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The first part of this Bacolod travelogue appears in my column Emotional Weather Report today in the Star. Read that first.

The next morning I had breakfast at the hotel, checked out, and gave my talk at La Salle. It went well, I think, at least no one fell into a coma of boredom. Then we all had a humongous lunch at Aboy’s with Mark’s friends. (There were artistas at the next table, in town for a mall tour.) We had laing, scallops, tuna belly, talaba, liempo, sinigang na bangus, and durian ice cream (7 people, P2,000). I tore myself from the table before I imploded.

For pasalubong shopping Mark brought us to Bong Bong’s, where I got piaya (P37 a pack, different flavors) and barquirones (barquillos with milk powder, P37), mascobado rocks (evil candy, P49 a jar) and the napoleones of world domination (P130 for a box of 12)–you eat them, the sugar high makes you start thinking you’re Napoleon, you try to conquer the world. Then we looked at local crafts at the Negros Showroom–you can never have enough crocheted drinking glass holders–and had just enough time for an espresso at Cafe Uma before it was time to go to the airport. (Ige stayed on, to eat his way across Negros.)

The PAL flight to Manila was two hours late. Two hours I would’ve spent eating. I stuck around the airport and watched three episodes of Fawlty Towers on my iPod.