Wedding Party II

Meet the Family

Another beautiful, hot day in Manila!

Lila gathered her family and friends at Greens, one of her favorite pure veg places (and fast becoming one of mine), in Quezon City. When our friend Jim Ward left Baguio Thursday morning, one of his targets was Greens! That guy: We cross paths with him at ALL the great veg places!

The lady in the purple shirt two places to Lila's left (as you look at her) is Lila's father's mother; the one in a sort of red paisley immediately to her right is her mother's mother. (There's a shot of the three together in Lila's online album; I call it "Lila and her Lolas" ["lola" is Pilipino for "grandmother"]). The album, actually, is worth a look; it says more than any description I can make. To see her surrounded by so many people who love her, and whom she loves, was very touching, from the "god-kids" to the former co-workers to the e-x-t-e-n-d-e-d family.

This shot came at a very funny moment: Lila's dad is just a few years older than me, but I acted like the callow newlywed and asked him: "Well, any advice, DAD?" Somewhat embarrassed, he had just mumbled "Nothing..." and we had started cracking up when the photo was taken. He's a really nice guy, and I hope we can sing karaoke together someday (many a Filipino's passion).

After the party, we had an appointment with a really great couple, Benc and Data. They run a web-building company, and we were considering engaging them to do some work for us. I had read Benc's blog, and found we had much in common; in fact, Jim Ward (there he is again) said he had sat in a Zen group with Benc (pronounced "Ben C," like bensey). By the way, how does a woman named Data end up in web building? Her full name is "DAphne TAtiana"--so Data is a clever observation of existing conditions. Anyway, after we got back to China, we got a quotation from them. It was very lenient, and we are definitely going with them. [That was Shenzhen Buzz, a site come and gone. But we're still friends!]

I don't remember what we ate that night... it's all a blur...

See a list of all of Lila's photo sets on Flickr from this trip here.

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