A Pinoy Biker’s Philippine Rural Adventures

My youngest child, Alyssa celebrated her 5th birthday last April 29. We gave her a bicycle fit for her size as a gift. It had training wheels so that she could get on to it without fear. After 3 days of being used and abused, the mounting bracket of the training wheels broke off so I had to remove them. That was last Friday morning and by mid-afternoon of the same day, she was actually biking on her own! With a little assistance from her Ate Bea, she quickly learned to balance herself in the bike. From that day on, she would wake up early in the morning and prod us to bike with her around the village. She is one proud and happy biker at age 5!

Update on Meeting Dr. Joy Barredo

Judy and I attended Dr. Joy’s free consultation for those who want to work in the UK. But more than that being the reason, I wanted to meet her personally. We arrived at the Alabang Towncenter at 3:30 pm and being early for the 4:00 pm appointment, we went around the center and looked for a token gift for her. We got her a simple capiz earrings which the sales lady said were designed by a known ramp model or something. I was vaguely familiar with the name but I could not recall it now. I sent Dr. Joy a text message to say we were there already and a few seconds later I received a response that said she was already at the front of Cibo, the resto where we were meeting her. A little before this, my sister and her husband arrived too.

Dr. Joy is actually the first blogger that I have met in person. I knew it was her the moment is saw her but my first impression was she is younger in person than what the picture on her blog shows. She was with the British TV crew which was making a documentary about her work in the UK. Dr. Joy’s partner Tom was also there. Ambo of pinoyambisyoso was there as well. I knew that one of her questions would be if I biked all the way from Marikina to Alabang, and I was right. Even Ambo asked the same question. I did not, I said and in fact I came with my wife riding on our motorcycle.

A pleasant surprise for all us was that we were actually interviewed by the TV crew and we are going to appear on British TV! Richard (one of the crew, I forgot his position though, sorry) said that it will be aired perhaps sometime in June (hope we can watch it!) I asked Joy if she could send us a copy of the documentary but she said it might not be possible because of some copyright law. We ended at a little before 6:00 pm.