Reunions (3): Island boy in the city

As I am still reeling from our 1000+ km journey by land to and from Bicol for the Gawad Kalinga Bayani Challenge, let me take care of some bloghousekeeping duties and put up this loooooong overdue post. Too bad I accidentally erased from my cam the photo that was supposed to come with this entry...

It was one of the best nights out with friends in recent memory.

Johann- whom I fondly call Juan - was in town last Holy Week. Time out from his Doctors to the Barrios stint in Concepcion, Iloilo. As he is wont to do, he prepared dinner for a small bunch of friends: his signature Fil-Mex fare, now made even more sumptuous with the very welcome additions from the kitchen of our friend Tina, his girlfriend. Juan prepared his own version of chili con carne which, according the discriminating palates of those who came to the dinner party (Estela, Vida, Jewehl, Julie, Lingling, and our new friend Randi), is a waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better version of what Wendy’s serve. Tina did not help either our cause to lose weight: her contributions to dinner were a superb cheesy salmon dip (she gave me the recipe, but the dip was so yummy I forgot the recipe altogether!) and a curious dish she calls Mexican lasagna! Must’ve died and gone to gourmet heaven… I was too busy eating to take photos so I just leave to all our collective imagination to figure out how delightful that meal was…

And to cap the night off, rather the night’s main event, was a riotous videoke session which began with a blood-curling rendition of We Built This City with wanton disregard if we make Johann’s building crumble due the shear intensity of our group singing. Four odd hours and several cups of homemade/mixed drinks later (Lipton Green Tea for me though!), I called it quits and headed home.

To my own island with towering peaks- not real mountains but an almost insurmountable pile of papers to check and grade…