Brownout chill

It started to rain hard, and I mean real hard, after a brownout! All of them lasted about an hour or so. Night time. Brownout. Flood. Some squirmy alien things squiggling under your feet. Life is great!

Featuring my favorite artist: Rodolfo Biglie

 

I thirst

It was a hot day and I was craving for something cold and sweet and healthy. I was thinking of Thirsty! but I did not like their bogus sticker promo.

Gilda pointed out to me that lonely yogurt stall in SM City Cebu called Frizberry. She claimed the strawberry yogurt was good. Indeed. Although the price is reasonable (80 pesos for small size, 100 for large), the place was desolate for lack of proper term. Maybe because Cebuanos are not into yogurt? Yet.

An additional 15 pesos for fresh fruits topping of your choice made it a wonderful treat. Other fruit sauces were available for toppings and were free.

Why don't you try it?

jEjeMoN

New treats at French Baker

Had a nice luncheon meeting with the DTI Director of Bohol at the French Baker in SM City Cebu. Aside from the heavy discussion about the coming Sandugo Festival in Bohol, we also had a lovely lunch.

I chose their vegetable spinach lasagna, a light lunch with mozzarella, roasted vegetables and ripe tomatoes served with a slice of foccacia. The food goes well with their version of a yogurt drink.

Healthy!

Pregnant Clouds

What happened to the MetroCentre Hotel in Tagbilaran?

I have been out of Bohol for quite  time and was back for a wedding of our friend over the weekend. Since the groom is our officemate and the owner is also a principal sponsor of the wedding, my company sponsored our rooms at the MetroCentre Hotel and Convention Center in Tagbilaran City.

Much to my dismay, the family room (Room 516) given to us was basically dirty. Skid marks of unknown origin and some other spots on the floor rug were clearly visible and looked like they were never cleaned up. The walls had several black markings like some evil child was having fun. Even the bath tub had rusts.

I used to know that MetroCentre is THE hotel choice for directors of the Department of Tourism when they go to Tagbilaran, even the former secretary of that department whose name evades me, loved the place.

What happened?

In fairness, the hotel still has that efficient service minus the confusion we had at the reception desk that took us a long time to check in. The officer there would not permit the wife of our company owner to fill up the form for her husband's room (intended for the boys).

The garden at the different floors were a nice addition to the concrete view of the city though.

I told the persons at the front desk and some waiters there but I think they would just dismiss my observations. I wish they would improve the cleanliness of their hotel.

And by the time I reach 80
I would have fallen in love with an entire city...
Most of the people we love, walking or dead,
are sometimes in the dust we sweep out on Sundays.
The trees always leave an instant mix,
Just add water
And we are still
Here,
Remembering even what we try to forget.
The once loved, the once loving,
The kept, the abandoned,
Finally making sense of it all.

27
Nerisa del Carmen Guevara


Picture grabbed from time.com

Exploring the night scene in Tacloban City

I was in Tacloban City lately and was quite amazed at how it has grown into a cosmopolitan city worthy of exploration. And in this time of the year where everything and everyone is glistening from the heat, the best way to explore the city is at night.

And so I did.

The newly opened Robinson’s Place is a good way to cool down. The mall literally changed this part of northern Leyte, and people flock there to become part of the Filipino multitude of mallrats.

Jose Karlo’s is a nice place to hang around. They have a good variety of coffee mixes and cakes and surprisingly, some pork rinds (chicharon) unknown to some coffee shops in Manila and Cebu. I wondered if they too would serve beer like Brewpoint in Tagbilaran who is known for the beer rather than coffee. But I did not ask.

After downing several cups, I received an invitation to have dinner at Brod Pitt (I forgot what street it is located but it is near Philhealth and Globe offices.) The place is not for celebrities despite its namesake but the ambiance is casual and homely.

For 600 pesos, a combo meal of rice, a slab of pork barbecue, chicken and corn soup, sizzling bangus, pinakbet, turon (banana) and four glasses of iced tea is justifiable enough. The bangus is good (we requested that the bangus be fried only and not put in a sauce) with the vegetable trimmings still crunchy and not overcooked. Their pinakbet also is unbelievably nice. The turon is perfect to end the meal, the banana is wrapped and fried together with a generous amount of langka and dozed with caramelized sugar and sesame seeds.

The next stop is at the Leyte Convention Center. The center is a new addition to this prosperous city. The lower ground floor is converted into commercial stalls, as is the trend now of local governments to earn more income. Several bars find their way here and people come flocking at night. A good way to see and be seen in Tacloban.

El Marino Restobar is a good place to hang out. Loud music, young crowd and cheap Red Horse. A 50 pesos entrance fee is an excuse to stay outside and feel instead the sea breeze coming in from the boulevard. Also staying outside means you can see people and be besieged by ambulant vendors selling peanuts right in your face.

The last time I was in Tacloban, night life is almost zero with just a few bars catering to the dirty old men types. Schooner is an example.

But now you actually have a choice. A good choice.

Viva Italia!

I was invited for a photo shoot for new food products in their menu in an Italian restaurant in Tacloban City. Sadly, I was left famished with the shoot because all their food has pork on them.

Night and day, day and night

A few shots taken by my Sony Ericsson during a friend's birthday at the Mountain View Resort in Busay, Cebu, some 500 meters or so above sea level.

And a few hours after, when the sun started to rise, I was at Supercat Terminal for a weekend trip to Leyte and Samar.

Sex (education) in the City

There is an ongoing brouhaha regarding the move of the Department of Education (DepEd) to teach Sex Education in the schools in the Philippines, specifically the elementary level so that the younger generation will have an informed knowledge about the subject rather than learning it from the standbys in the streets.

The brouhaha came from the Roman Catholic Church, actually. The very vocal antagonist on the move justified its opposition by saying that the DepEd would have to show them how sex education should be taught in the schools before they will stop nagging their opposition. Or so it seems. 

Very alarming, according to Cardinal Vidal, Cebu's archbishop. He insisted that it is the responsibility of the parents and guardians to teach the subject of sex to their children. Like the one we heard about bees and birds when we were younger. Very 2000 late!

But my opinion on this matter is that, once again, the Church just shows its hypocritical stand on anything sexual like having it is an abomination worthy of hell. They still live in their palatial convents and ride in luxurious cars that they don't know what is going on outside. Maybe that and more are some of the reasons why priests molest their parishioners, some young children, because they need to be taught about sex. And not hiding the molesters from the public only to molest again. 

About 200 out of the 7,000 priests in the country may have committed sexual misconduct, according to a post in Wikipedia.org. (A detailed post on this so-called sexual misconduct can be read by following this link- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases.) Should the Church worry on this instead?

Maybe the Department of Education should start their sex education curriculum in the seminaries all around the country?

Poster grabbed from advertising1110.info