eating tagaytay

Why do people go to Tagaytay? I suppose some go in search of cooler climes, and it's much closer to Manila than Baguio. Sadly, nowadays I find that the temperature is much more comfortable inside the shopping malls. Because of global warming, there's no place cool enough anymore in our part of the tropics.

Others go for the scenery, I guess. As volcanoes go, Taal Volcano is pretty unique and eenteresting. It's the smallest in the world, it's in the middle of a lake that still has fish in it, and yez, it is active.

View from Buon Giorno. Looks a little like a belly button. Or a weird nipple.

But, me? I go to Tagaytay to eat at Antonio's.

we did it all

I was only a year old when my parents first took me to Cebu. Of course I don't remember anything from that particular trip, but since I have family there, I was able to visit a few more times as I got older. I have some sepia-toned memories of people and places, but mostly I remember sensations and emotions. I remember feeling that Cebu was old.

Now I realise that there are different kinds of old. For example, Bacolod is elegant and stately old. Iloilo is decaying but magnificent old. The Cordillera Region is ancient, pre-historic old.

Cebu, for me, is mothball old. I've been thinking about Cebu a lot lately, hence the recent geriatric blog posts. It feels like I'm a little DB again, hiding in a heavy wooden wardrobe-- old-fashioned and full of secrets.

On our third and final day in Cebu, we hopped on a jeepney, got off at Cebu Business Park and were swept along by hundreds of mallers towards Ayala Center Cebu. 

The Terraces at Ayala Center Cebu is sort of like Cebu's Narnia.

all in the mind

More Sunday paper gems.

These are by the fabulous Filipino cultural icon Gilda Cordero-Fernando, who writes the column "Forever 81" for senior citizens, and for those who will become senior citizens someday. I honestly don't hope to grow as old as she is now, but if I do, then she is definitely my guru.

"To my contemporaries: Make young friends now, before it's too late. They will take the place of those who have gone to pasture... But don't push it. Never try too hard to relate to the young. Relax, just be yourself. Don't try to dress young if you feel like 80. Don't dress like 80 if you feel like 30. It's a matter of getting your looks and your outlook to match."

Really old building in Cebu City, 7:42AM on 10 October 2011.

reeling in the years

It rained on and off the whole day in Cebu City on 11 October 2011. Which really wasn't a problem. Most people go to Cebu for the beaches, but that doesn't appeal too much to me. After all, I live on an island with the most famous beach in the Philippines.

Instead, I accompanied Bunny Rabbit on his trip down memory lane. First stop, the Cebu campus of the University of the Philippines. Apparently, not much has changed since the 1970s.

The outdoor art was new... or newish. Well, they weren't there 34 years ago.

sunday workout

Ah, the Sunday paper. It's the only issue I read nowadays. On weekdays, I get my news either online or from a ticker running on the bottom of my TV screen. But there's something about Sunday that evokes-- or even demands-- the nostalgia of an old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness newspaper made of real paper. I spend many leisurely hours happily opening and folding piles and piles of grubby newsprint (because on Sundays, periodicals attempt to drown us in paper), just absorbing the myriad of wonderful ideas and events that seem to proliferate only on Sundays.

It is my firm belief that writers who are published in the Sunday paper are smarter, communicate better and are more relevant. They are less frivolous than the rest of the week's so-called serious journalists. They write about things that really matter (so trite, I know... but true) and the stuff that challenges the mind, feeds the soul and makes life worth living from Monday to Saturday. They're the people I would kill to be stuck on a desert island with: Jessica Zafra, Scott Garceau, Patricia Evangelista, Louie Cruz, Ruben V. Napales, Adel Tamano, Gilda Cordero Fernando and Chit Roces, just to name a few.

Last Sunday, 6 November 2011, F Sionil Jose wrote The Man who Holds a Candle: Cesar Virata in the Marcos Regime for The Philippine Star.

Basilico del Santo Niño, Cebu City, Philippines. 10 October 2011, 7:25AM.

pigging out in cebu

Dizizit! Marketman's Zubuchon is the primary reason I went to Cebu on 10 October 2011. Really.

Because he said so.

I was astonished that the hotel concierge and the front office staff of Crowne Regency Cebu had no idea what Zubuchon was or where it was located. This is the most famous pig in the world we're talking about here-- endlessly touted and feted on the World Wide Web-- and they had never heard of it.

why i love tony

Does he eat the best parts first, or does he save them for last? "Eat the best first. Because you never know. You might stroke out in the middle of dinner."

eaten by a fish

What can you do in Cebu if you arrive at 7AM and you can't check into your hotel yet?

Go visit the Basilica del Santo Niño. The little garden in the courtyard is quite nice.