US Day8&9

Day 8

Dr. M rented a Chevy Suburban for our Lake Tahoe trip. It was only less than 2 hours from their house so the drive was quite easy especially since my boy fell asleep throughout. We parked at Heavenly Snow Resort and bought tickets for the gondola ride which Tita D was apprehensive about since she didn't like heights. This could've been a nervous experience she had with the Genting Highland gondola when the missus and I were still in Malaysia. Of course being outnumbered, she had no choice but to ride the gondola up to the summit.

Heavenly's summit can well be described as, well, heavenly. There were a lot of people going about the resort: skiing and snowboarding mostly. My boy and I were able to catch 25 minutes before the tubing area closed. It was a tiring experience for me since I had to carry my boy all the up to the end of the incline while carrying a palanggana-shaped plastic that would serve as our snowcraft for the descent. But it was all FUN all the way down although my boy kept saying his favorite phrase: ayaw na, daddy na lang. But I think he liked it. The missus took a turn with my boy as well. We tried to put in my boy alone for the descent but the missus had to halt the videocam since she panicked when she saw my boy lying down instead of sitting up during the descent. Don't worry folks! No harm done. My boy enjoyed what may have been a dizzying ride to the bottom.

It was about 3pm when the resort closed so we had to board the gondola again going back to the base of the mountain.

We had a late lunch at Appleby's in which my boy liked the salad ("do you want vegetables?") and the ice cream ("ice....cream").

After Tahoe, we dropped off at the Holiday Inn at 6th Street to meet up with the missus' ex-officemate, Tita A which my boy fondly calls Tita Orange since her name sounded like it. They treated us to dinner at Hannah's Casino for a buffet dinner which was quite ok except that the ribs and NY steak could've been better. Well, at least my boy liked the ice cream with oreo and butterfinger crumbs.

After Tita Orange, I scooted alone to meet up with RB who's a highschool friend of mine working in Reno for the past 7 years as an ICU specialist in one of the hospitals here. Incidentally, he showed me a pic of him with the great Don-Don Ampalayo a.k.a. Yellow Liver Man of the Jaworski-led Ginebra basketball team. It seems that Don-Don has been working in Sacramento doing the same thing as RB has. I hope he's doing good here.

RB treated me to two bots at the Grand Sierra Resort bar, occassionally looking at prostitution at work with Russians, fifty (even sixty) year old blondes looking out for possible prey. Yup, prostitution is allowed in Nevada so it was quite I sight I might say.

After drinking he toured me to see the other side of Reno which is not found in your normal tourist brochures. From the looks of it, I guess sex really sells in Reno. We stopped at an adult XXX store to see what could be found. It was quite interesting to see the assortment of sex toys and other paraphernalia being sold there. The store even had cubicles wherein for a dollar, you can watch a strip show although it's only on TV (bummer). If it were live, then I would've spent 10 dollars. Hehe.

RB then took me to a local 7-11 for a drink of those bottled Starbucks frappuccinos to cap the nighht, err, morning since it was already 2am. The drink was not that cold but my body was shaking since we were drinking out in the cold night under 32 degree farenheit (that's ZERO degrees celsius) weather. RB noticed it so we went back to his RAV4 to turn up the heater and dropped me back home.

Day 9

We went to the Little Flower Church for our Sunday Mass at 12noon although my boy had other matters ("play with the baby!") since I had to watch him go out of the church to play with the locals. It's quite interesting to note that my boy is very at ease here in the US since we came. He's really enjoying it. It could be because of the cold weather or the long running-paths in his Tita T's house. Hmmm.

After Mass we had lunch at a Chinese buffet restaurant. The receptionist there seemed to sound like that Chinese-voice in the "Dude, Where's My Car?" film: "AND THEN???"

Notable in their buffet was the buttered-mussles, "Pork Chinese FRI rice," "French FRIED", and mongolian bbq noodles. No need to mention it but my boy liked the ice cream as well.

The flight back to LA from Reno was full of problems. It started with my boy becoming uneasy throughout the flight since his ears seemed to hate the ascent/descent of the plane. He was crying badly throughout that the missus and I just felt sorry for the other passengers who had to hear his constant cries of "go out na" or "go home na."

Second was that the check-in baggage arrived late on the carousel that we missed what could've been a stress-free bus ride to Van Nuys station. Sadly, there seemed to have been a small commotion with the driver and one of the passengers. We didn't know exactly what it was but it caused us about 40mins delay to leave the airport with LAPD and airport police present. Good thing my boy was not as uneasy as when he was on the plane.

We arrived home by close to midnight but not without driving-thru Jack-In-The-Box for a late dinner of Chicken Fajitas for the missus and Sirloin beef sandwich for me. Yum!