Holiday

One thing that I was not able to tell you in my introduction blog, is that I am a Filipino (or in that case a Filipina). Yes, I am born and raised in the Philippines. But, I should say 40% of who I am is whitewashed American style. I briefly lived in California in 2016 (I think I was there for half a year).

Celebrating 4th of July with my cousin and niece in Vegas :)

Going back to the topic, yesterday was a National Holiday in the Philippines. We are celebrating Ninoy Aquino Day. Who is Ninoy Aquino? Why are dedicating a national holiday for him? Well, Ninoy Aquino is one of former dictator-president Marcos' arch rival. The reason why 21 August is declared a national holiday is because after Ninoy Aquino's extradition to the United States for 6 months, then-President Marcos ordered his return to the Philippine soil. Upon his arrival in the Manila International Airport, he was shot dead, point-blank by an unknown gunman/sniper on 21 August. Of course, even after the collapse of the Marcos regimen the family or ex-president Marcos himself never took responsibility of the murder of Ninoy Aquino. Too much for history, that is a 1-minute briefer on why the Philippine International Airport is named Ninoy Aquino International Aiport (NAIA) and why we celebrate 21 August as a holiday.

Holidays, where ever they are celebrated in the world, is always been seen as a day of relaxation and family bonding (Unless, you choose to work on holidays which sucks).

Relaxation

I started my day pretty productive, I guess. At 7:30 am I was already in the market buying fresh produce. Yes, that early and yes, seasonal fruits. In South East Asia, aside from Mangosteen, there is another popular fruit called Rambutan. It is a white fleshy fruit with a pit in the middle. It's is covered with a red hairy easy-to-peel shell. If harvested on the right time, these fruit can be really sweet and eating it gives you a sensation of eating a fruit jell-o. I super love it. Yesterday, I bought 4 kilos of it together with another kilo Lanzones.

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This is rambutan

It was practically a really good way to start my day. I mean, I only have free time to go to the market every weekends or holidays.

The succeeding 3-hours of the day was spent on watching my favorite Netflix series - Lucifer. I need to write another blog on how watching this TV show is helping me move-on. Not to under estimate the fact that it helped me understand my ex literally and figuratively. I mean, my ex almost have the same accent as Tom Ellis. Though, I would never admit to my mother that I love watching the show because Lucifer's accent is like Luke's (and I still miss him).

Anyway, three hours of non-stop watching can get a little boring and recursive. As such, I, finally, raised from the couch to regroup myself and come up more muscle engaging activities. And it is always a good thing to have a sister. I have a 22-year old sister who is currently in her last year in college. She's taking up her final units to complete her degree, probably by first semester of next year. And right now, she's taking Badminton 2 for her last PE class. Yayyy...

We are playing badminton! I was really excited over this one because 12 years ago I was really serious on playing this sport every afternoon...in front of our house in the province. Playing it again with my sister and cousin in a public park near home relieves all the good memories. Such fun times never die.

Family Bonding

Of course, we waited for the sun to set before we started playing. Also, in the afternoon, we were visited by our aunt from Saudi Arabia who brought us goodies. We literally breezed to the park after auntie dear left the house. And yes, finally, after 12 years, we kickin' some real badminton game! I have no pictures to post but they are on my instagram account @rhodsmanga.

I think, we actually played from 5-6:30 pm. It was such a really sweaty game. ![COLOR_POP.jpg]

Final Event

I guess, all these activities that I am doing is a part of greater journey to enjoy life and to move-on, of course. And there is no other way to complete a moving on process than...getting a haircut

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Signing Off--