Ondoy and Pepeng lashed out all its might bringing our country, Philippines, down to her knees.
Be it back home or in far away New Zealand, all were affected one way or the other. We did our own way of extending our helping hand. I am sure until now we are still gathering relief goods ( in kind, in money, or in prayers) to send back home. Funny, but disasters bring the best and the worst in all of us.
To veer away from Ondoy - we flew back to Seattle - Jim, AJ and I. AJ wanted to see the beauty of Seattle. He had a one week break after a gruelling exam week.
As always, we took the early evening flight out from St. Louis & got to Oak Harbor close to midnight. Auntie Consuelo was waiting for us. She was glued to the TFC channel for Pinoy weather updates.
We all exchanged hometown balitas while chowing down pancit prepared by Auntie. Naibos dayti pancit ngem saan nga naibos itti pagsasaritaan. The weekend was planned. The next day Saturday, will be Vancouver trip day.
Early risers are we (kasanno met ket west coast time met itti clock mi while we were in the northwest). Nakadigos ni Uncle Hector - ready to go kuna na. We toured AJ around Oak Harbor & this is what he saw.

It was the same scene that James loved then when he first saw it. Both boys loved the ocean indeed.
We planned on having lunch at Chinatown in Vancouver. We ate in an ordinary Chinese restaurant that probably served the best Chinese food. Kent's - that's what it was called. Pumila itti mayat nga mangan. Kayat ni Uncle Hector ket i-awid mi dagiti nabati nga sida mi; lalo na the meat with ampalaya.


After lunch off we went to market in search of the sought after fruit - guess what.


That was the prize catch for the afternoon - lanzones and atis. We knew that we will never make it back to the US with these forbidden fruits. Auntie Consuelo will not let go of the lanzones- so will AJ & Jim.
The solution?



We all sat it out in a mini-park just before the US border. The temperature was kind of cool to cold but the lure of the lanzones was just too hard to say no to. Nasam-it met nga talaga (ken apo - naka-ngin-ngina). It just brought our taste buds a little bit closer to home.
Next entry - the city of Seattle.