Today is February 14 but yesterday was a Sunday so a lot of people were inside malls. It looked like the pandemic have already become inexsistent actually. 😆

In one of the malls I entered, many people were walking about wearing face masks and carrying either chocolates or roses/bunch of flowers. I didn't notice couples that much as there were a lot of people moving about. As for me, I just stopped by the mall since I had to relieve my bladder before going home. 😆

Let me tell you how I belatedly noticed that many people were celebrating an advance Valentine's Day yesterday. 😅

Sunday Travel Work Day!

Ah yes I love traveling more often now thanks to COVID-19. 😂 Making people stay indoors for too long does that to people. It is only now that I am able to really appreciate being able to go to various places.

So anyway since I'm back to being a real estate agent our manager set the "tour date" yesterday. She wanted us to see the various property locations of the affordable house and lot site developments.

It would also be the perfect time for us to meet our sales director. I mean our new team haven't even met each other (except me and my manager who've previously worked together) so it would also be good to be introduced to everyone face to face.

Let's call my manager as Ms. M and the sales director as Ms. D. 😅 So Ms. M set a Sundate for all of us to visit the Bulacan province sites. We have two there and I've never been to those parts of Bulacan before.

She hired her relative to drive the car and brought along her mom and kid too. Well hey, let's just say it was a Sunday and we'd be going places right? 😁

We met in the morning, around 9 am at a certain mall. Only a few people were inside because it was still early. I waited for the car to arrive outside. Unfortunately or fortunately only two of us agents went because one had her own car while two couldn't make it.

Of course the agreement was, Ms. M would pay for the gas while we would be in charge of the toll fees. Fair enough. 👍

Oh The Places We Went To

It's good we started traveling early because Bulacan is quite a distance away. It's not my first time to go to that province but it's a first to actually be in the areas of Pandi and Baliwag municipalities.

In the past I was able to go to San Jose del Monte and Bustos, Bulacan but not really to do any touristy activity. Never considered those as road trips though. Haha. Well this time I thought it would be nice to have a road trip with work colleagues right? 😂

The best part of it all was I sat in the middle of the back seat. I had one of the best views during the trip. 😆 I was able to see almost everything. Hahaha.

So anyway on the way to Pandi we had to go through a toll area to get into Bulacan. This took us a long time to get moving because the vehicle didn't have any RFID (radio frequency identification). This is a new payment system generated because of the pandemic. It allows cashless payment of toll fees.

Because the car didn't have it, we were one of those who waited in that one lane just to manually pay for the fee. Well... 😅 We eventually got to our first destination around 11 am because of the delay. Otherwise we would have gotten there earlier.

Hello Pandi, Bulacan!

As mentioned I have never been to this area before. Getting to the development site made us go through a lot of inroads. 😅 I noticed that it was quite deep inside the place as the streets were narrower than minor and major roads.

The good thing about it is, I saw several jeepneys and a bus plying the route. Meaning public transportation to farther areas is available. That's good for people who don't have cars like me! Hehehe.

Eventually we got to the place. Surprisingly my back phone cam started working again for a limited time. 😂 That's how I was able to take a few nice pictures.

Unfortunately the back camera didn't last long as usual so I was only able to take kinda crappier photos using the front cam. Oh well. 😆

We went to register at the office first before we went inside the gated community. Actually there are already people living at the first batch of houses that were completed. We weren't really allowed to go inside that much because of that. We can only go to the model houses near the office building. Also the other amenities we planned on checking were not made yet so it was just fine if we didn't go in.

On the way to the houses I noticed some of the family friendly amenities. Tada! Guess what these are? 😁

The above are some of several nice amenities of this development. We went to the model houses first though. Hehe.

Below is part of the Calista model which is composed of six houses or probably better called as townhouses.

All sites have two house designs except for the Batangas development. I mentioned in a previous article that I went there in December last year. Hehe. Below is the complete look of the Calista model houses as seen from this photo from the Batulao site.

Calista end units can stand on it's own or be COMBINED with mid units. All of these are two storeys and can also be EXPANDED to become 3 bedroom houses. Otherwise a normal unit upon turnover will have two bedrooms. 👍

I wasn't able to take much pictures this time because I don't like using the front camera. 😅 It did get some okay photos, like these two.

Of course we could not help but admire how nice it is if many had houses like these ones. It's fully finished upon turnover, plus it's decent and affordable too! The lowest I have seen from one site's pricelist is around P1.7M or about $330k!

I noticed the materials used aren't too cheap at all! Either way if the buyer would like to expand the house then they can make it the way they want to based on the developer guidelines. Awesome right?

What's good about this development site is it would initially be using the deep well water system but will be changed to a local water provider upon turnover. (If they don't and you have purchased a house from me then it's up to you and fellow neighbors to talk to the association so you can stop deep well water siphoning.)

FYI, Angat Dam is in Bulacan too so Bulakenyos shouldn't have no reason to get water from the ground. People living in Bulacan (and actually all over the world) should not use deep well water systems anymore unless we all want our homes to eventually sink like other Bulacan towns too.

Going back to the houses, after we checked everything and took vids and pictures we then got back to the car. That meant we would be going to the next location.

On the way to Baliwag I noticed the Pandi site is not a completely out of the way place. Just outside of the developing subdivision there are many commercial establishments! 😮 I was surprised to see a bank, a tea shop, a convenience store and even a big church a few meters away! Wow amazing. It's definitely suburban living with a dash of convenience too! 👍👍👍

Slightly Heated Road Triiiip to Baliwag!

Ah yes I love to travel to various places even if it's only because of my job. Hahaha.

Did I see any tourist spots along the way? Well I saw a statue of a farmer on a carabao somewhere. Not sure where exactly though. 😅 Didn't have load data for my phone and am not familiar with anywhere in Bulacan at all.

It was already nearing lunch time and somehow along the way I started to feel hungry. Too bad I didn't bring any snack. Anyway I just concentrated on looking at the road ahead.

Along the way eventually we were finally traveling on a wider road. There are more commercial areas too!

The best part of the trip was all the rice fields I saw. 😍 Yes I am happy to see them. Unlike the road to Batangas, going to the North you will see a lot of rice fields. 👍 Glad to know many farmers are still able to produce our staple food. ❤

This is why we need to support them and the small fishermen so we have plenty of food to eat and we won't need to import from other countries! You know other nations even steal our fish so why don't we help our own fishermen?

Why do many people not care about mangroves and other plants near the sea? You think they have no use? Think again. Pls do some online research to find out the secret to having many delicious kinds of fishes and seafood in the Philippines. If you love seafood then let's help protect and conserve them too. ❤

(Ugh that's why I don't like Bulacan because it makes me so angry due to the future airport, floods and land subsidence issues. Lord help more of us to realize and understand!)

Eherm, as I was saying about the road trip... Lemme just inhale and exhale for a bit here... 😨 Something heated coming up! 😆

So along the way all of us eventually started talking about politics and presidential candidates. There were five of us inside the car, all adults (except the 10 yr old kid at my right). One of them is still undecided on who to vote for, the rest are pro-BBM. One of them even said Imelda's family is "probably" rich even before they became the First Family. (Well I didn't want to say they became richer thanks to everyone's tax money and the million dollar loans that the entire Philippines are still paying up to now even those who haven't even been born yet.)

I was not there to debate with pro-Marcoses. They all know what's left from right. We all know what's right and wrong. If people choose wrong then that is unfortunate for the entire country. We will be the laughing stock of the world if BBM won as president. (Imagine if there are too many Hitler apologists out there. Welcome to the Philippines! 😂)

Anyway I was able to say my presidential choice is Ka Leody so the BBM and Leni camps can fight all they want. Hahaha. My manager asked who Ka Leody is. 😆 My goodness. I was only able to say he's the one who fights for worker rights then somebody else started saying a different topic. Huh, someone didn't want to hear more eh? 🤔 Sad.

The same person who cut the Ka Leody convo also said stuff about the airport. Oh my favorite topic. Hahaha. I also agreed with the person when he said the Bulacan airport is a real inconvenience to fishermen. I was glad to hear he himself experienced fishing problems. So there's the proof that it's not only hearsay by news outlets and environmentalists! Our small time fishermen are not being supported by big businesses but they are being prevented from having a decent livelihood!

[The people behind that development (Ramon Ang/San Mig. Corp. and contractors) should not have proceeded to cut some of the remaining mangroves and build the airport there because even experts have said it is not the right place at all! The land is sinking and it is also a biodiverse location. They are ruining the entire rich and thriving ecological system by building an airport in the wrong place just for the sake of money! 😡]

I was really getting heated up because of that topic so it's a good thing the direction of the conversation eventually changed. Anything about protecting and conserving the environment I will definitely argue with others when I feel like it, as long as I know what it's about. (Fight me. 💪😂)

Other than that we all had a good time during the road trip. Despite our growing hunger and the heat outside eventually we got near the place. The street going to the development was still not complete though. Well we were able to get to our destination safe and sound so no worries.

Time for more pictures and videos for them! Hehe. The last house we looked at was the Unna/Hidilyn model.

Took a few pics too and this one's interior design is fit for Valentine's Day. Doesn't this look sweet and romantic? 😍

Aww it looks like a house for a romantic single lady. Or it can also be an LGBTQ couple's home too, right? So cute. 😍

Anyway to cut the long story short, we met Ms. D there. After taking all the videos and photos we finally bid her goodbye and got in the hot car. We opened the windows to let it cool and then our road trip back home began! Woohoo!

At this point everyone was really hungry so I'm thankful we went to Jolibee and not McDonalds even if the kid insisted on the latter. Most of us preferred Jolibee and also the senior discount apparently is much bigger there. Nice. 😁

Ms. M ordered the group meal with 8 pieces of crispy fried chicken, four spaghettis and four rice. Oh my goodness I ate one spaghetti, two chickens and 1 rice! 😂 (I didn't even feel the need to eat dinner last night you know. I was that full. 😆)

Oh let's not forget the choco sundae for dessert Ms. M added to the order. I mean it's not my favorite but okay. Thanks a lot. 👍

Good thing it was our manager's treat. I was prepared to pay my part but am happy to eat free food too. ❤ Ah such a wonderful Valentine work Sundate eh? 😁

Eventually we got back in the metro. They dropped me off near another mall but heck I didn't know how to get to the carousel buses in that area. Booo. 😂 I went up and down the elevated walkway twice! Got annoyed so I just decided to take the MRT. Easy. But first had to go inside the mall as mentioned in the first part of this article. Hehe.

So anyway since today is Valentine's Day I realized yesterday that it was definitely a good pre-Valentine activity. 😁 We were all happy and feeling accomplished too! Oh yeah.

No need to be sad if single people don't have any dates today. We can function as single people with no worries. Hehe. I'm not sad at all because if I think about it, everyone else also celebrated today's occasion yesterday.

So an ordinary day became special because of the pre-Valentine work and travel "date" we all had. 👍 Awww. 😁

How about you? How did your Valentine's Day go?

XOXO,

@LucyStephanie

* * *

All images are mine except the screenshot.

• About Me

Not a member of read.cash yet? Click here to join us so you'll have some Bitcoin Cash too! Let's microblog on noise.cash as well!