i left my Y in cebu

i Y cebu.

i am a proud ‘bisdak’.

(bisdak means bisayang-dako, loosely translated: one who grew up in the visayas, in my case cebu)

although it is no longer accurate for me to say that I spent most of my life in cebu since I left my beloved hometown when I was 14 years old to live in manila, cebu is still closest to my heart. aside from it being the place where most of my relatives are, it is where I spent my formative years in and where I developed my love for traveling and the outdoors.

so why do i Y cebu so? let me count the ways (and take note coz you might just find yourself in that side of the world)…

• the city in itself is a delight. it is as lively as manila, less the pollution, population & traffic and with nicer people. I enjoy going to carbon (the biggest public market in the city), the old churches (sto. nino, cebu cathedral, sto. rosario) and the 'touristy' places (fort san pedro, plaza independencia, taoist temple, magellan's cross) as much as i enjoy going to the night spots in and around the city.


• in cebu you find the yummiest lechon ever - the cebu lechon, whether it be cnt or allejo (branded lechon stores) or the lechon sold in the area of jai-alai, nothing can top cebu lechon - ask anthony bourdain. to truly experience the gastronomical delights in cebu, i never pass up a chicharon or meal of barbecue & pu-so (hanging rice or boiled rice wrapped in woven coconut leaves) sold in almost in every corner of the city and always make it a point to visit larsian - a whole block of barbeque stands in uptown cebu) near fuente osmena.


• sinulog, in my own humble opinion, is the best festival in the country. people from all over the country, (heck, from all over the world!) troop to cebu every third sunday of january to party! one has to experience sinulog in order to know what i mean.


• beaches abound cebu. nearest ones are in mactan island and olango (where the fish and bird sanctuary are). i have only been to a number of them - on the south side there's argao, badian (do a side trip to kawasan falls), moalboal (great diving - comparable to apo island), up north there's bantayan & malapascua (for the thresher sharks and mantas).

• from cebu you can get to anywhere - jump on a ferry and you'll be in bohol or negros in a matter of hours, dumaguete and leyte is just a few hours of road trip+ro-ro away.

i can go on and on about cebu but i also admit that I can still be a tourist to some parts of my home province. cebu is packed with beautiful sights from end to end! having left cebu at a young age, and just going home every now and then for family gatherings, there are a lot of hidden pleasures I have yet to discover. and i realized, sadly, i don't even have pretty pictures of the city. what an abomination! this cannot be. i will rectify this soon.

I left my Y in cebu and there it will stay.

www.cebu.gov.ph
www.cebucitytourism.com

Festivals and Traveling

Resplendent costumes, colorful floats, abundance of food and alcohol, and manic street parties are the familiar scenes in festivals. From Sinulog to Ati-atihan, from Santacruzan to Aliwan, from barrio to barangay fiestas, Filipinos are no strangers to fêtes. It’s embedded in our culture to find every opportunity for merry making. Growing up, I’ve had my shares of barrio fiestas but I've never attended a famous festival.

When I started traveling, I would find myself running into festivals by chance and they always turn out to be such indulgence of the senses with the assortment of flamboyant colors, sounds, tastes, even scents! The atmosphere were always highly charged and the energy contagious. They also provide awesome subjects for photography, my new passion.

Brazilian Festival in Barcelona, Spain
May, 2007

My then travel buddy, Catarina from Portugal and I went around Barcelona visiting museums (MNAC, Miro, Olympic), then to Montjuic, the hill overlooking Barcelona, and finally, the playa, their icy beach. While chilling and taking photos, we heard riotous drum beats that can only be from a street festival. We ran toward the music and joined in the high spirited parade. I didn’t understand what the celebration is, she said it’s some kind of Brazilian carnival, but some guy did let me beat on his drums.

Horse Racing Festival in Shangrila (Zhongdian), China
June, 2008

Shangrila is a remote town in Yunnan Province where you can get a taste of Tibet without going to Tibet. When I was in China, my friend Raz suggested we travel to Zhongdian (Tibet) and Deqin (Glacier). We read in the Lonely Planet (LP) that there's an annual Horse Racing Festival in Shangrila organized by the Tibetan happens around mid-June. Sounds interesting.

But when we arrived, after 12 hours in the sleeper bus, nobody in town could tell us when exactly the festival is. There were many travelers around also hoping to catch the festival (so, everyone has LP). The Olympic torch was scheduled to pass by there, and with the recent unrest in Tibet, it’s all very hush-hush. Then we met a Tibetan family sitting in their tent while we aimlessly wandered the grass meadow. They invited us to have lunch with them, and then we got some news that the event has been moved to the following Friday. So we decided to leave for Deqin the next day, another 6 hours bus ride, and come back in time for the festival.

The key to enjoying festivals is to not expect so much and take in what is there. With all these secrecy, there really wasn’t much of a horse race than there were donkeys. But it was a colorful event with the locals dressed up in their native costumes, the women, children, even the donkeys. Some of the travelers were disappointed and bored but we were happy taking photos especially since I just got my new LC-A+ then and the Canon G9 was relatively new. It was an interesting experience and certainly more interesting than if there were no festival.



Gion Matsuri in Kyoto, Japan
July, 2008

Our whole family was in Japan for (my sister) Pincky’s wedding reception in Akita. We sisters have been to Tokyo before but it was first time for our parents. Candie and I decided to backpack in Kyoto while Girlie and Pincky remain in Tokyo.

It was a pleasant surprise that one of the most famous festivals in Japan, the Gion Matsuri was taking place when we arrived. It’s basically a religious festival and a month long thingy but we were fortunate to have come few days before the grand parade. You can feel the dynammism in the air, the temples and streets decorated with lanterns, food stalls everywhere, (local and foreign) tourists dressed up in colorful yukatas (summer kimonos). We were thinking of getting yukatas ourselves to fully immerse into the celebration but the cheapest ones were still pretty expensive (JPY_6000), if you’re only wearing it once, that’s it, so we didn’t.

We were hosted by Jerry, a Japanese CS, who's hosting also Marie-Josie from Montréal. It was great to have Jerry around in this huge confusing festival with a billion of visitors with the one mission. He knows the schedule of events, what to expect, what time to get there, and most importantly where to place ourselves to get the best view of the grand parade!

Sinulog Festival in Cebu
January, 2009

The Sinulog, celebrated in the honor of the Sto. Niño, is one of Philippines' grandest and most colorful festival. I've been to Cebu many times but never for Sinulog. This year I decided I'm going to be there and was hosted by the awesome group of CS-Cebu. This is a week long event but I only arrived in time for the grand parade and couple of parties.

The grand parade started its vigorous drum beat as early as 6 in the morning, waking the people in Mango Avenue, where this happens and hasn't stopped when we joined the procession at 7 in the evening. The parade was as lavish and captivating as promised. We were lucky to have a base at Cebu Backpacker's Guesthouse along the said avenue where we ate, drank (get drunk), and cheered endlessly. It also sheltered us from the 2-3 brief showers in the afternoon.

It was a feast for my camera too! I sneaked into the corded area where (supposedly) only official photographers were allowed. I dashed back and forth, from one participating group to the next, taking portrait photos of the beautiful queens, my favorite subjects there. It was sweet to be so close! I think the guards let me be thinking I'm just a crazy but harmless foreigner who probably couldn't understand English anyway. Pit Señor!

Hot Air Balloon Festival in Clark, Pampanga
February, 2009

While I frequently run into festivals during my travels, this year, I found myself chasing after them. After experiencing the dazzling Sinulog Festival in January, February, I was in Clark watching the Hot Air Balloons lift off in the first light of the day as recounted by sole sister, banggingay. It was my first time to join this festival too. Now, with one festival per month, I’m really pressured to keep this up.

Festivals come in various forms: religious, harvests, thanksgiving, music, film, carnival, etc. You can chance upon it or plan your travel around it, either way it will give you a good opportunity to see an alternate side of a city and a sneak peak at what they value, not to mention a new experience and awesome photos. World festivals I hope to attend one day are: the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro and the Burning Man in Nevada. Who knows, it may all happen next year!

indayguapa: my wandering sole

through the years, i have unknowingly gained the reputation of being always on-the-go, always up to something and constantly planning trips and adventures to experience. i say unknowingly because i do not go out of my way to be and do these things. its in my nature to move - i cannot sit still, i cannot NOT experience new things, i simply cannot bear to let adventure pass me by.

looking back at the past couple of years (just the couple of years and nothing later coz that would be a litany of travels), i realized that the reputation is well-deserved, i have really been to a lot of places - albeit mostly in and around our wonderful country, and experienced stuff that i could store into my box of 'the last time i did something for the first time' or in my chest of 'things i love doing over and over again'.

2007 brought me home to cebu a total of 6 times! for sinulog, for family reunions and mostly for frolicking in its beautiful beaches and as stopover to other destinations. moalboal, malapascua & bohol offered great diving, bantayan was reminiscent of boracay in the yesteryears - quiet, serene & clean. i had numerous diving trips for this year too - apo island in dumaguete (with side trip to pulang bato falls), wreck diving in subic and of course the easily accessible batangas with numerous resort choices like balai, dive & trek, outrigger, pier uno & the lesser known but quite lovely vista aplaya. for this year, i drove as far as palaui in cagayan valley and in nearby quick-vacation destinations like tagaytay for food tripping, taal for wakeboarding, clark for hot air balloonfest and zambales for beach-bumming & surfing. i also went on a quick trip to boracay and this was also the year i discovered the 'boracay' of cavite - the calumpang marine base beach on a cove near puerto azul and inside a military base which is open to the public for a mere P50 entrance fee.

i thought i couldn't top my '07 but 2008 proved to be another year of endless travels and 'first times'. i had return trips to cebu for sinulog and family vacations - to olango island in mactan for bird-watching, went back to clark for my 2nd year of hot air balloon fest, anilao for diving - tried planet dive and solana for the first time. for holy week i did a fun and uncharted road trip with my friends which took us camping in anawangin in zambales as our first stop, dropped by capones before heading to do another overnighter on one of the uninhabited islands of the 100 islands in pangasinan, then to la union for surfing and had our last stop in bulacan for the holy week salubong. as a break from the tiring but fun road trip, i rediscovered metro manila - spent a day in quiapo and la mesa ecopark in the succeeding weekends. no sooner had i recovered from the holy week road trip, i was off to donsol in sorsogon to go swimming with the whalesharks.

a highlight of this year is my first tubbattaha live-aboard trip - 7 days of unadulterated diving - flew to palawan to catch apo explorer, spent 7 days on the boat cruising from tubbattaha, cuyo and quiminatin islands, apo reef and then back to batangas. i took a short break from travel and tested my physical strength and endurance at the TNF100, a 100km race through the hills and mountainsides of cavite and batangas, and survived. but i really cannot stay put for long, in to time i was organizing dive trips to galera and verde island, was invited by my good friend kat to her hometown in davao for kadayawan and arranged a trek to pinatubo & side trip to the taksiyapo wall in tarlac for my best girl friends. i was quite content to sit out the remainder of the year since i've had my fair share of traveling already and loads of work came in during the last quarter (yes, despite all the trips, i work hard too!) but wanderlust truly finds me, a few days before the year ended i was invited to visit the mangyans in foothills of mount halcon in mindoro.

my only regret about all my wanderings is that i did not blog about it. yes i uploaded tons of pictures and short description from my various travels in my social networking pages, although i willingly share my suggestions for things to do, places to see & information, details and budgets for trips when friends ask for it, i just realized that it was a bit selfish of me to keep it to a chosen few. but it is never too late to change, hence this blog.

there's still so much to do and so many places to see right here in the philippines. my wandering sole has brought me to the farthest corners and yet i remain insatiable. maybe its high time to plan bigger, grander things. maybe i should go a little further. instead of round-the-corner, why not round-the-world.

oh yes, why truly not.