(Pause)

The silence is due to finding myself running three small companies, with some consultations as well. I look at this blog and think fondly back on the days wherein I was able to share photos and thoughts (and the accompanying research), and know that soon I will be back and a-posting again.

Fashionable Nylon Hair

Double oxymoron.

Mantra Notebook

Pages upon pages.

If you spent your formative years in Catholic school (I was in one since kindergarten), and were a bit on the defiant side, chances are, you've had "Mary time" (or some variation of it). "Mary time" is when your teacher makes you sit in a dark corner facing an image of Mother Mary. You prayed to her until your soul was cleansed (or, until the next period, after a short nap).

Om Namma Shivaya.

With my "time out" experiences, I guffawed when I saw this notebook in a Penang laundry shop (a social enterprise of sorts for unemployed people). It had some kind of mantra scrawled down page after page. My first, quite embarrassing assumption was that the writer was under some form of Hindu school punishment (for maybe screwing the laundry up?). As it turns out, I had rudely snapped photos of someone's mantra notebook (as explained in more detail here):

You can also write down in a fine notebook Om Namah Shivaya for half an hour or more, keeping silence, repeating it in the mind also and not looking hither and thither. You will have more concentration. When the mantra notebook is completed, keep it in a box in your meditation room.

Cars and Cloth

Sometimes pieces of cloth protect cars. Other times, cars provide cloth-drying surfaces.

Curtain as windshield cover.

Rags drying on sideview mirror and handle.

More rags drying on wiper and antenna.

Another rag on another sideview mirror.

Woven Gigantic Saddlebag

Custom saddlebag for produce and whatnot.

Spacious and makes the vehicle much more useful.

Indonesian False Flower Signage

Fake flowers form letters.

"Congratulations / Grand Opening / Samsung Mobile / from Phu Hie Hai"

Instead of displaying large funeral-type congratulatory flower bouquet stands outside a doorway of a newly-opened shop, Indonesians have a practice of taking the flowers apart and arranging them in letters on large signage, and lining the streets with those. It's buttering up by a folk type of advertising, kind of a more beautiful "streamer predilection" than the Marawi version.

They remind me of fiesta decor made from corn husk and all that stuff. Except they're commonplace, and obviously haven't been replaced by the dreaded tarpaulin printers. And that is a nice thing. Although the flowers are fake.

"Congratulations / On Opening / Samsung Mobile / from Flamez 72"-- Nice touch with the umbrella.

Closer shot.

"Congratulations / On Opening / Samsung Mobile / from Batam Cellular"

Halo-Halo Girls

Bunch of cute kids eating halo-halo in Adams, Ilocos Norte.

Ilocano Halo-Halo and Ice Shaving Improvisation

Halo-halo in cups, waiting for ice and milk in Ilocos.

Other countries have this flower or that blooming, or some bird singing to mark the coming of spring, the Philippines has the gradual cropping up of halo-halo stalls to mark the coming of summer. This weird rainy summer is no exception.

Colored gulaman (seaweed jelly) and sago pearls at the Alabang market.

Propped up by a seasonal halo-halo economy of market vendors selling sweetened beans, garishly colored jelly, and colored (pinipig) toasted rice. Truthfully, there's a little too much color for my tastes in it, but once in awhile is okay.

Gulaman being molded in plastic cups in a kind of grody setting, Alabang market.

 Ilocos Norte is not usually the place you would expect halo-halo. Of course, it's all over the country, but you wouldn't be surprised not to find it in this relatively sedate province. It is terribly hot out there. Its delicacies consist generally of rice cakes on the sweet side, and deep-fried pork things on the savory side.

I was fiending for something cold, and had been asking the locals about halo-halo for days. I got some free time and stopped by a stall with some friends along Paoay Lake.

The stall, under a bamboo frame, with a curtain shading the owner from the harsh sun.

So of course, Ilocanos being the resourceful and the tightwads that they are (local stereotypes are fun), supplement store-bought ingredients (colored jelly and sago balls) with cheaper (but better) ingredients such as freshly grated coconut, boiled and lightly sugared sweet potato, and my favorite thus far (in place of the usual canned or yellow sweet corn), nixtamalized corn (usually used in binatog). It sounds fancy, but nixtamalized corn is really creamy, alkalized white, glutinous corn that does not have skin. More on that later.

Colored toasted rice, sweetened beans, sweetened sweet potato, sweetened banana, nixtamalized corn, and grated coconut.

Nixtamalized corn. Creamy and super delicious.

Grated coconut.

Another super great thing is that the woman manning the stall (sounds funny doesn't it. What-- womanning?) had invented an apparatus to keep the ice (made from water frozen in plastic bags) from slipping while she shaves it. It was made from pieces of wood and bottle caps.

Bottle caps nailed to a small piece of wood board.

The wood hold the ice while the vendor shaves, thus allowing her to exert maximum force.

Ice on bottle caps.

A nearly spent piece of ice. The board also has bottle caps as legs so it doesn't slip either.

Ice Man Ice Shaver.

Salon Towel Drying

A salon in Chinatown drying towels in the sun.

Recent Containers

It is always encouraging to see plant material being used for practical things. Despite the fiesta baratillo being filled with cheap, made in China plastic implements, Ilocanos still use bamboo and other woven things for practical purposes. This contributes to the stewardship of species and the general beauty of everyday life.

Bamboo baskets for catching and placing fish.

Bamboo pole lunch. Last time I saw this guy, his fish catch was dangling from the front portion of the pole.

A typical Northern Philippine backpack, except the two straps replaced by a snakeskin shoulder strap.