the long walk to dinner.

at that intersection of edsa and macapagal avenue, zai and i had to figure out to which direction should we head for the restaurant where our teammates were currently enjoying dinner. i decided to call and ask for directions.

it doesn't help that:

(1) the people we're contacting are currently mostly busy eating, hence they have no usable hands to pick up and answer a phone.

(2) the person who answered the phone is so directionally-challenged, kidnappers need not blindfold her in an abduction. all they need to do is spin her around three times in place and she'll have no idea where she is.

eventually the general direction of where the restaurant is located has been established. zai and i still ended up walking more than a kilometer further down the road to reach the restaurant compound; cabs would just look at us blankly when we ask that they take us to "dampa."

it was a different set of confusion altogether when we reached the seafood market area where the restaurant is located. it took us some 20 minutes more to figure out where that particular resto is in the area; the directions given by our directionally-challenged friend really worked in ensuring zai and i arrive very hungry.

when we arrived in the market area, zai and i saw a place called claire dela fuente. "we're in front of claire dela fuente," i told our teammate."wala lang. i just wanted to say that." the bigger joke to that is that the restaurant we're supposed to go to is actually just behind claire dela fuente, but we had to spend the next 20 minutes in a different section of the marketplace looking for a restaurant that was less than 20 meters away.

here are the photographic evidence of the strike team holiday dinner.