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18 September 2012

Of Vans and Good Food - Our Samar Experience Day 5

SEPTEMBER 9, 2012, SUNDAY

Borongan City, Eastern Samar

Mass day. We attended the 9:30 a.m. mass at the Borongan Cathedral.



Afterwards, it was time for some late and quickie breakfast at Tatay's house. I loved the crab meat. :)

Then it was time to head to Ate Che's house again. Tatay's family usually holds get-togethers after the piyesta. Most of the time, the venue is in their house because it's big enough to accommodate everyone. But perhaps they wanted a change of scenery this year so they decided to move it to Ate Che's house.

The get-together serves as a leftover party because all the leftovers from the fiesta are served. Hehe. The younger cousins had fun belting out their favorite songs in the videoke. Tatay made things more exciting by offering prizes: Php20 for those who score 75-80; Php40 for those who get 81-85; and Php60 for those who scored 86 and above. He had a lot of new bills which he was supposed to use as gala (the money people throw away while dancing the local dance, kuratsa). The prize challenged the kids.


The older uncles and aunties had their usual drinking session while listening to the younger ones sing.

At around 3 p.m., it was time for us to go because Rhuel had an appointment with a long lost relative. It turns out that Rhuel's maternal grandma (the Cunas) had a half-brother in Borongan, Mr. Antonio Cuna, Sr. He had a son, Antonio Cuna, Jr., who was a contemporary of one of my uncles. Unfortunately, Mr. Cuna, Jr. has already passed away. But Rhuel was able to meet one of Mr. Cuna Jr.'s sons, Ariel, who in effect was Rhuel's cousin. Confusing? Hehe.

Anyway, one of my aunties, Auntie Lyn, happened to work under Ariel and she arranged the meeting between the cousins. We went to the ancestral home of the Cunas in Borongan and Rhuel mentioned that it reminded him of Mama's ancestral home as well. He took some pictures of the house and the old pictures there. And of course, some photo ops with his cousin. He also met some of his nephews.

Rhuel did some research to further expand the Honorio Cuna (his great grandpa, I think) clan family tree because it stopped with Mr. Cuna, Jr. :)



After the reunion, we proceeded to the high school seminary, Seminario de Jesus Nazareno, where Toto spent his high school years. He gamely posed, kneeling down as if he was being punished for certain violations, similar to what he was exposed to when he was still studying there.



We also saw my inaanak, Cyrus, who is now a sophomore in the seminary.


The vice principal was Toto's batchmate who's now a priest. He invited us for merienda (lechon ang sinerve, sosyal) but we had to beg off because we were too full.

Afterwards, we dropped by Rawis or the port, where we used to hangout as teenagers. My cousin, Glo-Ann, would drive their motorcycle or their jeep so we can check out the "sights," hehe.


Then we had to go back to Ate Che's to pick up Nanay. She was going back to Sulat because she was joining the funeral of a friend who used to prepare the best mazapan de pili.

Nanay dropped us off Auntie Nimfa's (Tatay's cousin who's a balikbayan from the States) house. However, they were not home yet so we decided to check out the boutique below their house. The store's name is Double Happiness. They sold some good stuff and Rhuel wanted to get a pair of walking shorts. But they were unsure of the price so he got turned off.

We waited for Auntie Nimfa at Tatay's house. We watched some TV to pass the time. When we finally got word that Auntie Nimfa was home, we all trooped to her house.

Auntie Nimfa asked us to choose kikay stuff like lipsticks, lip balms, powders, etc. I only got concealers because that's probably the closest thing to make up that I use. There were powders but according to our make-up expert, Trish, they were for the eyes and cheeks kasi colored. I also got a lotion and rosary from Auntie Irma, Auntie Nimfa's sister. Rhuel got a nice polo shirt.

A few days before the fiesta, Auntie Nimfa and other balikbayans staged an ukay-ukay. Technically, they were not really selling ukay stuff because most of the items were new. Unfortunately, we were not able to make it in time for the ukay because we were still in Sulat at that time. I heard from Auntie Amy that there were still a lot of items left. After some pilitan and tulakan, Auntie Lyn finally had the guts to ask Auntie Nimfa if we can look at the ukay stuff, yey!

First box was the party dresses. I'm no party dress person so I was not really that excited. But Auntie Nimfa gave me a dress that fit perfectly and looked elegant. Yey. :) I also got a 3/4 blouse that I can use for the office.

Next was the box of shoes. I saw a pair of sneakers that I liked but one of the younger cousins was interested so I had to let it go. Tatay found a pair for Rhuel and it looked really nice. Black siya na slightly high cut. Material's mixed leather and suede yata. It fit Rhuel although he was apprehensive if it looked good on him because the design's kinda modern. After assuring him that it looked good on him, he finally got it. :)

Third box was the pants. Riot na talaga at this point. You just have to be patient while going through the heaps of pants and finding the correct size for you. And because I'm the girl, I had to look for pants for my uncles, hihi. They got some jogging pants and shorts. Rhuel got a pair of khakis. And maybe because I was a good girl, I got rewarded with 3 slacks. 2 were black while 1 was gray. Hooray!

The final box was the bags. I got one for my laptop. Auntie Nimfa raffled off two nice looking bags. I should have won but I gave it to a younger cousin instead. Matanda na nga ata ako, di na ko fas-yon, hehe.

We were all so happy and proud of our loot. :)

But we have not eaten dinner yet. We decided to drop off our stuff at Virech and head to the lugawan (which Uncle Jesse calls the food park and Asam and Auntie Madge say is popular for bulalo). My cousins and I used to frequent the place in the past. :)

We all had one order of lugaw each. I love their lugaw, especially if you add in patis and paminta. Yum. Then we ordered barbecues and jumbo hotdogs. Solve!

When we got back to Virech, we had a big problem. Ang dami naming damit. We only had 2 backpacks with us and it was just impossible to fit in everything to 2 bags. We decided to borrow a bag from Auntie Madge the following day.

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