street, which I learned was where mom and dad used to live. It was pretty run down, although I’m sure when mom and dad lived there, it looked a whole lot different. Our driver told me his sister had lived in the same house 25 years ago, so it was kinda neat hearing that. He said it looked a lot different than now, and that a lot of the city has changed in recent years… areas that weren’t dangerous are now pretty unsafe. We took a few pics, then hopped back into the cars and made our way to the jeepney station, then back to Auntie Ludings. Boober and the boys were sitting on the porch until late at night, drinking San Miguel and Red Horse (which, in my opinion, tasted a lot like Corona). I was worn out, and went to bed… Boober stayed up with the boys and mom and dad, no clue when he went to bed… I just remember that he was going to go to Bataan with the boys in the morning…so hopefully it wasn’t too too late!