Hataw Pilipinas

This is a long overdue post. Been too lazy to blog these past few days so...

We weren't really planning to run that Sunday (Aug. 9) since we were not registered on any race. Good thing, Cel tried to contact the organizer of the Hataw Pilipinas run and asked if they accept onsite registration. The contact person replied immediately so we went off the following morning.

There were not too many participants and I noticed that most of them registered onsite since they have a disorganized registration then. There were 3k, 5k and 10k categories. The 10k runners were the first off but due to the poor megaphone that the speaker used, not all 10k runners started at the same time.

The race route was very redundant. It was all about running around the UP oval until you reached your target distance. And when I reached the finish line, there was no one keeping track of the official timing of the finishers. And I don't think they even care to check if you have finished the route or not. Good thing, there were a lot of freebies after the race but still the distribution of the singlets and other stuff were so disorganized.

Anyway, the best part of it was our post-run breakfast courtesy of Cel (super thanks!). It was a post-celebration of her birthday. Happy happy birthday Cel!

FYI: We are just doing the Villar sign and does not mean that we are Villar's fans ;)

Zoo day

We went to Manila Zoo last Saturday with my friend Nec and her family. We were supposed to meet at 2:30 in the afternoon but for some reasons we were late by an hour.

Manila Zoo opened in 1959 and is the oldest zoo in the Philippines. And because of that the place really looks old. For me, it was not well maintained and very outdated. The animals seem bored and lonely. Mali, the only elephant in the zoo is a good example. He is housed alone in a concrete pen. The monkeys are all in really small cages which cannot compare to their natural habitat. I hope they get added support and assistance from the government so they can improve the lives of all the animals there.

In spite of all those things I mentioned above, the kids Lily and Jared enjoyed their visit to the zoo. Jared was amazed to see the animals live which he only sees in books and in video. He kept on asking to go back to the tiger and elephant when we were already done visiting them. Oh and he asked us to find the place of the polar bear in the zoo.. haha!

We were not able to go to the Kinder Zoo or the petting zoo wherein you can interact with the all the tamed animals. Maybe next time..

Entrance fee is 40 pesos for adults and 20 pesos for children while Kinderzoo has a separate entrance fee of 40 pesos per head.

27 months

Updates

...Knows the colors yellow, green, white, blue, red, violet, pink & black

...Can count to 20 in English

...Can sing Row, row, row your boat, Little sunny water. Likes to sing in the "videoke" too.

...Likes doodling and coloring. He can now draw a circle :)

...Still not big on brushing his teeth. I'm always having a hard time convincing him to open his mouth so I can brush his teeth.

...Loves watching Yo Gabba Gabba, Dora the Explorer & Go Diego Go! And because of that, he says "Ariba", "Abajo" and can now count to five in Spanish. haha!

...Can take off his own clothes (bottoms only) & shoes too.

...Naptimes are a tad more difficult nowadays. So I resorted to putting him in the stroller or on a rocking chair just to get him to sleep (sigh)

...Still won't chew rice meals.. arggh! the only 2-yr-old that can't chew rice. His faves now are taho, stik-o, mallows, chips, fried lumpia wrapper.. anything crispy. I made him cheese sticks yesterday as I thought he'd like it because it's crunchy and he did, but he only ate the wrapper and disregarded the cheese inside. Talk about healthy eating!

Alright, that's all that I can recall right now ;) Thanks for reading! :)

Takbo sa Ateneo

We joined the "Kaya natin! Takbo para sa pagbabago" held at Ateneo last Sunday. We chose this race over the one in Roxas blvd because it was more accessible from our place, rate is super affordable (80 pesos only), and I also want to experience running inside the Ateneo campus.


We have not registered yet so we decided to just register on site. Being so unprepared, we didn't even know where the assembly area is so we spent a longer time roaming around the campus. I think we spent 30 minutes looking for the venue.. sigh.. Later did we know that it was at the gym, thanks to the last guard we've asked.

There was already a long queue when we reached the gym. Instead of the usual race bibs, we got a yellow ribbon with the race number written on it as a tribute to President Cory Aquino. There were a lot of speakers before the race was started, mostly politicians. Gov. Ed Panlilio of Pampanga was also there to lead the prayer. After it, all the 3k and 5k runners were off.

The route was very scenic because of all the trees around. There were also some hilly parts just like in UP. There were a lot of water stations and I was tempted to drink from all of it which made me feel really heavy and made it hard for me to run. I really didn't like my pace on this run. I think I walked half of the time. Hubby and Cel were complaining that they waited so long for me haha! When I reached the finish line, nobody got my number. And so there were really no results and the race numbers were just for show. It was a nice experience though I was a bit disappointed with the results thing.

Anyway, we went to UP for our post-run breakfast. This time it was not Mcdo but we all wished that we had eaten at Mcdo. Went to the Museum Cafe at Roxas Avenue in UP. We found out about that place because we got their flyer during our last run in UP.