Posts archived in Home & Family

3 comments

May 18, 2010

Bohol Trip w/ Family 2010 (Part 2)

A standard landscape snapshot of the Chocolate Hills in Carmen, Bohol, taken from the viewdeck where all the other thousands of tourists take their snapshots

Our second day in Bohol was spent going around the usual tourist spots in the province. With just a day, we could only cover so much.

Our first destination was the world-famous Chocolate Hills, a two hour drive from Panglao Island. It started to drizzle while we were on the way to Carmen, Bohol where many of the hills are located. The hills, numbering more than a thousand, are actually spread over two other municipalities in the center of the island province. Named Chocolate Hills because of their Kisses-like shape and their brown color during the summer, they were apparently formed through thousands of years of tidal and land movements.

Thankfully, the skies cleared up a bit just as we arrived at the hill with the tourist view deck, just in time for a few snapshots. There were hundreds of local and foreign tourists, too. The hike up the hill can be very tiring. There is a zig-zag concrete ramp up the hill for those who can’t take hiking up a hundred or more steps straight up.

Along the highway from Tagbilaran to the Chocolate Hills in Carmen, Bohol, a few hectares of tall mahogany trees make for a beautiful and serene route. Located in the town of Bilar, the trees were artificially planted as part of an environmental project in the 60's of then-President Carlos Garcia, himself a son of Bohol

Read the rest of this entry »

0 comments

January 20, 2010

Sinulog 2010

Held annually on January in Cebu City, the Sinulog Festival is one of Cebu’s claim-to-fame fiestas, which attracts tens of thousands of tourists from across the country and overseas.

Sinulog is traditionally Cebu’s version of the national day of celebration for pilgrims and devotees of the child Jesus or the Santo Nino which is on the third Sunday of January. As they do in many other parts of the Philippines that celebrate the fiesta, devotees hold religious processions to the church and hold feasts in households and various establishments. In Cebu, they do the “sinulog” dance, characterized by a two-step forward one-step backward dance, that is said to originate from some historical event. In 1980 the city government of Cebu initiated the now famous street dancing parade that attracts participants and tourists from all over.

2 comments

December 12, 2009

South Korea Trip ’09: Chogyesa & Geongbokgung, Seoul

November 8, 2009. We were booked on a half-day city tour of Seoul. I used to say I’m not a fan of packaged group tour itineraries. I still do. I dislike the feeling of being limited by a schedule or a route prepared by some other person. To make things a little more unpleasant, it was raining the entire morning in Seoul.

Our first destination was a Buddhist temple in the center of Seoul called Chogyesa. The temple, although relatively new compared to other temples having been built only in 1910, plays a major role in Korean Buddhism. It was the headquarters of Korean Buddhism during the Japanese occupation. Because it is within the city center of Seoul, the temple is more accessible to tourists and devotees than other temples in Korea, although that would also mean it doesn’t offer as serene an atmosphere for genuine meditation perhaps.

Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul

Geongbokgung is like the Forbidden City of Beijing, only smaller, but large nonetheless. It’s the grandest among the “five palaces” complex built by Korea’s Joseon Dynasty. It used to house the royal family of Korea. One of Seoul’s most famous tourist destinations, hordes of tourists were still present despite the rain. Visitors are supposed to witness an hourly changing-of-the-guards ceremony but since it was drizzling, the show was canceled. Our trip to Geongbokgung was capped by a visit to the National Folk Museum within the same complex.

Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul
Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul Geongbokgung, Seoul
One of the things I really dislike about packaged tour itineraries is that they always include a trip to a commercial tourist trap. In places my family has visited like Hong Kong, Beijing and Singapore and I’m sure in many other East Asian cities, these commercial tourist traps are either jewelry stores or herbal medicine shops (which includes tea stores). In Seoul, we were herded to a ginseng complex. And like all other tourist traps like it, the trip was complete with sales people talking you into buying expensive “exclusive” merchandise.

The group tour incuded lunch at a restaurant in Itaewon, still in Seoul. After having another Korean meal, we broke off from the group tour and went to another tour, this time to a Korean folk village theme park around an hour away from the city.

1 comments

October 3, 2009

Kailan talaga birthday ko?

Tisay celebrated her fourth birthday last Monday. We had planned to spend Sunday in a theme park, but since the metro was still reeling from the aftermath of tropical storm Ondoy, we decided to have a simple feast of Chinese food at home. We had a small sansrival cake for Tisay but we even forgot to buy proper birthday cake candles, so we made do with a medium-sized wax candle.

Tisay’s understanding of “birthday” unfortunately, is of a party, so all along up until today she doesn’t believe it was her birthday. She insists that she still has to celebrate her “birthday” distinct from the simple celebration we had last weekend. If the weather permits, we will push through with our trip to the theme park this weekend. I think she even expects to give a blow-out bash to her kindergarten classmates.

3 comments

August 2, 2009

Lolo Roming (1925-2009)

Last week, my last surviving grandparent also succumbed to his failing health. He’d been confined for almost a month at the intensive care unit of a hospital in Manila and since then been bedridden in his home for weeks. He died on the evening of July 22.

That weekend, after my last class on Saturday afternoon, I drove to our upland southern Cavite hometown of Amadeo (by myself, for the first time), with my cousin, to join the rest of the extended family at the wake and interment of Lolo Roming.

I was, to be honest, never really that close to my grandfather. I would always remember him as a stiff person who doesn’t talk much. Though, at the same time, I don’t know any other man who is as sentimental and who cries as much as him. A peculiar mix of characteristics, I think. In his last years, he would often cry on the spot upon seeing relatives visiting him or cry even in the middle of conversations among his children.

He was, for around a dozen years, an elementary school teacher in Tagaytay. He is largely remembered by many, however, as Col. Villanueva, Tagaytay’s Chief of Police for almost three decades. (It escapes me how one becomes a chief of police straight from being an elementary school teacher, I still have to ask my elder relatives). One time we were buying fruits from among the elder fruit vendors in Tagaytay, and it was quite amusing how the women suddenly remarked how my father looked like hepe, for indeed he was Col. Villanueva’s son.

Despite the heavy rains that day, the ceremony continued with the family, relatives and townspeople finally walking the casket to the town cemetery in the afternoon.

On the picture above is my father, myself, and my grandfather, during my first birthday.

« Older Entries