Ilonggo Express 1

I am back! Work took me to Iloilo City, last Sunday noon and brought me back home, Thursday after lunch.

I was looking forward to seeing some friends there, who used to be just online buddies, until I met them F2F for the first time in September 2002. Again, I have my job to thank for that.

But the week turned out tighter than I expected that I ended up not seeing anyone. On my last night in the city, I had to sleep well past after midnight just to help encode workshop outputs worth a two-days' work.

Dang.

As a consolation, I burned the phone lines with my friend Mundy, a native Ilonggo, not being able to bolt out of my hotel. Another great consolation was the misadventure I shared with two officemate-friends wherein we got lost on our way to SM Iloilo.

The jeepney ride going to SM was supposed to have been a brief one... had we boarded the right jeepney to take us there.

Instead, we ended up in a place called Villa, ironically a haunting ground of my ex-online boyfriend there. Uhuh.

Kat thought it was so astig when we finally reached SM Iloilo an hour or so later, via tricycle, and had our fill of authentic batchoy.

I could picture Donnie, another native Ilonggo friend, scratching his head while texting me, puzzled over how the hell we ended up in a tricyle bound for the mall. Man, that was wacky!

I was reluctant to leave, so soon. I miss the good, cheap, relatively healthy food, already.