VALE: BILL SULLIVAN

It is with immense sadness I advise of the passing away of my dear family friend Bill Sullivan.

Bill was always my driving force in the 'Philippine Railway Historical Society', he was always a very supportive friend and no more generous and kind hearted man has ever graced the planet.

A proper memorial will soon be written - for the moment I am just to upset to even think.

RIP - Bill, our great loss is heavens great gain.

Brad

~~ KAPAMILYA FIESTA 2010 ~~
Pt 2

As the evening wore on, the doors were opened for people to flood the hall in anticipation of a great evenings entertainment, with a mixture of local entertainers and some well known celebrities from back in the Philippines.

Dennis Padilla opened the show with a couple of hours endless promoting of ABS-CBN and other companies, seperate by brief periods of entertainment and competitions that lead to more advertising.

Derek Ramsay also starred on the night, along with his extremely stunning girlfriend Angelica.

Cynthia, Rajin (yawning) and Latrell (looks already asleep) watch the evenings entertainment.

Our mate Bernie during a competition with Dennis Padilla during one of the competitions.

But most important of the evening, from the aswangs personal opinion, was Ms Angelica Panganiban. One of the cutest that the Philippines has to offer, she sung, was funny and even tried her best to imitate Aussie's.

The night was complete.

~~ KAPAMILYA FILIPINO FIESTA ~~

Part 1

Starting a little late in the day at 4pm, it was a reluctant 'Aussie Aswang' that dragged his arse parts off the couch and across the suburbs to Randwick Racecourse for the ABS-CBN organised Kapamilya Fiesta.
Despite our early arrival, the queue for the main entertainment was already huge. Not to surprising with the delicious Angelica Panganiban making up part of the all star lineup, that also included Derek Ramsey (Angelica's boyfriend and natural enemy of anyone who wished they were :-) ), Gabby Conception and some somewhat lesser known names, at least to me.

Outside from the main entertainment, which really was mostly a 4 hour advertisment for ABS-CBN and any other company that forked out some pesos to put it on, were a number of stalls selling everything from Pepsi to Balikbayan boxes.
Twas here that you started bumping into nearly all the Filipino community you have ever known, the good, the bad and the pondscum. Within four hours, with a few notable exceptions, I had managed to catch up with a vast cross section of people from my last 14 years in the community. In most cases this was welcome.

Surprisingly, attendance of the fiesta was a very easy affair.

Free and easy parking at the racecourse had us dumping the car and inside within minutes. None of the usual bollocking around that goes with events like this.

Good lord - you would think it was a U2 concert.

Head over to the happy people on the registration desk and sign in to have your chance to drool over Angelica - or indeed Derek and Gabby if so inclined.

The queue for the toilet, following excessive consumption of chicken sticks and Siopao, was pretty hard going.

This lovely attendee must have been expecting rain.

Tin Tin was wondering what all the commotion was about, but was more than satisfield with her latest toy.

Yes, well you don't just come to see the food.

Our mate, and fellow store owner, Maurice is extremely busy serving on the Pasalubong stand.

Catching up with Mr GoTalk, the keeper of well priced and quality phone cards.

Hopefully that plug is worth some freebies.

The LBC stand who were substanially more helpful than there customer service help line :-)

Maurice with another load of frozen goodies.

Coming in Part 2 - Later this week.

Our mate Bernie on stage, some of the entertainers (if the photos have come out), and quite possibly another cutie or two.