incessant rambling

PRINCESA BULAKNA early morning scene in princesa bulakna, locals go out to pick  shells (locally referred to as sisi) that are usually attached to coral stones the tour started in Princesa Bulakna resort in the town of Maria where i was billeted the previous day. Reminder to self: don't forget the resort orientation and the seasonal wind direction. if that sounded cryptic, here's a quick summary, resorts on the north-eastern side during Amihan (trade wind, north east direction from September-October to May-June)  will generally have rough waters and debris on their shoreline, and in the same manner, when the Habagat winds come in, the south-western side resorts should be avoided. early morning, locals head out to collect sisi low tide early in the morning, waters are rough and waves are big. during calmer season,  princesa bulakna has a gorgeous snorkeling front as it is a marine sanctuary a clear sunday morning from Princesa Bulakna we travel...

GETTING THERE The best way to get to Siquijor is to take a ferry from Dumaguete City in Negros Oriental. Direct flights from Manila and Cebu are available via a number of options. Alternately, you can take a direct boat trip from Cebu to Siquijor via Oceanjet in Cebu City Pier 1 but there is only one trip at 3:30PM (check the oceanjet website for schedules) and you arrive in Siquijor at around 9PM. A better option is to take the 6AM Oceanjet boat from Cebu to Dumaguete - you arrive at around 11AM and you choose boat options heading to Siquijor. at most you should be in Siquijor by around 2PM - 3PM, enough time to enjoy the beach. there are various boats heading to dumaguete during the day, if you intend to go straight to Cebu, there is only one Oceanjet boat that leaves Siquijor at 6AM daily and you arrive in Cebu at around 12 noon. GETTING AROUND Boats dock in Siquijor Port and you can make arrangements for the hotel to pick you up from the port or you can arran...

the main counter, japanese carinderia, plastic tables and seats, affordable prices and great food all around! i did promise myself that i was going to go through the whole menu of Joed's Lutong Hapon and try to order everything in the list. so far i'm making rather quick progress as i end up going back to the place at least once a week. i was hoping to have lunch with Amale and Noy as he wanted to try out the place, kids and school got in the way so it was just me and Amale for lunch. that shouldn't be a spoiler for the good food we ordered. steamed mackerel sushi with ginger and parsley, surprisingly light and fresh! Amale got the steamed sushi mackerel that looked rather malansa (or fishy, i mean it IS a fish, it looked like it smelled like a fish, wait, i'm getting confused myself, you know what i mean). the dollop of grated ginger on top of each cube was probably added to take away that malansa aftertaste. surprisingly, it didn't taste mal...

frustration is a bad thing. in this case, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. i was craving for this particular lasagna in bleep bleep (you'll understand why i can't name the resto in a bit) and decided to drop by the resto with santa's helpers after a rather drawn out meeting with our client. too bad, the lady told me they were out of stock, too bad that was my second attempt to drive all the way to that place just for that. it's that popular and the friggin funny thing is that it is supposed to be a COFFEE shop. well, if you know me well enough you'd understand that i'm not a coffee person. so there, i'm not going to promote the COFFEE shop just because it increases the probability they'd run out of the lasagna, again! santa's assitants, sweeter than the sweets?!?! we ended up in Fudge along A.S. Fortuna as Santa's assistants were craving for the cheesecake delight, apparently they loved the smooth combination of cheesecake ...

i had lunch with karen and anne in metro gourmet and in the middle of our animated conversation (yes, we wave our hands a lot and we do a lot of play acting to emphasize a point during our conversation) i heard someone say "hi excuse me..." i quickly glanced behind me and saw an old caucasian fellow looking at us, i turned around to motion for karen and anne that the guy probably wanted to talk to them. as it turned out, he was actually trying to get my attention. great, if i hear any annoying complaint about my two blabber mouth friends... as it turned out, he just wanted to strike a conversation and the first thing he said was: "are you from here?" that sort of confused me, didn't expect that. "uh, what do you mean if i'm from here?" "was just wondering if you're filipino, you don't look like a typical filipino." great, just my luck, that would have to be the dumbest pick up line. "i'm part filipin...

the metro gourmet, basement of metro ayala, ayala center, cebu city pag sosyal ka, you go to tinder box and order your deli choices, if you're sosyal and you want to look for a less obvious dining destination, you head to "the pantry" in "the gallery" to get your deli selection. if you are makamasa (in short, the proletariat) and still want deli deli, you head to the "metro gourmet" at the basement of Metro Ayala in Ayala Center, Cebu. me and a couple of proletariat friends waiting for our order, sosyal kami ano. that's anne on the left and karen . a counter displays cheeses, sausages, hams from the united nations. what most people don't know, you can actually order and have it grilled, pan fried, seared or quickly cooked and have the deli deli with your choice of bread or as the usual pinoys do, like me of course, you have your deli deli with rice. i had the canadian honeyed ham, perfect amount of fat and just a tinge of swe...

what's the best thing to do after a movie? duh, eat. i was rather ravenous after catching "A Mother's Story", o wag na umangal, e idol ko si pokwang eh. but i digress, back to my rumbling tummy. Uncle Noodles, One Mango i had the craving for crunchy crispy chicken isul, otherwise known as the fleshy protrusion at the base of the spine, aka chicken ass, butt and pwet. sunburst is closed late at night and the only other place that served chicken isul is the Orange Brutus branch in Fuente Circle.  parking, traffic, tourists and all things sinulog forced me to rethink my options and i ended up in Uncle Noodles in One Mango, which might be my second option but definitely turned out to be the better one. let me swerve a bit and talk about the Peranakan culture, a marriage of chinese and malay influences more commonly found in singapore and malaysia. a prime example of this would be the famous laksa noodle soup that fuses curry coconut soup with rice noodle...