A LAND TOUR OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA - (Part 2)

By Rene Calalang
Scarborough-Canada
December 23, 2015



MONTEREY CITY is a city which was once under Spain; then under Mexico when Mexico gained independence from Spain; and since 1846 under the United States when she defeated Mexico in the Mexican – American War.

There are many tourist attractions in Monterey, notable of which are the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Cannery Row, Fisherman’s Wharf, The Annual Monterey Bay Festival and to the golfers, the world renown “The National Pebble Beach Pro-Am,” host to a Pro-Am Golf Tournament.

Monterey is also known as the place where great American artists like Arthur Frank Matthew and Percy Gray; and literary giants like John Steinbeck and Robert Louis Stevenson used to live.

Here, only I and my wife decided to visit the Aquarium, as most of our companions, majority of which are from California had already visited this attraction or a similar one in a different place. To pass the time, some elected to walk around the Fisherman’s Wharf and perhaps at Cannery Row, to stretch and have a bit of exercise. Others chose to just sit down, have a snack and relax.

 “But what the heck, we are already here, why miss the opportunity as we may not come back here again,” I reminded my wife.

Inside the aquarium were creatures that did not fascinate me anymore as I had seen most of them already. But if there was one that interest me, it was the sharks.

“We have a lot of this creatures in the Philippines, not just the one that lives on water, but there are those that live on land,” I jokingly told my wife.

“What do you mean?” she answered.

“I am talking about those heartless individual who prey on the poor and the helpless, by lending them money at an exorbitant rate of interest.”

My wife thought for a moment, then laughed and said, “Ah, the loan sharks!”

“Damn right,” I said. “And there are so many of them, Filipinos and foreigners alike. And worse, there are now bigger loan sharks, preying on the poor, helpless Filipinos.”

“What do you mean?” she again asked.

“I remember when we were young, it was illegal to lend money at a very high rate of interest, and we call it usury. But now, it seems legal.”

“Who do it legally?”

“The other loan sharks, the bigger loan sharks.”

“Which one?”

I whispered to her ear the lending institutions.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“Of course, I am serious.”

“Oh my God. No wonder, the poor are getting poorer.”

“Damn right,” I said.

After our tour of the Aquarium, there was still some time left to walk around the area. In this case, I chose Cannery Row (named so because of the presence of many canning factories here when Monterey Bay was still not overfished) because of her history, notable of which was Cannery Row is the title and the setting of one of John Steinbeck’s famous novel, and later was made into a successful movie.

We walked around Cannery Row and viewed the many hotels and restaurants there, some of which were former canning factories, but most prominent was the Chinese American store mentioned in the novel Cannery Row.

Our tour of Cannery Row ended with a snack of coffee and muffin in one of the many small restaurants along Cannery Row.

THIS WAS supposed to be the end of our tour for the day and the night would be spent at Crown Plaza Hotel in San Jose, California.

But alas, a better night was waiting for us, as we were invited by the husband and wife team of Bert and Irene C (both of whom are our classmates) for dinner, reminisces and a much needed group meeting in their beautiful home.

From the hotel, we were picked up by their children and in laws with vans and cars and driven to their beautiful, newly renovated home with no problem. And No Virginia, it was not renovated because we were coming.

Needless to say that there were lots of screaming, hugging and shaking of hands when we finally met our two classmates, who we knew were there, and yet we never met until that day. For me, who lives so far away, I had an excuse; but for those living in California, especially the Northern part, I could see no reason.

Not too far after our arrival, Penny C (our classmate) and her husband Marc, arrived to join us. Generous and thoughtful as usual, they brought with them some Goldi Lok specialty of pulvoron and mamon for everybody to share on the continuation of our trip.

Perhaps sensing that we were hungry, as could be seen on the haggard looking face of some of us (myself included) from the fatigue of travel and having only a light lunch, Bert and Irene, to have the main event of our visit started gathered us in the kitchen and “WOW”, cakes for the birthday celebrants for the month of October were waiting. Placed on cakes were names of the celebrants.

When I saw that my name was not there, I and told them that I too, is an October celebrant – October 28 to be exact. I blamed myself for this as I don’t post my birthday on Facebook.

“I am sorry,” somebody said.

“No need to say sorry,” I said.

I joined others in front of the cakes and smiled in front of the clicking cameras while others sung “Happy Birthday.” We then blew the candles whose number were not representative of our age, because if it were, the cakes were not big enough to accommodate all those candles. Ah! Mother Nature!

Serving of the cake was momentarily put on hold as this would be part of dessert that would follow after the big dinner that’s waiting for us.

The food for dinner, all of which were of Filipino cooking, was plentiful. Prominent among them were two big fishes (pickerel I was told) caught by Bert in his many fishing adventures, and cooked by steaming also by him, with soy sauce, garlic and ginger.

Prominent also was chicken cooked in young sampaloc leaves (sinigang na manok sa sampalok), which reminded me of my mother’s cooking when I was growing up in Malolos, where I would climb the big sampaloc tree to gather the young sampaloc leaves to be used for cooking sinigang sa sampaloc. Ah! Those were the days!

There were many others like shrimps and beef cooked in “I don’t care anyway” as I don’t eat beef and only very little shrimp because of my chronic gout.

A few of us did not join the line and waited until the line subsided. When it was our turn, the fishes, which were my favorite, were almost gone; but there was still plenty of sauce left. I scooped some into my rice and then told myself, “The soup of this fish is good to the last drop.” However, my other favorite, the sinigang sa sampaloc was still plentiful. I scooped some to my bowl, which I almost filled up to the rim.

Everybody was quiet for a while concentrating on the fabulous dinner and that includes the many Filipino desserts like bibingka, puto and kutsinta (rice cakes) and others. Served last for desserts was the birthday cake.

Together with the other food that I carefully selected, I had an excellent dinner, the best I had in the last few days. Ditto, I am sure, to others.

AFTER DINNER, with our chairman Rolando L presiding, we gathered around the big dining table for a meeting to decide our future.

IT WAS a very productive meeting, the highlights of which was the switch, which was unanimously approved, from a semi-formal (with guidelines to follow) to a social club. Basically from January 2016 on…It would be FUN!   FUN!   FUN! But don’t get us wrong, regardless if its semi-formal or a social club, the wish of the majority would prevail, and all the money would be accounted for.

The other thing decided was our next reunion, and many were excited about it as majority already paid the seed money, would be in Hawaii in 2017. Our present treasurer, Penny C, because of her experience in organizing tours, volunteered to be in charge. With Penny in control, the group is in good hands.

After the meeting, as it was getting late, we unfortunately had to say goodbye. We left with heavy heart and forever grateful to Bert and Irene for their generosity and hospitality.

TO BE CONTINUED