What We've Seen On Our Trip To The Old Arbat Street and Kitai Gorod at the City Center

The Old Arbat Street is one of the oldest roads in Moscow dating back to the late 14th century. It is a cobblestone-covered pedestrian street that spans 1.25 kilometers and is famous for its lively showcase of street artists and its rows of souvenir shops and coffee shops and restaurants and theaters. We've been to the Old Arbat Street many times before during the summer of last year but there's always something to look forward to each time we visit here. For one is the diversity of people teeming this famous street. We have the red, the black, the yellow, the white, and of course, the brown race being represented here; everyone garbed in their most fashionable outfits making this bustling street their informal run-way; everyone here dressed well, in case I haven't mentioned it yet. It felt like walking down the streets of Paris or Rome! (Though we've never been to Western Europe before.)

Another reason we looked forward to going here is the opportunity to just walk in a leisurely manner, slow-walking if you please, and stop at every public installation that local Russian artists showcase here for free; the art exhibits, the magicians, the singers, the musicians, this is the place to be. Too bad we missed Steven Tyler when he visited here not long ago when he walked up to a street artist and did an impromptu "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" duet with him.  

When we arrived here a few weeks ago, it was the A Capella month for the street performers. Here's the link to my post which featured a video snippet of the performance of their Barbie counterparts. What do you think?

Now off we go to Kitai Gorod not too far-away from the Old Arbat Street and just beside Red Square at the City Center...but since we got tired of walking a good 10km HHWW (holding-hands-while-walking, just in case I wasn't clear about it), we decided to take a taxi and passed by the Moskva River. Can you see the Moskva River?😉

We were coming close to the Red Square but this post is not about it. And in case you're wandering? wondering😎 please do check this out!

The church bells at Kitai Gorod at 6pm...DIVINE...It felt like someone just got married here. 

The Russian chocolate Alyonka. Two things I know about this decadent chocolate bars: 

1. They're non-GMOs (genetically modified organisms) because GMOs are totally banned here (yey).
2. The wrapper that has the picture of a blue-eyed, cuddly-cute baby girl wearing a colorful traditional Russian scarf has been a subject of debate as to who it really was; some Russians claimed it was them when they were young when it was first manufactured in the 1960s, some claimed that it was the daughter of the first woman cosmonaut in space. Maybe it was me?

The Bolshoi Theater and across the street beside it is TSUM department store, a contender of GUM.

Bosco Fresh restaurant in GUM. Please click here to see more of GUM in case you're still "wandering"? Barbie Doll was seating next to us, a sight which is commonplace here.

We had bolshoi (Russian for "big") green olives from the land of Canaan!

Emporio Armani Caffe inside GUM. 

Our Ken (Barbie's male counterpart) baristas were dressed to kill in their Armani suits to the point of intimidating. Rico and I were only outfitted in our rather touristy casual and comfy strolling uniforms. 

But this? This happened. So, thank you, Kuya Ken for photo-bombing our last photo of the day which erased all the intimidation we first felt in your sosy coffee shop. Now, can we also put our tired feet up?

How To Pray For Your Husband On His Birthday And Lace It With Words That Affirm And Not Destroy😉

The month of June is Rico's birthday month. I've asked the kids to say a special birthday prayer for their dad, then I've asked them to say their wishes for him. I will be to pray for last. Beth prayed for Dad's health, that he will keep healthy and be able to have a meaningful  rest on his monthly R and R with us at home on the PI at this time of the year. Enduring Enjoying two extreme weather conditions, he has been navigating between the Arctic and the Tropic regions by airplane like a ping-pong ball every 28 days for the last 9 months!

We all understand that keeping healthy on extreme weather conditions like this is a gift from our Heavenly Father, a grace to be received with a grateful heart. We've heard of news that there are some oil and gas workers that are not going back to their workplace due to the strict health requirements that the nature of their job is demanding them. Thousands upon thousands of permafrost land areas are sitting in the oil-rich peninsula. The seeming danger. Anything could happen there. But the Lord holds everything in place on the palm of His hands. Thus, we're all standing!

Then, there's Noah; he prayed for Dad to have many, many, many more birthdays to come so we can always celebrate it together with him. We get him, a tweener. We get her, a teener. So, the word "celebrate" for us at this stage on our family age has taken a different form. To "celebrate" for us at this time is...staying up sooo late at night to binge-watch our family-approved Netflix programs like The Crown and Designated Survivor; tickling and assaulting each other with occasional gas and rubbing of snots on the side.

To "celebrate" for us means we're taking our time recalling the fun things that got stuck in our heads in the past like the road trips we've had during the summer while Eraserheads blasted from the car stereo, or the food trips we've had to the mushrooming hole-in-the-wall restos and coffee shops in Batangas province; moments that have gone by in a snap of a finger. As we relish our bygone moments, we also looked forward to the opportunity of planning and creating new ones; just the happy memories when we can because we thought that the world media has portrayed a lot of bad scenarios of today already. Let's just leave it at that.

We're not hurrying, we take our time remembering what our family ought to be thankful to the Lord for. One by one; the forks, the spoons, the plates, the rice, the ulams; the broken AC units during the summertime, the leaking faucets and shower heads, five in all, that I have tried replacing which I did with flying colors; the busted tires; the mundane things. Are we to exaggerate thankfulness? Are we to overdo gratefulness? Yes and Yes...because it is when we recall, when we recount e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. that surrounds our daily grind, our orbit changes from "me-centered" to "Christ-centered". We become aware of the bigness of our God and realize that he is in control of every single situation in our lives.

So, when we do "celebrate" as a family, it could simply mean that we're remembering family events, even without the fancy food fare and table spreads to go with the occasion. We carefully listen to each other verbalize our moments. Everyone is ecstatic when we foster an atmosphere of thankfulness and gratefulness in the home. 

My turn to pray for the birthday celebrator came. I simply said without even premeditating my thoughts, I did not want to overthink, unfiltered...

"Thank You, Lord, that 45 years ago, You have made this world a better place to live in when Ulderico, Jr., my would-be husband (of course unbeknownst to me 😍 ), the would-be father of our future children was born on earth; not that he would be some sort of a salvador or an artista someday whose face will grace the headlines of the news; but he was born for a greater purpose which is to honor You; that he would be Your extension of Your own hands and feet; that he would be Your example of grace walking the earth; though flawed, whose temperament is one that is choleric that often clashes with the mel-sang (melancholic-sanguine) that I am, yet I stole his heart; he would be an example of Your working miracle on an individual; of how a spiritual leader, nameless in our small world, should lead his family, totally imperfect and rough around the edges, whose tongue could lash out hailstones and brimstones when provoked, yet he is walking the talk, leading a blameless life; because being blameless does not mean being perfect but being in a posture of full surrender to YOU, keeping no secrets from YOU, to the One Who bought us with a price; as he is just as committed to a life of transparency to me and our children, though he was not born like this; that he would be an example of how, by Your grace, You can use the same person to boldly share the gospel to his colleagues and to our Uber drivers on our random trips elsewhere. He models it to our children and to ME, the hard-to-please me." 

By God's grace, he is ALL these, the introvert my opposite but The Rock in our family, and again, my opposite. And for this, the earth is a better place, because one imperfect person is living his purpose, to follow Christ, even when it's not always easy; to lead our children to know Christ and to follow Him as well; to lead me and disciple me as his wife, even if it's not always easy. 

I forgot how I ended my prayer for Rico that night. But I slept thru the night with a smile on my cheeks knowing that as husband and wife, we are one, spoken words of affirmation is like a soothing balm to both our souls. Maybe I ought to do this more often. I will definitely do this more often. I will not speak "death" to Rico by my snarky comments in reaction to his ways but instead I will speak life to him even when it's not his birthday.