From your adopted, teenage son.

From Across The Sea: Some Photos for You

Effortless

Olivia Palermo in NYC

Even Then I Knew

I love Jim and Pam. And Andy :)

Monday Afternoon in Banawe

The moment you drive up to Banawe, the car parts, car accessories, car repair hub of Manila, the men start swarming towards you. Whether to ask what you're looking for or to size up your vehicle, giving unsolicited advice about what repairs or improvements could be made, wink wink, they were there and they were eager.

These men are the free agents of the street. They know where to find this headlight, or that fender. They know which person to call for any car part imaginable. A Blaupunkt stereo? A man would appear and help us out. The driver's side door of a Honda City type Z, 2002 model? Another man would appear and attend to us.

The car door would prove to be elusive. We went to four or five shops, cramped with car engines, headlights, tail lights, seats, and various other unidentifiable objects. Always, they would pick up the phone and call someone to ask for the availability of the said door. Always the answer was that it was unavailable. It had to be sourced from Pampanga, and their supplier would take two or three days to get back to us. Pretty soon we wondered, if whether each shop we went to, were dialing the same number, calling the same person.

J called it a “Man's World,” and apologized several times for bringing me there. But I found it fascinating. That Monday afternoon, I would normally be ticking off items from my neat to-do list, in my little carrel in the faculty room, in my little air-conditioned corner of the city. But there I was this whole other structure-less universe, where men smoked, stood around, chatting idly, while some squeezed underneath cars getting greasy from various repairs. It was the kind of place where, jostling each other for every oncoming car spelled the difference between earning something or nothing.

And amidst shops with names like Autorama, Joe's Car Shack, and all these men who looked like they , belonged there, in their Honda Cars or Nissan Team shirts, with their smudged hands, and Good Morning towels wrapped around their heads or neck, there was one, incongruous sight. 

A man in a gray sando, was sitting on the side walk, one foot plopped on a chair, immersed in Sudoku. Lost in a world where logic and number placements were more important that radiators, bumpers, alternators and brake pads, nothing could touch him.

"Being in the world, but not of this world " :)

The Magazine is Out!

My two articles on Krabi, Thailand are in THIS issue of Asian Traveler magazine. Available in all major bookstores nationwide :)

When You're A Kid

Beijing 2011 Lightbox

108 yuan beef dinner at Bikarouji. The red doors of the Forbidden City. Temple of Heaven. 100 yuan. Directions found at the Great Wall in Jinshanling. Forbidden City courtyard. "I Climbed The Great Wall" keychains. 20 yuan. Houhai Lake. South Gate of The Temple of Heaven. Bird's Nest at Olympic Park. Beijing City Map and handwritten directions from Rick, City Walls hostel manager. The interesection we always crossed. Bird's Nest at the Olympic Park. Jotham at the Forbidden City red door. Dimsum and noodles breakfast in our hostel in a hutong.Boardin pass going home. The snow-covered Great Wall at Jinshanling. Forbidden City and more photos at the Great Wall.

Switchfoot By The Numbers

"We were meant to live for so much more.."

"Hello hurricane, you can't silence my love!"

"If it doesn't break your heart, it isn't love."

"I'm finding that You and You alone can break my fall."

"When I look at the stars, I see someone else."

"Every breath is a second chance."

"We are the children of the scar, I wanna start from the start"

"This is home, this is home, now I'm finally where I belong."

"Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go? Salvation is here."

"I know now, You're my only hope."

2:    hours standing in line at the gates of Ultra.
5: (or more) new friends Jotham made, while standing in said line.


4:   number of bets made about which song Switchfoot will sing first (Iya - Yet, May: Dare You To Move, Jotham: Hello Hurricane, Bianca and Hayz: Made To Live)
150:  pesos worth of dessert the bet's winner could order.
4 : (or so) other bets made that night --- time the show would start, number of songs they would play, name of the opening act. 
0:   actual number of winners that night.

16:   number of songs in total, that Switchfoot performed that night, which included Always (Jotham's favorite), This Is Home, (Iya's favorite), Meant To Live (Bianca and Hayzel's favorite), Only Hope (Mainstream ako! My favorite)
3:  number of songs we were hoping they would play, but didn't (Yet, Sing It Out and You).

2: eyes on Shariya's face that gave us a withering look when we suggested dinner to her "friend." 
11:  the hour that we were finally able to eat dinner at Dencio's Metrowalk.

1 : ONE AMAZING GOD, who brought us together, to watch this AMAZING, BLESSED band, whose songs fill our nights, resplendent.