The Wheel and Axle

Touring Tehran
Tehran, Iran
22 September 2017

My friend Bj won two AirAsia tickets for Tehran through an online contest. He asked me to join him, and of course, how could I say no to an opportunity to visit Persia, a land where ancient civilizations flourished and where history was sure to be palpable in the air?

Now of course people were concerned that we were off to Iran, and it would be a lie to say that we ourselves had no initial apprehensions. However, our friend Jeff had ventured into Persia (alone!) last year, and he had nothing but praises for his visit. Armed with visas which we processed via the embassy in Makati, we were off to the land of the Persians.

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En route to Tehran, we had a layover in Kuala Lumpur. This was actually my second time transitting through Kuala Lumpur this year, the first time being on the way to Yangon last February.

Whereas last time I had an entire overnight to see some places in the city, this time we had roughly five hours before we needed to check-in for our next flight. The great thing is, the KLIA Ekspres can bring you from the airport to the city proper within half an hour, where the connecting KL Sentral train can then bring you to the famed Batu Caves in another twenty to thirty minutes. Dammit, I wish we had such efficient train systems in the Philippines.

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So as of yesterday afternoon, Uber Philippines is back in business, having succumbed to the extortion of the LTFRB.

As a follow-up to the ongoing TNV saga, here we have the Spectacular Shriveled Man of the LTFRB showing just how truly tone deaf he is.

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The consumer in me will be happy if Uber goes back online this coming week given that the insidious LTFRB has already given the recommended fine for lifting the one-month suspension.

You know, just a mere and very sane 190 Million Fucking Pesos.

But the responsible citizen in me thinks they should give Shriveled Man and his sidekick Nostril Girl the middle finger and just serve the remainder of the suspension period. There’s only about two weeks left anyway, and if that’s what it costs to defy institutionalized extortion, I can – as a consumer – live with it.

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Yesterday, I and fellow Library Undergrounders Deo and Roni (now also christened “Bibliophibians” by Jessica Z.) went to the 2017 Philippine Readers and Writers Festival in Raffles, Makati. Originally, my plan for the weekend had been to go to the 2017 Asia Pop Comicon; however, given that my interest in that event plummeted due to a tepid guest list that I wasn’t really eager to see, it was an easy choice to switch to the literature festival instead.

Jessica had invited us to attend the Q&A session she was hosting for award-winning author Mark Z. Danielewski, who wrote such best-sellers as House of Leaves, Only Revolutions, The Fifty Year Sword, and the (planned) 27-book series The Familiar, four of which have been released and the fifth coming out this October.

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Photo courtesy of Lagablab

Despite having been scheduled for interpellation numerous times, the Anti-Discrimination Bill still remains pending in the legislative.

And why is this so?

Certain members of the Senate have deliberately caused the delays.

One particular senator, in fact, has even had the gall to proclaim that he is an ally of the LGBT community. He used us for PR by posting on his Facebook, during Pride Month, that he supported us. And yet, to this very day, every time the bill is scheduled for interpellation, he leaves and/or disappears. The most recent one, I’m told, is that he disappeared but was discovered to have just been in the lounge. Such a blatant display of abuse of power is disgusting.

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Is it so wrong for me to find Kit Harington so hot even when he’s bearded and in drag, with a blond wig and boobies?

Last Monday, our vertical within my current company held a whole day team building event in Phillip’s Sanctuary in Antipolo. I’ve heard of this place before, and in fact I was considering it as a venue for my own team’s activity earlier this year (it didn’t pan out at the time), so it was a treat to actually get to experience it nonetheless.

And so it was, right at the crack of daylight, that over a hundred of us all made our way to Antipolo that Monday morning. I was lucky as it took me less than an hour; I lived in Taytay, right at the foot of the mountain, and I hitched a ride with Emily, one of my managers who brought her own car. For most of the rest who converged at our office in BGC and took the chartered bus, it was about two hours.

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As I’ve been doing more and more travel in the last few years, I’ve come to use AirBnB more frequently. I really only registered some time late in 2016, and so far I’ve really appreciated this as an alternative to accommodations. It doesn’t mean I’ve foregone traditional hotels and hostels, but knowing an alternative exists is great.

Last weekend, to celebrate my birthday with my besties, we decided to do a staycation just here in Metro Manila. We were considering a couple of hotels, but those we wanted were largely fully booked. I then found an intriguing listing on AirBnB, a loft unit in The Gramercy Residences, and it was a fantastic choice.

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It’s the big four-oh today, but cliched as it may sound, it does seem that it feels like the new thirty. It’s the age of continuous exploration for me, and it does feel that life just does begin at forty.

I’ve learned in the past couple of years to truly make the most of life. Always.

Never keep life bottled in, or you may live to regret life itself, and who wants that?

As long as it makes you happy and you’re hurting no one, be who you want to be and do what you want to do with your life.

Life is what you make of it.