After breakfast and an unusually hard rain, complete with lightning we take a trip.
It's just about 4 pm and I'm looking for a cheap distraction for the next few hours.
We are very close to some nice places here but we always go there and I'd like to explore a bit today.
The MRT is cheap and runs through some territory that we don't normally visit, why not take a little trip for a few hours?
Off we go. Tricycle to a Jeepny, Jeepny to the MRT station.
The goal in my mind is to ride the MRT to the outter reaches of the line or lines.
Today that means MRT down to Taft Ave then to catch the LRT and all the way up to Monumento.
Here is a quick link for the MRT
I'm a big fan of all of the public rail system here. It's cheap, air conditioned and the tracks are above the street level much of the time so I can look out the windows in amazement at those strange things that are out there.
Today we enter at Guadalupe.
The train rolls to a stop and the doors open. A uniformed man works his way out of the railcar with an M16 with a tac-sling. It's a very dark green but not black uniform.
Right hand over the reciever, left hand over the muzzle he wiggles through a gang of people boarding the railcar, trying not to push the weapon into anyone.
He breaks free from the crowd and disappears in seconds.
"I wonder how effective someone with an M16 could possibly be in such a crowded situation" I say to my wife.
Then after thinking a moment agree in my mind that it's probably a deterrant by showing force.
It's surely a strange thing for me to see. I'm not fearful of these soldiers and SWAT people, it just seems very unusual.