incessant rambling

Most fiestas in the Philippines has taken on a very commercial tone with pageants, diskoral, perya as standard activities on top of the usual novena, mass service and procession. A classic example is the Sinulog in Cebu City although the pre-parade activities are usually very solemn. I had the opportunity to join the sakay sakay (fluvial procession) in Naga to honor Mother Mary, it's an old story that i wrote about almost a year ago. nothing changed much, the Lady is taken from her home in Barangay Tuyan and brought to the sea where it boards a boat and sets off to the port of the Poblacion in Naga City where they go on a procession to the main church.  The reverse happens and they end up in Tuyan parish church where they also hold another procession. For those that are not familiar with the story, the image of the Lady was found on top of a floating plank off the coast of Tuyan where the natives brought it in and enshrined it in a small chapel. At one point, th...

the Cebuano market is very finicky, if you want to see if your dream of pinoy gustatory domination will work then you should try setting up in Cebu City.  a number of restaurants have set up their operations here only to close down or downscale business due to low patronage. yes, we are still enamored by the usual brand thing and most of us would troop to the newest national/gobal brand that opens shop in the City.  if you account for the market that actually goes out to eat, that would give you about a year or a year and a half max to sustain your operations. not enough to cover your return of investment. the only way to survive is to adapt and learn the ubiquitous Sugbuano Rating System when it comes to restuarants. when Cebuanos eat out, the first question that majority asks is "Pila?" (Price?), and if the price is within a certain budget they next ask "Dako?" (Big Portion?) and followed by "Lami?" (Delicious?) which is sadly, the last consid...

I totally blame my new Asus Transformer tablet.  i haven't been writing (writing with effort, not just to get something in my blog) seriously for the past few months and as a result i have a esfektakular (this is another story,  a person i know, and many of you probably don't know,  refuses to pronounce "spectacular" properly) pile of pictures and stories that make up my fabulous life. I have been practically travelling every weekend, throw in a trip to Vietnam, Hong Kong and Macau, mixed in with local Cebu travel to Camotes, Tabogon, Danao and Barili. I also managed to insert some travel time to Bacolod where i rediscovered the beauty of Bago City's waterfalls. Camotes was specially fun as i spent a weekend exploring spooky caves, gorgeous beaches and lakes with my very dear friends. Last weekend alone I was in Manila to visit family and see friends, had a mega humongous burger in the Sunday Legazpi Weekend Market, oblivious to the raving of ...

i am honestly thinking twice before letting you all in this secret. possibly the best kept secret of San Francisco in Camotes. i mean, every day, a bit of paradise is lost and the usual culprit would be me, you, the tourists. we discover a spot of heaven on earth and before you know it, a karaoke joint is set up right smack in the middle of nowhere. of course that's being melodramatic, but you probably get my point. and i hope, i sincerely hope, that it's going to take years, decades before anyone decides they want a piece of bakhaw and turn it into boracay. no disrespect for boracay, i've had my share of good memories of the place, but bakhaw brings me back to the days when things were simpler, quieter and one gets a sense of being one with nature. one way to get to bakhaw is to rent one of the motorbikes that ply their service near the standard resorts in camotes. alternately, you can rent out a jeep for the day and make bakhaw part of your iti...

okay, that's a line from Temptation Island. beaches are in and definitely there are no bitches in Camotes (except for the native dogs that run free along the shores of Santiago Bay). this one is a continuation of the Enchanting Camotes post where we started the tour with Bukilat cave.  Cebu has some amazing beaches (and biatches - but that's another story) that line the coastal roads as well as the component islands that make up the province (gilutongan, sta. rosa, pandanon, bantayan, camotes etc) and a lot of debate about which beach is the best. moalboal, badian, bantayan, malapascua, sumilon, san remigio all claim to have the best natural beach front.  i've been to all these places but the best beaches are in san francisco, camotes. imagine pristine, white, sugary sandy shoreline with waters shaded azure, green and pale blue. The other places have varying degrees of this "description" but what sets the beaches of Camotes apart from the other p...

Bukilat Cave, Tudela, Poro Island, Camotes, Cebu unplanned trips are usually the best. it was close to midnight when the group decided they wanted to go to Camotes the following day. and when I say "following day", that means we should be in the RoRo (Roll On, Roll Off) seaport by 4:30AM so we can reserve a car space in the boat. which means we had less than three hours to get some sleep, pack our sunblock and get ready for the trip. needless to say, Ron woke up late around 3:30AM and i ended up driving the car (after a couple of red bull) after we picked up andrew. any last vestige of sleepiness quickly disappeared as ron and andrew shrieked while i raced, skidded, flew over potholes and bumps and practically flew to Danao from Cebu City. a little under 30 minutes and we were able to make it at 4:30AM to meet up with the rest of the gang. nobody told me that we didn't have to be there THAT early as the other group could have reserved or slot. oh well. i...

some of the local kids hamming it up by the spring ask any cebuano about what they know of tabogon and some wouln't even be able to pinpoint it in the map. for most, it is one of many coastal towns on their way to san remigio, or daan bantayan before they get on a boat for the more popular bantayan islands. so you probably understand why i was hesitant to go to tabogon when an officemate asked me if i wanted to spend the weekend in their town. it doesn't help that the town offers very minimal options where to stay. at the end, my curiosity got the better of me as I've never really fully explored the northern part of the province and i thought that this would be a good opportunity to discover more of my adopted home. i hope i can share my joy in discovering little bits of paradise called tabogon through these pictures. the inviting Fresh Water Spring of Guiwanon guiwanon flows into a stream that goes into the ocean, mangroves frame the sides of the stream ...