I believe I had done what I didn’t do the first time I went in Dallas. Surely, the next time I get back here (if there will ever be a next time) it would be different again. Masaya din ang tumira sa US. Maganda pamumuhay, madami kang mabibili. Tamang tama lang sa kinikita mo. Ang mahirap lang ay ang kultura. Ibang iba sa kulturang pinoy.

We have this friend – kuya Ed – isang kano na may pusong pinoy. He’s very fond of our culture. We heard his story and was surprised that he believes that our culture is great.

He is impressed on how filipino family is setup not just because he himself have a filipino family but according to him he never felt that happiness having a family before. That’s an important aspect of filipino culture that I am proud of too.

Anyway, we’re now here at the DFW airport, waiting to board the plane. To kill time, we roam around the airport. We even got some starbucks to keep us awake while waiting for boarding. We’ll be traveling about 17 hours. Good luck to our butts!

Below are some of the photos we took.

Here’s a synopsis from IMDB.com:

A poor, oversized and under-educated teenager is recruited by a major college football program where he is groomed into an athletically and academically successful NFL prospect. Written by IMDb editor

“The Blind Side” depicts the story of Michael Oher, a homeless African-American youngster from a broken home, taken in by the Touhys, a well-to-do white family who help him fulfill his potential. At the same time, Oher’s presence in the Touhys’ lives leads them to some insightful self-discoveries of their own. Living in his new environment, the teen faces a completely different set of challenges to overcome. As a football player and student, Oher works hard and, with the help of his coaches and adopted family, becomes an All-American offensive left tackle. Written by Anonymous.

As expected, we took some photos and below are some of them:

Aside from the steaks, the place is noticeable too. With barrels of free fried peanuts, you won’t get hungry as you wait for you to get a table because of huge crowd getting to the place which generally means its popularity.

Here’s what they say in there website:

It all began when our founder, Kent Taylor had a vision of great steaks, killer ribs and ice-cold beer at a price that families across America could afford.

We currently have almost 310 locations in 44 states and plan to open many new locations throughout 2008.

“We wanted to provide a place that the whole family could enjoy,” says Taylor.“Texas Roadhouse is about a hearty, good meal with service that is friendly, energetic, and enthusiastic. Life should be fun – so the workplace needs to reflect that as well – and that is why we put our employees first.”

The Texas Roadhouse Story is simple. Legendary Food, Legendary Service®!!!

Hand-cut steaks, award winning ribs, fresh-baked bread and made from scratch side items are the standard at Texas Roadhouse. All of our food is created from scratch with only the highest quality-freshest ingredients. We combine large portions and great value to give you Legendary Food at a reasonable price.

But we’re not just about steaks. With great ribs, chicken dishes, fish, salads and lots more, we can satisfy almost any appetite. We guess that’s why you all voted us #1 in both Menu Variety and Value in the 2004 Restaurant & Institution Magazine’s Choice in Chains Guest Survey.

Legendary Service for every guest and Legendary Fun with our employees, are also main ingredients in our recipe for success. At Texas Roadhouse, our team has an incredible sense of pride in everything we do. We want our guests to have such a good time they’ll want to come back again tomorrow.

As usual, we took some photos of the place as well as with some cute servers.

What the hell just happened?! Focus! Focus! Focus!

Anyways, yeah, after church we decided to go climb up those peaks again – Twin Peaks. Naahh! Just kidding. We had our lunch there. We figured Hazel hadn’t had the chance to get into Twin Peaks last time because she’s so busy “resting” at the hotel due to “unforeseen stiffness” she experienced a few days back.

Well, I ordered some chicken breasts. The others ordered chicken fried steak. We had a good meal. While waiting for the hotel shuttle, Hazel did some hula-hoops while Anjay was busy taking her pictures. Grex and I were busy with our mobile devices.

Of course, we took some more pictures.

We had a great service and reminisce if everything we did was on God’s teachings and laws. Today’s lesson was great. Some stroke through. Some kept.

After the worship service, we head out and took some photos. And, said goodbye to some of the church members. It was a great day really.

When I get back here again, I hope I can bring my duty to sing in the choir. I miss singing hymns already. Back in Baguio, I am in the English Choir so I kinda memorized almost all the hymns. Well, babalik naman na kami kaya ayos lang.

Here are more of the photos:

Anyways, Prince got the tab (Thanks Prince) and we all just ate and ate. It is fun to be with the infrastructure team. David Jee, Thanh Ngo, and Howard Kirk are great. Si Thanh ang ma-kwento. He told us that he likes to visit Philippines again someday. I said ‘again’ because according to him, he’s been in the Philippines around the 70s (I think). He’s a refugee in Bataan wherein he stayed for months and would like to visit it again to see what has changed since he got there. He also said he loves balot.

The meal went well and we had some time to take some more photos for remembrance. Below are some of the shots:

Anyway, yeah, we spent our lunch at Genghis Grill again today. And this is our second time really. Last time we’re here, Sei Wei (sorry if I mis-spelled it again) joined us. We just went back because Hazel is drooling over Joey (Hmmm…do I feel something just waved?).

This is what they say in their website:

Genghis Grill-The Mongolian Stir Fry, is a build your own bowl, fast casual, Asian stir-fry concept. The atmosphere is colorful, lively, and a lot of fun! It’s actually not a cuisine, but an INTERACTIVE style of exhibition cooking modeled after a centuries-old legend. According to this legend, 12th century Mongol warriors, led by the mighty warrior GENGHIS KHAN, heated their shields over open fires to grill food in the fields of battle!

Genghis Grill is all around texas and all over US as well. Now go and grab your keys and head to the nearest branch near you.

Here are some of our photos (last four photos are taken on our first visit here):

The usual food they serve are what we call “damo-damo” (grass-grass? weeds-weeds? idk!).

Below is the menu for this month of January.

And here are some of the photos taken:

The photos below are taken one Thursday morning at the hotel lobby before leaving to work.

Click the photo to get a full view.

Below are some of the shots: