Pahiyas

Over a year ago I was living in the Philippines. Right before I left, I had the pleasure of experiencing Pahiyas in Lucban, a neighboring town in my father's province. This is me enjoying pancit Lucban, or pancit habhab. To my knowledge, habhab means to eat it with your hands, no utensils. So here I am eating pancit Lucban habhab style (get it?). For the record, Buddy's pancit Lucban is some of the best pancit you can have in the Philippines. I wrote about it here. During the festival's parade, there were vendors who passed out pancit on banana leaves. If you were watching, you just go and grab yourself some grub and eat it on the street. My cousin Calloy was great at getting the pancit, so I left it to him to get me some street grub. When in Rome... or in this case, when in Lucban...

Lately we've been talking a lot about food at the gym. My stance on food is that everyone has her/his food philosophy. For some its cultural, others it's political, etc. I'm on the cultural fence when it comes to food. For me, it's because I feel like I always have to defend the greatness of Filipino and Chamorro food. Most people know Filipino food because of balut, which is often used as a Fear Factor challenge. Judge all you want, but I believe every culture has their "Fear Factor Food." I just don't like that the Philippines has to carry the brunt of it. For the record, I have and will eat balut. It's a cultural thing. Leave it at that.

One of the things I learned while living in the Philippines is that to understand the essence of a place and a people, you have to indulge in their food. I understand the business about street food and such. But to dismiss it because you're afraid of getting sick or something is just plain sad. Some of the best food I had while there came from local street vendors. Besides, if you can have a full meal for under a dollar, wouldn't you want to at least give it a shot?!

Warm-up
Jump rope
Stretching

CrossFit One World WOD
Row 500m four times. Rest exactly two minutes between efforts.

Joanne's Final Time - 2:10/2:13/2:15/2:17

Notes (to myself) about this workout:

Anytime you have to do a timed row, it just sucks. The actual WOD called for a timed 400 meter run. Settie and I opted to do the row for rehab reasons. It sucked. But it's over now. Yeah.

By the way, today would have been my dad's 83rd birthday. Happy Birthday, Pop!