Philippine Places To Go To

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From my article, My Bucket List, the first thing that I listed is to visit all the famed Philippine tourist spots.  It would be a shame on my part if I were to fly to distant lands and be a stranger in my own country. It's a good thing that airplane fares do not cost as much as they used to.  As Cebu Pacific would like to say, it's time every Juan flies.  With the price wars being waged by the different airlines, what would be the reason for not flying?

Foremost on my list of places to go to would be the wonders of the Bicol region.  Would you believe that I haven't seen or interacted with the butanding or whale shark from Donsol, Sorsogon?  It's really a pity that I haven't been there when Donsol is less than an hour's drive from our hometown of Sorsogon City.  I flinched when friends ask me how it is interacting with the butandings.  Aside from Donsol, I would like to explore the unspoilt beaches of southern Sorsogon.  Heard so much about their beaches but was too much of a coward  to travel past Gubat, Sorsogon.

Butanding

Albay boasts of the Misibis, an upscale resort in Bacacay.  Just recently, Embarcadero has made waves as the in-place when in Legaspi City.

Misibis

Who hasn't heard of Caramoan in Camarines Sur?  Caramoan, with its white sand beaches and rugged terrain, put the Philippines back to the world map when it was the site of one of the Survivor series.  It is touted to be the next flagship of Philippine tourism though the government has to do something with infrastructure.  The nearest airport, Pili, is at least two hours away by land and sea.

Caramoan

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CWC or Camsur Watersports Complex is a manmade watersports park for wakeboarding, waterskiing, and wakeskating.  A lot of young people, Filipinos and foreigners alike, troop to CWC in Pili, Camarines Sur to indulge in those activities.  I would like to try my hand in wakeboarding.  I should have a very patient teacher or I might be traumatized for life of the water.

CWC

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Calaguas Island in Camarines Norte is slowly becoming the travel destination of backpackers. It hasn't attracted families yet as lodgings and room accommodations are not yet in place.  It has  remained untouched but up to when?  They say that after spending time in Calaguas, Boracay will just be a figment of one's imagination. 

The untouched beauty of Calaguas.  Thanks to Louise Lizano for the photo.

Further west lies Palawan.  I think Palawan is heaven here on earth because of its natural wonders.  I just have to save up enough money to go to Palawan.  Resorts are pretty much catered towards the upper class.  

Cebu, Bohol and Mindanao cannot be outdone.  Each of these places has lots of tourist attractions that would make one's vacation truly memorable.  

I better start surfing for the best travel packages around.  No need to look elsewhere.  The Philippines has a lot to offer.  

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• Ecotourism in the Phillipines (ecoadventuretravel.wordpress.com)

Why I Love Summer

Summer is a fun time for me.  Though the heat could be excruciating at the height of summer, I still prefer it than having rains.   Summer officially starts for me when the regular school year ends.  I say regular because some schools on trimester system have a different school calendar.

I love summer because my favorite fruit, the mango, is at its sweetest.  Thanks to the latest technology, the Philippine mango is available all year round but it still doesn't taste as good as the one harvested in summer.  I could finish a kilo of mangoes in one sitting before my craving for this fruit is satiated.  I dread the day when my doctor will limit my eating of mangoes to half of the fruit because of an elevated level of blood sugar.

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Halo halo is a must have on summers.  Like the mango, halo halo is available through out the year but it just tastes so good when it is humid.  Of all the halo halo in town, my favorites are the ones from Icebergs and Razon's.  I like the Iceberg's version because of the macapuno balls and it is easier to mix.  I hope Iceberg's will put more macapuno balls instead of two.  Razon's halo halo is pricey compared to Iceberg's but I just love the leche flan topping and the sweetened banana.  The softness and sweetness of the bananas are just right.

Iceberg's Halo Halo

Razon's Halo Halo

Another top on my list why I love summer is the abundance of fruits and vegetables.  Summer is harvest time.  Fruits and vegetables are very cheap and the produce is of better quality.  When in the market, how can you turn away from these mounds of fruits and vegetables of different colors?

Who doesn't love fiestas?  A good percentage of fiestas is held in May.  I love attending fiestas and Filipinos in the provinces still celebrate fiestas with cooking their specialties, palaros, parades and other presentations.  It is Filipino hospitality at its finest.

Lastly, summer is about family get togethers at the beach or at a preferred resort.  There is so much joy in cooking, sharing what you haved cooked and spending a few days away from home marvelling the beauty of God's creation.

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Karaoke Bar

A favorite Filipino pastime is spending special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries or homecomings with lots of food, drinking, singing and story-telling.  Lots of stories and laughter.  If there is no occasion to warrant a celebration, Filipinos just invent one at the spur of the moment.  We never run out of reasons to be together.  We just love to celebrate life.  It is not surprising to find a Magic Sing or a karaoke player in a Filipino home that come handy when the need arises.

For those willing to spend, there is the karaoke bar that mushroomed in most parts of Metro Manila and urban centers.  They say that you give away your age with the type of songs that you sing in a karaoke bar.  Never mind if you miss the note of Abba's Dancing Queen or Karen Carpenter's Top of the World.  Nobody cares as long as you get to sing the songs that are the desires of the heart.  Food and drinks are a call away.  Just lift the intercom and a friendly receptionist is ready to take your order.  The room attendant cum waiter assigned to your cubicle also acts as the de facto photographer so nobody is left out in the group picture. 

For my different sets of friends, we usually go to Red Box in Trinoma, Quezon City.  The place is accessible, clean and the player is easy to navigate.  Hmmm... It has already been awhile since I've been to Red Box. 

Movies We Remember

One Sunday while having a late breakfast, I could hear from the television the sweet voice of Lea Salonga singing "Reflections", one of the soundtrack music of Disney's "Mulan".  I said to myself, youngest daughter Kara is already awake. 

Ever since Mulan became available in VHS, Kara, a toddler then, was already glued to the television set watching it day in and day out.  It was a family joke that the VHS is already worn out from its non-stop use.  Now, more than ten years after, her fondness for the movie hasn't waned a bit.

While the teenagers of today have Disney to thank for the numerous movies that they have enjoyed during their formative years, one movie holds the distinction of "favorite old movie" for me.  Like Kara's Mulan, I never tire watching "Sound of Music" starring a very young Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.  Sometimes I can't imagine the two of them enacting other roles after "Sound of Music".  For me they would always be Maria and Capt. von Trapp.

I remember I watched "Sound of Music" for the first time with my parents and siblings in Loida Theater, the only theater then at Sorsogon, Sorsogon.  My father arrived before lunch from his job in Manila and brought all of us to Loida Theater to watch this much-acclaimed movie.  We also had a soundtrack album of the movie that we could play anytime.  I played each song several times to get its lyrics, something that is never heard of today what with different lyric websites in the web.  Several years passed when I had the chance to watch it again, this time through CD that I rented from Video City, one of the video rental stores in the 90s.  I could still sing the lines from memory, thanks to my lyric jotting days.

Technology has made old movies of better quality.  We and the future generation are assured that we will always be able to view them anywhere and anytime.  Right beside me is a blu-ray DVD copy of the "Sound of Music" awaiting its turn on the DVD player.  Well, later, I'm still finishing my article.

Local Food Specialties

Food and travel always go together.  When one is travelling either on official business or on leisure, he is not only exposed to the different tourist spots that the place is known for but also the kind of food that the place offers.  Filipinos, known for their hospitality, cook the delicacies of their town or province and it would offend their feelings if one declines.

I remember when our family went to Davao in 2009 for a much-deserved vacation, our hosts Edward and Rownee Braceros fed us with seafoods, fruits and vegetables that are synonymous with Davao.  Imbao, a seashell native to the Visayas and Mindanao was cooked tola-style.  Tola is a kind of soup wherein garlic, onions, ginger, moringa leaves and salt are added to the stock and imbao.  It brought out the real taste of imbao, not eclipsed by the taste of other seasonings.  It was the first time for us to eat imbao and we were not disappointed.  It helped that we are not picky with food and are adventurous to try new ones.

Products of Davao - tuna sashimi and tolang imbao

For our mission trip to Western Samar, our hosts from Gandara served us not only fresh catch of the sea but also cottage cheese made of carabao's milk.  Gandara's version is thinner and round compared to the ones that come from Laguna which are thicker and squarish.  I am not a lover of the local cottage cheese but I had more than one serving of this Western Samar delicacy.

Local food helps a lot in learning the history of a place. Just by looking or tasting the different ingredients that go into a dish, one can picture what is abundant and what grows in the place.  The Bicol region is known for its spicy coconut-based dishes.  When you look around the surroundings, you would see tracts of land planted to coconut.  Majority of the dishes, be it seafood, chicken, meat or vegetable based, are cooked in coconut milk.

Bicol Express

Cosmopolitan Manila, on the other hand, has several food establishments catering to the different palates of its residents who come from all parts of the country.  Eateries could either be offering regional specialties like Saisaki and Mangan or could play around a theme like Bagoong Club.  Some restaurants have included in their menu samplers of the different dishes that they are offering.  From one order, one can savor three to four different viands in pint size versions of the original.  When a certain eatery that I go to has a sampler, I never fail to order this.  I am able to taste the best of what the eatery has to offer at a one time visit.

Max's Restaurant's Dessert Sampler

Mangan's Merienda Sampler

Chocolate Kiss' Cake Suite

Truly one has a lot to learn from the food of a certain place.  It not only satisfy one's gustatory cravings but tells a lot about the place where it originated.

Surviving Maid-less Days... Months

Every time a maid leaves our employ for one reason or the other, I am forced to think of ways to doing household chores systematically.  I have to have a plan on how to do things so I can do more things in a day.  Aside from things to be done in the house, I still have errands to attend to for our business.  

Wives and mothers based abroad where maids are only for the rich might find what I have to say as trivial.  I understand that they might not have known any other life, that is, a household with a hired help as technology is there to compensate for the absence.  But here in the Philippines, a third world country, embracing technology totally is not yet the norm as infrastructure like a reliable supply of cheap electricity is not yet in place.  Getting  a housemaid is a cheaper alternative.

After a maid leaves, I take over the kitchen automatically, read that:  COOKING  .  Cooking is the most time consuming chore, I cook at least twice a day, compared to dish washing and doing the laundry.  Cooking is the easy part but food preparation is another thing, yes, even if all the ingredients needed for the dish are available.  Below I will be listing down tips on how I survive maid-less days that stretch to months.  Don't get me wrong.  Even if the tips are helpful, I would still hire a maid to do things for me.  Hehehe.

1.  Have a microwave oven pronto.  On an ordinary school day, I wake up one hour before the children's scheduled breakfast time.  I cook only easy to cook breakfast items like ham, sausages, and hotdogs.  If there are leftover foods that survived without being eaten over night, I reheat using my ever reliable microwave oven. Viands that take longer to cook are a no no for me as waking up early for a late sleeper like me is plain and simple torture.  For the rice (my children prefer it to bread for breakfast), I reheat last night's leftover rice again in the microwave oven.  What will I do without my microwave oven?

2.  Hoard cereals and fresh milk.  Cereals and fresh milk are the latest additions to my shopping cart whenever I go to Shopwise Commonwealth.  I buy the biggest size as they come out more economical.  They save the day for me as the kids do not oblige, make that force me, to attend to them in the morning.  They can take care of breakfast, thank you very much.

3.  Have ready to cook (RTC) or ready to eat (RTE) food handy.  Stock up on tinapa, fried fish, canned fish, canned meat, bread, tuna sandwich and chicken sandwich fillings,  cheese, butter.  When you come home late to cook lunch or dinner, eating store-bought food once in a while is forgivable.  Give me a break!

4.  Designate a Cooking Day.  Tuesday is the lightest day of the week as our vehicle is banned on the streets on this day.  Instead of doing errands and what have you that will take me out of the house,  I schedule the general cleaning of the house and cooking marathon on a Tuesday.  I don't do this alone though as my laundrywoman, Vilma, is there to do most of the housework.  My husband also does his share though with the use of his gadgets, the vacuum cleaner and the circular mop that my youngest daughter find so cool.

For Jun and I's trip to Baguio City last week for the Couples for Christ Weekend Conference, I did a cooking marathon with Vilma's help.  After buying fresh fish and vegetables from Commonwealth Market, Vilma started preparing the ingredients to be used for the different viands that I will be cooking.  I prepared a menu for what the kids will be eating while we were away.  Done with the cooking, I stored the food in several plastic containers and kept them in the refrigerator ready for the day to come when they will be reheated using ... ehem... the microwave oven.

5.  Run to Mommy.  When everything doesn't work for utter lack of time or planning, ask the help of your mother.  I just provide Mommy's cook, Encar, all the ingredients needed for the food that I like to be cooked and voila, dinner is ready.    

It also helps that I live a block away from my parents' house.  When the kids do not like the food that I prepared, they scurry to Lola's house sparing me of the complaints and whinings. 

With Mommy and my sister, Joji.

This phenomenon of the scarcity of housemaids is not new to us.  Ever since more developed countries have opened their homes to Filipina domestic helpers and nannies, finding reliable housemaids is like looking for a needle in a haystack.  It is as if housemaids have joined the ranks of the species going extinct.  I will not be surprised if five to ten years from now we will have maid-less households like our Western counterparts.

Bicol Express

I haven't eaten Bicol Express ever since my Bicolana maid, Cita, left more than two months ago.  Cita's Bicol Express was something I looked forward to after the weekly trip to the wet market.  Her version is just the way I like it to be, not so hot (so I can eat a lot, hehehe) and cooked to perfection in the right amount of coconut cream.

For weeks I was craving for this dish synonymous with the Bicol Region.  I know how to cook it but haven't tried doing it specially since I don't have a maid right now. It is easy to cook it but never attempted because of the tedious preparation.  I hate squeezing the grated coconut meat to extract the cream and the milk. On the other hand, I cannot ask my Mom's Pangasinense cook to prepare one for me as I will only be disappointed in the end.  Since my craving is getting intense by the day, I decided to try my hand on cooking the Bicol Express.

At the late hour of 6:30 in the evening, I drove to the nearby wet market to buy the missing ingredients. Bought P20 worth of pepper, one big coconut and had it grated, 100 grams of pork.  Good thing I still had supply of disposable gloves to protect my hands from the hotness of the pepper when I sliced them (this is also one of the reasons why I don't cook this hot dish).  I prepared all the ingredients that go into this dish and saved the squeezing of the coconut meat for last. After twenty minutes, my first attempt of cooking Bicol Express was ready.  It looked right. For ginataang dishes, the oil of the coconut should be evident and the pepper or whatever vegetable was used should not be swimming in the coconut milk.  It was hot for my taste but just the way my hubby wants it.

My Bicol Express

They say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating.  My daughter ate dinner again after she saw it on the table.  My husband liked it too.  I guess I will be cooking this dish more often in the future.