agra fort: other people's photos

We were in and out of Agra Fort in an hour and a half. It pained me to treat a UNESCO World Heritage Site like a McDonald's drive-through. It took about 20 minutes just to get from the entrance to the center of the complex. Our tour guide then gave us the super-short mandatory history lesson that I couldn't pay attention to because I just wanted to start shooting. When he finally let us go, the sun was setting and we had barely 40 minutes to see everything. Of course it wan't enough and I missed a lot of details.

Herein lies the advantage of traveling with a group of people who all have cameras and who don't mind giving copies of their stuff. Sharing is caring.

While going through everyone's JPEG files, I found out some things about my friends. Such as...

I now know that Jerry likes to take pictures of signs and maps, and he was the only one whose entryway and garden shots were properly exposed.

india: day one

Our Philippine Airlines flight left Manila at 6:40PM on 21 September 2012. With a stopover midway in Bangkok where we had to stay inside the plane while the clean-up crew did their business, we arrived at our hotel in Delhi, The Claridges Surajkund, about ten hours later, which to us was 5AM the next day.

We had to have breakfast, check out and board the coach by 9AM, Delhi time. Since Manila time is actually 2.5 hours ahead, it wasn't so bad because we still managed five hours of sleep. That didn't give me enough time to take decent pictures of our hotel, though. Suffice it to say that The Claridges had the nicest beds, bathrooms and toiletries of the five hotels that we stayed in. You'd think that it's not worth paying for five-star accommodations for such a short stay, but I really appreciated it after being contorted inside a plane for so long.

I was quite apprehensive when I saw our itinerary because all our meals would be at hotel coffee shop buffets, but our first breakfast was not bad at all. Half of the spread was Western or continental food, while the other section featured local eats. All of our meals turned out to be like that. Of course, I avoided the non-Indian dishes as much as possible.

A hearty and somewhat spicy breakfast put a smile on my face and prepared me for the five-hour drive to the city of Agra. All we saw of Delhi was the airport and our hotel, but it was fine because our flight back home would be from Delhi anyway and a city tour was included in our package.

Our tour guide said that we came to India at the right time because they had just completed the Yamuna Expressway which significantly cut travel time.

views from inside a bus

Before I start on India, let me get this out of the way first. I am cringing as I type this because I never thought that I would ever do something like this, but what's done is done...

I joined a package tour.

There are so many reasons I don't do package tours. I could go on and on, but my biggest beef is the complete lack of interaction with the local people. No, asking the tour guide insipid and asinine questions does not count.

Sunset at India Gate, New Delhi, 25 September 2012. We didn't even get off the bus.

food in the 'hood

Actually, it's my parents' neighborhood.

About ten minutes's drive from my folks' home is the Tomas Morato area which is where most Quezon City people go to eat.

Last week, I went to Amici for the first time. Taste-wise, the food was just average. Price-wise, Amici is kinda expensive. As a whole, I feel it's overrated.

Maybe in the good ol' days when Amici was the only authentic-ish Italian place in town, I wouldn't complain. But given the much-improved food scene now, I'd much rather spend my calories and moolah at Aria or Italiani's, or even Luna Ristorante Italiano in Camiguin.

Still, Amici seems like a nice, wholesome place to take the family. The menu is very safe and is sure to satisfy the pickiest eater. Kids will definitely like the gelato and cakes. I know I did.

Apple prosciutto salad with zesty lemon dressing, P188+. 3.5/5

Ragu alla Bolognese, P298+. 3.75/5

Prosciutto e portobello arrotolata (rolled pizza dough), P418+. 4/5

Mint chocolate gelato, P90+. 3.75/5

book 15

Speaking of my father... A friend of his wrote a memoir and invited him to the book launch on 27 September 2012. Too bad Pop and I were both out of town. Everyone who's anyone in this country was at that shindig. It would have been the perfect opportunity for people watching.

That friend is the president of the Philippine Senate. And the oldest living politician in the world, it seems.