happy new year too ...

Manila, PH -- Just before the new year 2008

welcome to your late twenties

Manila, PH -- hello everyone. it's christmas day & i'm trying to recover from the past weekend's late nights. i refuse to believe it's because i'm getting old. i just need to pop some multivitamins.
i literally want to count my blessings so here goes another thank-you list for what i got on my birthday:

1. a pocket calendar
2. rolls of film for my analog soul
3. home-baked apple pie, shared with pepper

lovely ladies

4. 'american psycho' by bret easton ellis (because i "will love the violence")
5. a portuguese phrase book
6. liquor

jan working it

7. cash from the 'rents
8. a nightshirt copy of my old highschool uniform (go st. scho)

dj newbie

9. ivy & bloc party cds from sparklemind (waiting for that other gift...)

10. a graphic tee that says 'i love the '80s' (from my entrepreneur brother -
he just forgot to charge me)

satisfied partygoers

11. a chocolate birthday cake
12. a nice italian dinner courtesy of our favorite bahia native, marcos
13. getting to DJ with jan for a little bit (daft punk, kala & mark farina!)
14. a staple remover (this one i'll always remember)

dj f (or how to actually spin while looking the part)

and so another birthday has come and gone. as that youngblood writer wrote before, a lot of beautiful, absurd & difficult things have come my way. i'm past the quarterlife crisis (paging john mayer) but it seems like i'm just starting.

this year sure has been one big rollercoaster ride... i hope i have enough energy for next year's theme park surprises.

merry christmas, everyone!

* lomos by pepper

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!

La-la land, Pseudobackpackers' world --

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR DEAR PSEUDOBACKPACKERS JOY AND RISA !

Please share with us how you spent your special day!

I miss you all. Hey, Joy, Jan and Justine (the 3 J's), haven't heard from you in a while. Please update us about your life in your corner of the world.

Guess what

Harbor City, CA -- Ok, ok.. I know I’ve been missing in action for the past few months. Yes, it’s true, I had been studying, fixing my papers after passing the exams (thank God ), learning how to make home-cooked meals but most of all I’ve been busy taking care of myself for this tiny human being inside me=)


While I’m not sure if I’ll be able to have the month long South America adventure with the rest of the pseudobackpackers, I’ll be happy to entertain you in case you’ll have a stop over here in L.A. I guess I’ll have a driver’s license by that time.

So Ditas, here’s the entry you’ve been waiting for. As what you said, it’s time for the world to know. =)

pseudobackpacker guide to vietbodia (vietnam & cambodia)

Siem reap/Pnom Penh/Saigon, VIETBODIA --Here's a rough guide on pseudobackpacking in Vietbodia :

VIETBODIA'S BEST
BEST FOOD: Little India located at Bar St.(if you're American)/Pub St.(if you're European), Siem Reap
What to get: Paratha, babaganoush, spicy dips, mango lassi
Food place in the middle of the market in Saigon, Vietnam
What to get: Pho, Pho, Pho...ever! The best pho! I highly recommend the vegetarian pho!



BEST PLACE TO GET DRINKS, DANCE AND CHERVA WITH HAWKS (some with white tube socks): Angkor What?!?
What to get: Hmmmm..what did we drink there? Too drunk to remember, but it was good.



BEST PICK UP LINE: "Are any of you guys German? Can you translate that for me?" with accompanying hand movements, hair flipping, playing with the headband, girly laughing with neck extension -- from who else but the cherva master, Justine

BEST WORK-OUT PLACE: Beng Melea, Siem Reap : Indiana Jones-style climbing and exploring with (of course) the occasional posing for the cam


BEST TRANSPORTATION: Tuk-tuks with Mr. Sothy! (just don't let them rip you off..)


BEST HAIR: Art of Hair in Saigon! I LOVE IT! The longest and most comfortable shampoo (with facial), free fruits, free drinks, free foot massage, free pedicure/manicure, free internet and the cheapest price! Joy almost had a breakdown.


BEST PHOTO-OP: Angkor Wat, Siem Reap or Foyer of Tony's Apartment, Saigon, Vietnam



BEST SHOPPING PLACE: Street market in Saigon, Vietnam - cheap North Face stuff (backpacks!), nice blouses, bags, coffee

BEST DRINK: Wintermelon tea for me, Sweet Soya drink for Risa and Joy, and Vietnamese coffee in cute silver miniature French presses (or are they Vietnamese presses?)

BEST SONG: "Cruisin'" - from our two superstars Justine and Risa; "Tonight, I Celebrate My Love For You" - Justine


I can't think of anything more. Girls, feel free to add to this list. I might have left off some important stuff.

I miss you girls! I miss pseudobackpacking! Angkor What?!???!!!

have crazy friends, will travel

Siem Reap, Cambodia -- where it all began. temple-hopping under the blistering summer sun while hatching the next adventure to go on. all together now: "angkor what?!"

our lovely tour guide ditas, complete with lovely khmer accent

... and the night jan completed our line-up.

get your passports and pseudobackpacks ready, chicas ;)

missing home

Neptune, NJ -- I'm on a roll...

A few nights ago, while I was desperately trying to iron my clothes, I was listening to Gary V ( I know, I know -- very CHIMAY moment) when suddenly "Pasko na sinta ko" started playing. I couldn't help it - I just bawled. It must be the combination of the cold weather, Gary V, the upcoming holidays, homesickness, and just the desperation with ironing. I called up Joy. She asked me what would make me happy at that moment. And my reply was a paper bag full of hot pandesal. That's it. What I would do to have a pandesal right now.... :(

it's been a while....

Neptune, NJ -- Joy and I are talking on the phone as I am writing this entry. It's been a while. We haven't written any entries lately because nothing much has happened.. well to me, I don't know with Joy. You have to ask her. Anyway, I promised to post highlights of my Chicago trip, so here it goes...(sorry for the delay).

CHICAGO HIGHLIGHTS
> The Lake - I stayed with Betsy who lives very close to the lake. I jogged around the lake every morning and it cleared my mind of worries and regrets, and my soul of pain and loneliness. And it didn't hurt that hot shirtless guys ran around the lake that time too! :)

> The City - I just miss the city life. I loved being able to use public transportation to get to places, I loved having to dress up to go out (even just for coffee), and I just loved seeing a lot of people walking, talking and what have you.

> The Shops - My eyes almost popped out when I went to Macy's! Tear welled up in the corners of my eyes as I surveyed all the wonderful make-up, clothes, shoes, bags, etc. It was so different from my weekly shopping sprees in Target or Walmart back in Neptune. (mind you: I still didn't have a car around this time making mall-shopping more difficult; there is actually a nearby mall that has Macy's and all the other wonderful shops)

> My friends - Chicago is my home here in the States. I consider my high school friends my family. I can just be me with them. I don't have to worry about being judged. They love me for who I am. Nikki and I had long conversations about our goals/lack of goals in life. Jennet and Mark showed me how to be stylishly married. "Dona" Icay and I planned our "Skinny Bitch" diet as we searched for a venue for her grand wedding. And Betsy became my mom for a week, scolding me for the wrong decisions I've done so far and advising me about life and love. I love them dearly. They're my pseudobackpackers for the mean time ...until our much-awaited reunion in Rio de Janeiro.

dismal reality?

Life, like time, doesn’t stop, even at airports.

Manila, PH -- a short break from all the exciting office paperwork (short being relative). just had to let you in on conrado de quiros' inquirer column today:

I flew back late last week, a bone-jangling trip because of a nine-hour layover in Bangkok. It was an outrageous arrangement made less so only by the fact that the fare was reasonable in an unreasonable peak season—Filipinos flew south, or east, like migratory birds on Christmas. I was glad when the first rays of the sun touched my skin in Bangkok, and was able to take off my coat after what had seemed like (coming from the United Kingdom) the Ice Age. Time has a way of expanding in the cold, and I’m not sure that that isn’t so physically as much as psychologically.

The sunshiny feeling however was dampened by a pall of cloud that fell on me upon seeing fellow Filipinos at the gate for the Thai Airways flight to Manila. It was like having a mirror put on your face telling you, to your eternal shock, how you looked. Or it was a photograph that carried the caption, “What has happened to us?”

No, I didn’t mind the cheap cologne and the huge balikbayan boxes and the shoving rush with which we comported ourselves—the impressions of that person who wrote about OFWs sometime ago and who earned their everlasting ire. I too was dismayed by that article, though more because of the grand illusions of the observer rather than the dismal realities of the observed. The idea of looking down on one’s own out of a sense of belonging to the upper side of the social divide and possessing superior (really just expensive) tastes is never pleasant. It’s also rubbing salt on wound, when you contemplate the depths of sacrifices the OFWs make, not least the longing for home in the cold and desolate places they’re in, just to keep their and their loved ones’ heads above water.

In any case those impressions were nowhere in evidence in the Bangkok waiting area. There was no cheap cologne wafting anywhere, not even in the plane itself later on; no huge balikbayan boxes, or at least I did not see them because we were past the check-in area, though most everyone seemed to have strained the limits of the allowable hand-carried luggage; and no mad rush to the door, only an eternity of waiting to endure—quite literally miles to go before you slept. There was, however, more than the usual share of noise.

Coming from a country that seems dedicated to talking in hushed tones, an impression deepened by the breath of winter, the sudden and precipitous rise in decibel levels could not escape notice.

That was so moreover since I was trying to catch some sleep and had sunk into a row of seats fully lying down face up, grateful for the luxury, my head cradled by the book I had been reading, and a group of compatriots nearby seemed determined to tell the story of their lives, emitting cackling laughter at almost regular intervals and making respite elusive. They looked more like NGO types than OFWs. I don’t know if they worked there or were coming home from a conference, I didn’t much care one way or the other in the state I was in. I fidgeted exaggeratedly to hint at the unwanted, indeed much-resented, intrusion. I should have known people who were oblivious to their surroundings to begin with were not likely to catch hints, subtle or broad. And alas, I was too tired and too, well, Asian (that’s another story and an interesting one) to be confrontational.

That also made me notice something else, which is that, unlike many other people in the airport, no one among our compatriots was reading. Even outside the gates at the duty free area, solitary Filipinos did not relieve the tedium, or passed the time, or seized the moment—however you regard time, as enemy or ally—reading. They did so—shopping. Window or otherwise, and such as one can shop with the meager amounts one has.

That was what dimmed the sunshiny feeling in me. I wondered where we would be down the road, maybe five, 10, years from now. Let me be clear: I do appreciate what OFWs and other Filipino migrants abroad are doing, heroically if completely unintentionally keeping our collective heads above water by sending millions of dollars of remittances back home. Heaven help us if something should happen to that. But you wonder also if the gap between us and our neighbors in terms of level of education or sense of aspiration or capacity for ambition, however you put it, isn’t widening over the years, as shown by the difference in attitudes and behavior patterns of various nationals in this airport. You wonder how long a people who exist more and more on survival mode, content to keep the status quo, can compete with other peoples who are determined to better themselves every day (not least by reading) the better to conquer the world. Life, like time, doesn’t stop, even at airports.

I remember what the late Raul Roco once told me, which was when he first went abroad during the early ’60s as a youth representative to a leadership conference. Then, he said, you would really be proud to be Filipino, the Filipino enjoying the reputation of being one of the most educated Asians, possibly next only to the Japanese. I felt the sting of pain and anger again at the thought of what corruption really meant—little helped by the knowledge that a bunch of benighted Filipino officials, who neither read nor wrote, who merely lied and stole, were even then winging their way to some of the most expensive places on earth using taxpayers’ money to give vent to their shopping instincts—which is depriving this country of money that could go to enabling most of us to read and write. The better to go out into the world with a desire other than to torment people who are trying to sleep.

You always long desperately to come home when you are abroad. The only thing is what you are coming home to.