Jackfruit

The next day, I bought a jackfruit.

Jackfruit is an ordinary fruit in Brazil.

I love eating jackfruit; it's very sweet and tasty.

In rural Ibaan, Batangas, Philippines, I was eating jackfruit in the verandah, as my Uncle Boy said that jackfruit would taste more delicious if I were speaking in Tagalog, insinuatingly than in English.

In a way, in the Philippines, people already speak Spanish and English, as these languages, or really their words, are integrated or imbedded in native languages, not just Tagalog. Spanish is chocolate or coffee, whilst English is a fizzy pink lemonade soda. The Philippine society is mostly an amalgam of Malay, Chinese, and Spanish elements, with unmentioned various more minor ones. There is Philippine Creole Spanish, Chabacano or Chavacano, spoken scatteringly in the magical archipelago. The feature of the Philippines is more like the Caribbean, the crossroads of different peoples. I can categorize the people of the Philippines in several desserts: Many are like "ube halaya" or the dark mash of sweet purple yam. Some are more like "halo-halo" or ice dessert with leche flan, ube yam, kaong, nata de coco, young coconut strips, agar-agar jelly, sago, beans, fruits like jackfruit, et cetera. Some are more like "maíz con hielo" or ice dessert with corn kernels, sugar, and milk. A striking difference of Filipinos from Mainland Asia is their love of the creative purple colour, maybe because of the ube yam delicacy. In Okinawa in Japan, people call it "beniimo." They use it also in Okinawan desserts and other cooking.

Last night, I ate jackfruit in yellow-white coconut milk with rice for dinner. After 7 in the morning, today the 26th of November of 2024, I ate a corn dog and drank a mug of hot lemon water. Before 8, I walked around and around the neighbourhood cul-de-sac. It was a grey sky. There is a house there with a front door decorated with gold-on-red "lucky" logograms. There are still pumpkins, a gigantic one and a mini one, in the front yard. A castle-like house stands in the corner. When I returned home, I opened my delivered parcel of a grey-green stone Godzilla. How wonderful it looks! On my mind now, Latinate artificial languages may have advantages over those that are not Latinate. I am thinking of Esperanto and Interlingua. Even natural languages like Tagalog and Japanese are full of international Latinate terms. (In Japanese, they are written in Katakana glyphs. It is fun to read a Japanese menu full of French and Italian food names written in Katakana. And I find it easier to read Japanese books in the sci-fi genre, because they are full of Katakana words derived from English and other languages. (Japanese is a cosmopolitan language.)) I am also thinking that a Latinate language with a blend of the indigenous may be fun and fascinating, as in the case of Philippine Creole Spanish (Chavacano (Chabacano)).

Today is the 14th of January of 2025. It was night at Time Hortons café. I ate Sea Salt Potato Wedges with Wildberry Hibiscus Lemonade Quencher. Joban the South Asian was my vendor. In the morning, I had a couple or more cups of Green Tea with Oat Milk, which, someone expressed, "tastes like ice cream." It was night at Starbucks café. I ate two Belgian Liège Waffles. The Brown Sugar Oat Cortado interestingly tasted like jackfruit. I was going to tell the Japanese-Anglo hybrid Chris the barista or Jess the Anglo barista. Money is just an inhibitor, sometimes. Money is poverty, sometimes. Life should always be sensual, a sensory wonderland. Life is ephemeral, full of fleeting experiences. Do I believe in the Akashic Records, the memory compendium about everything? The following day of the 15th, I saw Hans the Netherlander in his motorized wheelchair at Tim Hortons. We sat near the sun-drenched bay window, as we chatted and ate Sea Salt Potato Wedges. I was drinking Orange Pekoe tea with Oat Milk for a change.

I woke up early today. I started my café-hopping here on Lulu Island just after 5 in the night-like morning. I walked to Tim Hortons to have a Green Tea with Oat Milk and a Sausage Egg Cheese English Muffin. Pushpak the South Asian vendor was not there today. I was the only customer in the vast chamber. Then, I walked to Starbucks. My baristas were Nicole the Filipina and Jessica the Vietnamese. I was drinking a Brown Sugar Oat Cortado that comes in a cute, little ceramic mug. It tasted like jackfruit to me. Jessica from afar whispered loudly and solemnly, "Richmond is not like Asia." A regular, a big white man with white hair, sat with his tablet computer at a table near the washrooms. I thought that he was playing games on it. It was the 23rd of January of 2025.

Today's a rainy cooler spring day, the 16th of May of 2025. The last couple of days have been grey weather. Yesterday, at Tim Hortons café, I ate my first Chili from there. Michael L. J., my Dane-French ufologist friend, visited there. We looked at his videos on his cellphone, about bedroom light activities that he attributes to extraterrestrials. I don't mention the Zoo Hypothesis to him. He believes in the Grey Aliens or other humanoid outworlders. (I opine that outworlders may not necessarily be humanoids.) Michael and I also talked about our different snorkelling experiences in Mexico. I recounted to him about the temples at Tulum, on a cliff, overlooking a white beach and surrounded by jungle. I said that it looked "like a set in Star Trek." Michael said that he only saw it from far away. Today, anyway, I also went to Tim Hortons café, of which the highlight was my Lemon Poppyseed Muffin and later a Fruit Explosion Muffin. I had a Vanilla Oat Milk Cold Brew. I would try their Chili again, another time. I visited the fruteria Kin's Farm Market, where I bought Vietnamese Red Jackfruit the other day. I hesitated to buy big white mushrooms today.

A cerulean sky and breezy warm weather was today, the 20th of July of 2025, here on Lulu Island. As usual, I walk to Tim Hortons café for summer drinks. At home, there is a Filipino dessert of sticky rice balls, jackfruit pieces, and tapioca pearls in coconut milk. Lunch was a curry rice dish much like Beef Rendang, but it wasn't. I walked my 72nd time this "Krismas" year to the "Clam Temple," the Roman Catholic church at St. Albans Road. On the way, in the immaculate garden of the Korean lady, was a hummingbird floating in the air. I delighted myself by whispering in Esperanto, "Kolibro!" (Hummingbird!). At the church lobby were two Kenyan ladies in beautiful colourful African gowns. I complimented: "Your clothing is really nice!" As I was sitting at the back of the near-empty nave, a Filipina worshipper approached and irksomely asked that I take off my green safari hat as a sign of respect. "Sorry!" I exclaimed. Later, at the front of the nave was an ongoing baptism of a Filipino baby boy named Mateo. Filipinos gathered around, there with the white minister and a Filipina nun. As I walked home, I said in Esperanto, "La loko estas magia!" (The place is magical!).