Arrived, safe and sound! Famil­iar land­scapes,… famil­iar smells,… famil­iar food!!! Yum! It’s always cus­tom­ary for the trav­ellers to be greeted with a nice home cooked meal and surely that’s what my Dad and I came to when we arrived at my aunt’s house after a two-hour com­mute from the air­port. The meal was so good because it con­sisted of fresh ingre­di­ents such as: the meat, the veg­gies and the rice! My grandfather’s rice mill is still run­ning, along­side the pro­duc­tion of water-feed for local fish farms. It was great that my uncle took the time to show us around the mill and he gave us infor­ma­tion about the pro­duc­tion. As well, my father pointed out areas where he used to play when he was younger. Sorry, did I men­tion that the house and rice mill are about 70 years old?! Way to keep it running!

For lunch we gath­ered for the pre­lim­i­nary reunion to meet my father’s cousins (on my grandmother’s side) at a fam­ily fish farm. And yes, the fish were del­ish!! One of the attrac­tions was a youth march­ing band con­sist­ing of at least 50 kids, all play­ing either xylo­phones or drums or being part of the dance team. Quite entertaining!

It was a beau­ti­ful day but my mind was think­ing about the fol­low­ing day’s main event. Please enjoy these pics of Day 2.

My aunt’s dog “Bing Bing“

…before the rice grains run through the machine…

…after the rice gets stripped from its nat­ural skin…






    

…beau­ti­ful Mount Arayat…

…in North Amer­ica, this is con­sid­ered dan­ger­ous…

    




    

…this is called a “bahay kubo”…

    

…noth­ing like fresh food on the side road. This is called “tupig”…