Empty malls during ECQ

With the transition of many areas to General Community Quarantine (GCQ), many commercial establishments have started to reopen. Of course, among these are shopping malls that have been closed for the last 2 or so months due to the strict lockdowns. I took a few photos inside a nearby mall that we regularly go to for groceries, dining, hardware, the movie theater and other stuff when we were still under the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ). I was the designated quarantine pass holder so I got to go out for market and groceries every week.

This used to the a very busy area leading to the supermarket and the appliance shop. The area also usually was at the events venue and often set-up here are the weekend stalls selling local items including our favorite cashew butter and silvanas.

A look back at what was usually a crowded area at the center of the mall as I moved up the working escalator

The second level was also practically deserted with only a few customers going to the drugstore and the occasional janitor or security personnel going around

Across from where I was walking was another crowded area as this is the food court with the cinemas just beside it.

View of the ground floor as I descended on the non-functioning escalator on the other side of the second level.

With our area on GCQ now, the mall has reopened and many of the businesses are back but are implementing measures to reduce the likelihood of virus transmission. Restaurants, for example are only open for pick-up and delivery orders. Shops each have alcohol or some disinfectant available to customers at their doors, and limit the number of customers inside. The mall has limited the entry/exit points to the building. 

I got wind of the crowds when ECQ was lifted last May 16 and that led to a re-imposition of a barangay coding policy Antipolo had been implementing during ECQ. So the first time I was back inside the mall, there was noticeably fewer people than what I saw on photos shared in social media. I think this is better than allow people to lower their guards. Better safe than sorry, as they say.

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Catching up with exercise during the lockdown

The Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) sort of forced us to limit our outdoor activities including and especially our morning walks. Fortunately for us, we have some space at our home for outdoor time. Also, we have a couple or exercise machines at home. One of these is an exercise bike we got a couple of years ago to enable us to work out during the wet season when the weather does not allow for comfy walks or jogs.

The machine records the workout time, calories burned and estimated distance covered per workout

Our Proteus machine

We like this machine as it can be adjusted to increase or decrease tension depending on how intense a work out you want to have. We typically record our workouts so we know if we are progressing and if we are able to sustain the levels we wanted to.

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Mango Delights - Part 3

Just before the first typhoon of the year hit us last Friday, we had the chance to pick some mangoes. We thought that the winds and rains would probably knock many of the fruits from the tree and when they hit the ground, many of them would be cracked and won't be viable by the time we got them. A neighbor generously made a picker for us from a long bamboo pole and a basket supported by steel wire at one end. The bamboo was heavy but that was also because of the length that allowed us to get to fruits that were previously out of our reach with our old picker.

Mangoes picked just before the typhoon's winds and rains affected our harvest

Allocated these for my parents in Cainta

A tray-basket full of ripening mangoes

A bowl of mostly green mangoes - goes well with bagoong or perhaps just some salt

View of more mangoes hanging from our tree taken from our balcony

Even more mangoes but not yet for the picking

I've already sent about 6kg+ of mangoes to my parents' home in Cainta. Tatay kept inquiring about the mangoes during ECQ and I didn't want to risk sending them fruits when we were still on lockdown. With the GCQ now, authorities have relaxed restrictions and so I sent the mangoes via Grab Express.

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Mango Delights - Part 2

With the mangoes we have, we can make mango float. This one's easy to make or prepare. You just need condensed milk, cream, and graham crackers for the layers. Here are a few photos of a our version of the popular dessert.

Mango float after being in the freezer overnight. It is not necessary to put it in the freezer but doing so integrates the ingredients and probably makes it last longer.

See the layers of mango and graham crackers? It actually looks like the popular dessert Sansrival.

That's me finishing a serving of  mango float

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Mango delights - Part 1

We have lots of mangoes thanks to our old tree at our home. It flowered just after the rains of the first quarter of the year and so it was spared the destruction rains typically bring to the mango at that stage. I think this is probably the best year our tree has had since we moved to our home in Antipolo.

Low hanging fruits - these were just above our outdoor dining table

Some mangoes we picked last week

Some mangoes found their way into tarts

Fresh off the oven

Our little on made these mango siomai, which were also baked

Ripe from the tree - the color of the fruit says it all : sweet!

More on the mangoes soon!
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Our first dog

I was looking at the memories part of Facebook last weekend and one photo stood out among others. This was a photo of our first dog, Troy. Troy was a Labrador Retriever who lived to 11 human years. That's about 72 in dog years for a dog his size. I've written about him in the past but I won't tire reminiscing about this friend of ours who brought us joy before our daughter arrived.

Troy loved the feel of the grass and the ground. We imagined he was so happy after we transferred to our current home. The previous one was a townhouse and though he was able to go out regularly, we though it wasn't enough for him.

We got our Golden Retriever Mocha just before Troy passed away so they sort of mingled for a few months. We liked to think that Troy talked to Mocha a lot and passed on some dog wisdom and knowledge to her. Mocha was present when Troy was finally put to sleep after a long bout with cancer. I recall our vet was also very sad when they came to our home to administer the injections. After all, they cared for him since he was a puppy so they, too, had a relationship with Troy for over a decade.

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A glimpse of the flower moon

I usually wake up early. It is automatic for me whatever time I go to sleep at night, I will wake up around 5AM. Whether I decide to sleep again or not is up to me. These days though, I make sure I get up to start my day for the designated market or grocery days. What used to be 7 days in a week that we are supposed to be able to go out was reduced to 3 and now 2 days as we approached what seems or seemed to be the homestretch of the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ). I, however, go out usually only twice a week. The usual day I go to the market, I am there by 5:30 AM so I can avoid the crowds and the summer heat. 

That was exactly why I was able to capture this shot of the last super moon of the year, which is also called the Flower Moon or May's full moon. Here it is at 5:15 AM last Friday morning.

Flower moon at 5:15 AM, May 8, 2020

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Vintage 1959 Seiko Cronos

Here is another vintage watch from Seiko. Seiko produced a lot of watch models including the Liner, Crown, Laurel, Sportsmatic, Weekdater, Champion, Actus (which is actually a Seiko 5), etc. Of course, the more popular lines like Seiko 5, Lord Marvel, Lord Matic (LM), Bell-Matic, King Seiko (KS), and Grand Seiko (GS) along with AGS and Kinetic remain very much in circulation. This one's a Cronos from 1959.

Simple dial with baton hands and distinctive hour markers that seem to be carved into the face

Side view showing the crown

The other side view

Case back bearing the Cronos name

Close-up of the dial. Instead of raised or numbered hour markers, this watch features etches on the dial.

Signed Seikosha hand wound movement - I have not checked exactly what movement caliber this is but I assume that it runs at 18,000 beats per hour, which is the most common for the period when the watch came out.

Inside of the case back bears the serial number and the Suwa logo. Based on the serial number, this watch was manufactured in June 1959.

Wrist shot of the watch

 

I have not had the chance to time how long the watch will run when fully wound. It has a decent power reserve though based on the fact that it runs overnight after I retire it for the day and keeps time. I will update this post once I get a fair measurement of its power reserve. 

 

[I sold this watch last week. It is another watch that didn't get worn considering others in my collection that I favored using. 9/26/2023]

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Guilty pleasures: Spanish style sardines

I was taking stock of our food reserves for the quarantine period. Most of these are bottled or canned goods. Our usual stock (for typical rainy days or emergencies) doubled for the enhanced quarantine period as we wanted to assure our household that we had food to eat just in case markets and supermarkets were closed or had restricted operations. It turned out that these were all open albeit only during the day because of the curfew so we ended up with a significant food cache.

Among the food we have on stock are several bottles of sardines I bought from my last travel to Zamboanga last January 2020. I am usually on the lookout for high quality sardines and Zamboanga definitely has these with fishing as one of the major industries of this city surrounded by the Sulu Sea to the west and the Moro Gulf to the east. The last time I had sardines this good outside of the locally-made bottled sardines in the supermarkets was when my friends gave me top quality sardines from Dipolog, where many if not most of the top quality sardines are canned or bottled. I bought my supply of sardines at the famous Alavar Seafood Restaurant, which had their brand products for sale. These had to be checked in for our flight back to Manila as airlines don't allow them to be hand-carried.

Spanish style sardines from Zamboanga City

I eat what I believe is a healthy serving of sardines, which is once in a while and not often. I used to have my own stash while I was living in Japan in the 1990s. Those were the Victorias spanish sardines that I love. My parents even found a way of sending me cans of sardines through engineers my father sent to Japan for training. In gratitude, I would show them around Tokyo and Yokohama and treat them to nice meals (welcome breaks from the usual meals they had at the training center canteens). More on sardines in future posts!

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Garden photos: Golden Tortoise Beetle

It seemed to me that I was running out of things to write about. It turns out there's a lot more to write about and with pictures to share. Here is one of my subjects for my recent interest in nature. The amateur photography employs my iPhone 8. This interest was encouraged by an app developed by National Geographic in collaboration with the California Academy of Sciences. We begin the month of May with what I think are among my better photos of a subject: the Golden Tortoise Beetle, which has the Americas as its origin.

You can download Seek from the app store. It is easy to use and child-friendly so you can have your little one explore and learn about plants, insects and animals. It's not perfect so don't expect that it can identify all those specimens immediately and accurately (e.g., domestic dog for any of your dogs even your pure breeds).

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