Children’s playground and urban garden at Rizal Park
Rizal Park in Ermita, Manila, isn’t just a beautiful public green space, it played a big part in Philippine history as well. Formerly called Luneta National Park, his was where not only National Hero Jose Rizal was executed by firing squad in 1896, but also where, 24 years earlier, Mariano Gomez, José Burgos, and Jacinto […]
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My Siquijor adventure: getting hexed on an island paradise
In 2010, I was sent by a travel magazine to Siquijor, a small island province in the Visayas region of the Philippines. You need a ferry to get there, and I and the photographer took one from Dumaguete. The island was first called “Katagusan,” after the molave (Vitex parviflora) trees that populated it. When the Spanish […]
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The ghosts of Fort Santiago (at least some of them, anyway)
I don’t encounter the supernatural very often, nor do I wish to, but they seem to take advantage of the few times that we cross paths, packing a bunch of experiences in the span of a few days, or in this case, hours.
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Chef created mouth-watering dishes during lockdown with only a stove, an old wok, and a blunt knife
Where were you when enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) was declared? Chef Ramon Antonio was in Mactan visiting his mother. “I have been visiting my mother in Mactan every month since 2018 (always via PAL for 46 years and counting), [for] at least seven to nine days per month, since that first time she slipped. She […]
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Trying a foraged puffball and living to write about the experience
This isn’t a post about watching a puffball explode. It’s about eating it.
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My Fort Santiago supernatural experience
As romantic as this sounds, for a brief moment, people got to see Manila the way Carlos saw it: not just as a random city, but a dynamic place filled with life, potential, and art.
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Starting a new journal
Finished my old journal (Filed Notes) and starting a new one. This particular Field Notes journal took exactly one month to finish. Quite an achievement for someone who tries to fit everything in neatly, with as little overlap as possible. It’s also the journal I started drawing in. It’s taken me years to finally put […]
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A friend sent me patis from Malabon
You can tell that someone is into food when they send you condiments for fear that your food is bland.
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Relishing the minutes it takes to make my morning coffee
I know that I can live without coffee; I’ve done it before, with no ill effects. But the question is, why would I want to?
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What’s in my travel esoteric kit
This is the esoteric kit I have with me a lot of the time. It consists of a mini tarot deck, some candles, a lighter, a stick of palosanto (which is apparently endangered so I’ll be changing this), a quartz crystal, and a vial of rock salt. Not in the photo a recent addition, a […]
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