First Time

"When was the last time you did something for the first time?"

That was the tagline of an airline commercial a few years back, and one I always remember when I am trying to persuade myself to step out of my comfort zone to try something new. I'm a creature of habit you see, and it takes a bit of persuading to get me to break my routine.

For this year, I've done a few "firsts":

I ate taho for the first time. For some reason, I've never eaten taho before this year. I'm thinking that taho is a Tagalog thing, the reason why I never encountered it when I was growing up (as I'm from the Visayas). Or maybe not. Eating taho is part of my sunday jogging routine now, serving as my reward for completing one round of the UP academic oval.

I went to Bohol. It's always stressful (for me at least) to travel to a place for the first time. I worry about every little thing - how organized the airport is (or the pier, in the case of Bohol), how to get a ride to and from the hotel, what sort of accomodations the hotel actually has (pictures are rarely accurate), how fluffy the towels are, what channels are available in its cable tv service, what kind of food is served, who my neighbors will be - the list is endless. Thank goodness Bohol was worth all the stress. Next stop: Laoag and Vigan on July.

I went on one of those walking tours. With my friends, I took the walking tour of intramuros (the one provided by Mr. Celdran). I've been to most of the places subject of the tour before, but Mr. Celdran gave enough insight to enable me to see the places from a different viewpoint. Next on the agenda: Binondo.

I tried driving an automatic transmission car. Let me just say that it was not a pleasant experience for my passengers, one of whom hit her head on the windshield. I kept looking for the clutch and moving the stick shift. To compensate, I drove at a very, hmm, sedate pace of 20km/h.

Let's see if I can add more "firsts" as the year progresses.