Manila Bulletin

Wishes for 2018 and beyond

- By IGNACIO R. BUNYE Note: You may e-mail us at totingbuny­e2000@gmail.com. You may also “like” us on Facebook at “Speaking Out.”

ABOUT this time, many of us try to recollect personal and family experience­s during the year just ended. It is also now that we renew resolution­s and express hope and wishes for the coming year.

As has been our tradition, our family – consisting of Mga Apo ni Terio at Titang Tapia of Victoria, Laguna (on my wife Mira’s side) – met for a Christmas lunch get-together. Attendees consisted of representa­tives from 4 generation­s, ages ranging from 8 to 80.

After lunch, my daughter Frannie presided over a parlor game which she called “Bayong List.” It consisted of each attendee listing down three wishes (in the order of preference) and dropping them in a tiny bayong.

The attendees were grouped into 3 with each group trying to correctly guess the person whose wish list was being read. The group with the most correct answers won a special prize.

We had so much fun trying to guess and later discoverin­g who made the wish list being read. On a personal level, I felt much closer to my relatives after knowing a little more about what they wished and aspired for.

As enumerated below, a good many expressed their wish to travel. But some surprised us with their “secret” desires.

Here is the Tapia Family “Bayong List”:

Foreign Travel: Travel around the world with family, multi-country trip with best friend, live in the countrysid­e in Japan, travel to Japan, visit New York, visit Europe, go to Israel, go to North Africa, go to South America, go to Morocco.

Special purpose travel: Walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela (mentioned 3 times), taste different beers around the world.

Exotic travel destinatio­ns: Visit the Aztecs, trip to Bhutan, trip to Nepal.

Special places: Oregon Gravity Falls, visit former Nazi concentrat­ion camps.

Local travel: Travel all over the Philippine­s, go to Batanes.

High Adventure: Go to Antartica, climb Mount Everest, hike to base camp of Mt. Everest, do the UTMB (Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc).

Ultra Sports: Join the Tour de France, try mix martial arts, try sky-diving.

Other Sports: Try out in Junior NBA, play as a rookie in a university, ride 100 km on bike, go sailing.

Want to watch: First Internatio­nal Hong Kong Race with Tim Yup,

watch NBA game live with family, watch OKC game, watch Potomac Labrador show

Secret passion: Be a Victoria Secret model, sing in front of an audience, to be able to sing a tune, dance in public, learn ballet, dance Argentinia­n tango, do welding.

Want to meet: Harry Styles, Kobe Bryant.

Want to own: A 1965 red convertibl­e Mustang, a Subaru Impieza, more dogs.

Want to ride: Ride the Concorde, flight deck ride on an Airbus A380, ride the PNR with friends, ride a glider plane.

Other wants/wishes: To write a book, to work with specially impaired children, to find The One, to be a successful person in the future, to be together with friends forever, to landscape burial plot of loved one, to have USA petition approved, to buy a Magic 8 ball, to ride a bicycle, to see snow, to swim with the dolphins.

May all or most of their wishes come true. But they have to work hard to realize them.

Happy New Year to one and all.

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