Metropolitan Cathedral of Tuguegarao

Bangera Inn

Bangera's facade.

Finding a place to stay in Puerto Galera is not easy for a first-timer (technically, a second-timer, on her first time to choose accommodations). Most spots are downright cheesy-- that Twilight Zone spot between purely rustic, "native" accommodations, and some more modern and "forward" places.

Such "horror hotels" serve chop suey, look like Goldilocks icing, afford TVs but not toilet bowls seats, and poor ventilation. That's what happens when Filipinos do a scuttle towards what they perceive to be "classy" accommodations, sacrificing the simple essentials. Many a breakfast have I spent staring at my "continental breakfast"-- often a relatively sweet mayo sandwich on white bread, with 3-in-1 coffee on the side. Hey! Give me fruit, give me local pot-simmered coffee, give me calamansi juice, give my boyfriend (the meat eater) smoked fish or something. Costs the same (or less), tastes better.

I don't know what they serve at Bangera Inn, but this unassuming, surprising spot away from the White Beach chaos is the perfect place to have some peace while enjoying the inner island walks that Puerto Galera offers.


The staircase, with low steps and ample natural night.

There are colonial elements all over the inn, with a lot of old wood, wrought iron, and sampaguita glass. Machuca tiles, cement fashioned to look like old plaster-- all the cozy elements that make you remember your lola and hot cacao.


The lobby, with simple wooden furniture.

The rooms are spacious, clean, and inexpensive-- I believe we spent 1500 pesos a night between 6 people (including an extra double mattress and breakfast). There are some cheesy elements, such as the bedsheets (your standard China cotton prints), but the proportions of the room were just right. Bad stuff is negligible.


Spacious rooms with cheesy bedsheets.


The bedroom floors are Vigan clay tiles, a nice touch.
The bathrooms, though using SM-type faux-clay tiles and similarly-styled bath curtains, are very clean, with hot water. The toilets are of good quality and new (that is worth mentioning, as we skipped several places due to deplorable toilet situations). I can rock bad bathrooms, but not when they're overpriced.


Clean bathrooms are an instant win on islands.

A big plus to Bangera is its roof deck, a charming windy area from which you can view the whole island. It's nice to climb up at dawn and see the people beginning to stir and move around. (There is also an empty lot across which could easily house a small edible garden). The staff is also fantastic. They will look after you even if you are the type to stumble in after a blur of a night:



Bangera Inn
White Beach (Behind Dreamwaves Resort)
Puerto Galera, Mindoro
Mobile (+63926) 706 4051
Manila Number (+632) 822 1192
bangerainn@yahoo.com

Religion in the Octagon House

Top-view of belen... on a plate.

The Octagon House is a beautiful old octagon-shaped house in Paoay, Ilocos Norte. It is lived-in. If there is anything I like more than plain old houses, it is old houses that are lived-in. Their stories continue, and they continue to have good, livable ventilation.


The octagon house from the outside.

The house was built by a local, Constancio Duque, in 1939. He was inspired by his stay in the Chicago, where houses were going beyond the boxy styles and into a so-called "bubble" style. Before being known as the Octagon House, it was called the idiay nagbukel or "round house".

Inside there is the typical assortment of Filipino Catholic paraphernalia.


Belen, frontal view.


Altar and Constancio's wedding photo.


Very large and unsettling figures.


Handpainted reproduction of that famous mother and child poster, by the owner of the home.

Alabang Public Market

Tofu squares, with pig intestines beside it. These bowls will be filled with arroz caldo.

Took a quick trip to the Alabang Public Market to buy some lumpia or spring roll wrappers and grated coconut to make some dessert. I got the wrappers but missed seeing them in actual creation, as the guy who made them went home for a bit! I will return soon with my burning questions early in the morning for a lesson in this amazing thin wonderproduct, which I eat like bread. I saw the equipment though-- it looks like a crepemaking surface.


Bottles of sauce, with bowls being wrapped in plastic. This makes it unnecessary to wash dishes.

While in the area, I got a taste of some jumbo deep-fried tofu with some soy sauce, fried garlic, and calamansi juice, for only 7 pesos. The same stall was selling pig intestines and arroz caldo as well.

The produce is enough of the standard stuff vegetables and seasonal or more unusual things (I spotted kamias, alocon, etc.). We got some smallish crabs too with blue shells.


Kamansi or breadfruit, laid out by a typical assortment of cabbage, Baguio beans, potatoes, tomatoes, and sayote.

It was getting late and I caught the market past its peak moments, but I'll be back soon. Lots of interesting nooks to poke your head into. On the way out, we spied a scooter outrageously detailed with the Louis Vuitton logo.


Logo hell

Alabang Public Market
Ride a jeep or bus to Alabang, and it will eventually drop you off very close to this market. Try to look for South Station Mall, and ask the folks where the palengke is. I apologize for the poor directions, here is a map that might help you figure it out.

Genocide

Tears.

Victims of a bizarre attempt to engineer society, remembered at S-21. The photos will make you wince-- tiny children, mothers, tearful men.


Black eyes.

But those that gave most pain were the smiling ones.



Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum
Street 113
Phnom Penh 12210
Cambodia
(+855) 23 30 0698
Hours: 7:30 AM- 11:30 AM, 2:00 PM- 5:30 PM

More Mushroom Siomai

They're not very big. They are dwarfed by this rather large calamansi.

Yes, we are seeing a trend here. Might is snowball into the next Zagu craze or shawarma wave? Maybe not, but it's worth continuing on the mushroom path.

I just spotted another mushroom siomai booth, this time at the AANI Weekend Market at FTI. This was a healthier version, being steamed and more mushroom-y in flavor.


Twenty pesos for five pieces, not bad at all.


Who knows?

The same stall also distributes Golden Cucinero Homemade Products. And if you might just remember that you need one while waiting for your siomai, you can buy a "ballpen" here for 10 pesos.

(Like the other AANI Market, this one is decidedly down-to-earth. I'm currently having a little internal rebellion against the "upscale" Makati markets, because often the sellers are very disconnected to their raw materials, and sometimes sell them at disproportionately high prices. Admittedly, I sell at one of them. :p)

You also see here an abundance of Filipino food, Filipino ingredients, interesting plants and fruit trees, and more of those "inventors" so neglected by our government.

Golden Cucinero Homemade Products (Distributor)
AANI Weekend Market
FTI Complex, Taguig City
Scroll down on this page and there are driving directions,
since I don't know how to komyut going there.

Mushroom Siomai

How appetizing!

Count me in as part of the human population that doesn't mind eating while talking about excrement, death, or disease. Or getting served siomai by a dude wearing a dead and preserved frog as a coin purse.


Siomai love for you...

I am in full support of people who wish to make unconventional food products out of plants. The siomai tasted alright, like mushrooms with onions and flour. It seemed like it might have had "cheese" (Kraft shit) in it, there was a salty and somewhat tart note. It was fried and oily. But... alright, on the whole. Enough to inspire me to try to make a steamed version at home.

I didn't try the mushroom burgers, primarily because I very much dislike commercial hamburger buns, which are milky-sweet.


So colorful and glittery. Are those mushrooms what I think they are??

AANI Herbal Garden and Livelihood Center is a great place to go if you like plants, livestock, food, and small new ideas. It's one of the few places where scientists and farmers can showcase their wares cheaply. Good ideas here rarely catch the wave they deserve, because those with access to media or purchasing power just aren't that interested.

Nicole's Mushroom Burger
AANI Herbal Garden and Livelihood Center,
Quezon Memorial Circle, Quezon City
MRT Station: Quezon Avenue
Take a jeep that goes around towards the Circle.

The One And Only National Library Guide Ever

Library card, front. My photo is too big!

Along with the Naughty Nurse, the Sexy Librarian has been one of the most predominant, ah, ideas that have brought color and motivation to some pretty loathsome institutions. Their origins are similar to those of the Tooth Fairy-- entities so fantastic and superlatively magical as to compensate for the unfortunate inevitability of gaping holes in your gums, death, injections, and the Dewey Decimal System.

Like getting a heavy-syrup shot for hepatitis vaccination, going to the library is largely seen as a chore, something you have to get done to fatten up that mandatory bibliography you append to that delightful research paper for your minor-yet-cumbersome class. Most people are too lazy to utilize these heavenly brothels of knowledge.


Pambansang Aklatan on Kalaw St.

I've proven since childhood to be a sucker for a gripping Bobbsey Twins mystery (about goldfish and cookies), any travel adventure (my homiez Tintin and Snowy), or how-to books (making lamps out of bottles and rubbish).

Later on, realizing what a detrimental Westernized mindframe I'd developed from a literary diet of suburbian utopian misleading stuff and Archie comics, I became more inclined to pick up journal articles of some ridiculously specialized field (Tarrifs and Woven Household Materials in Medieval Mesopotamia and Modern-Day Bulgaria: A Comparative Analysis). The latter appeals to me because there is so much impassioned nerd mania involved in creating works with this kind of absurd specificity.

So I graduated from mandatory schooling, and suddenly a little part of me was missing, the part that yearned for information overloads and etc. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to fill this void and take a trek to the National Library.

Let me begin by saying that these days, I usually say "fuggit" and hit the internet. Otherwise, I trawl stores and freeload new books while taking notes on my phone.

This time, I was looking for information more likely to be in obscure books by local researchers. The Pambansang Aklatan is the best place for this. It is just the type of place that needs an encouraging female sex bomb archetype to motivate you to go there-- stuffy, slow, quite subpar on the whole. But clean! It also has little displays of heroes' actual clothing and shoes.

If you hadn't gone to college around the University Belt nor heard of the National Library until now, trust me when I say you need to go through the process below (or some version of it). Otherwise suffer making several trips up and down the stairs, or to the library itself. Consider it a public service segment:

1. Take the LRT or FX to UN Avenue, and walk towards the library. You want to get off the station at around 8:20 AM, as the library opens at 8:30. Don't come during lunchtime, the ID applications are closed.

2. Apply for a library card. The window is to your left when you enter. Be armed with 50 pesos, a 1x1 photo, and a valid ID. (I forgot my ID at home and improvised a ghetto-looking one out of my business card, pasting a photo and putting a bogus "employee number" and all that stuff. I felt triumphant about this dishonesty. I should have felt bad, but it saved me a trip home.) You cannot even browse through books if you don't have a library card. I will explain more later.


Library card, back. See the mandatory ID card threats of loss and non-transferability, and your reader number, with an actual bar code.

3. Pay for the card, glue your pic on, sign it, and proceed to the electronic registration part. You will be asked to enter more detailed information, like your address, etc. They have some fantasy of actually being able to use this information.

4. Check your bag in at the right side of the first floor. They'll give you a claim tag. Be sure to bring your valuables, your library card, and some note-taking materials with you. And a pen. There are no pens available anywhere.

5. Go to your floor of choice. Mine was the Filipiniana section, as I wanted to find out about the history of my city. You log in at the area entrance.


Good daylighting in the search area.

6. Take some query cards from any of the wholesome librarians at your service. (Flip them over and you'll realize they're actually recycled cards from old card catalogues.) Go back out or into the halls to search for books on the available computers. Their selection is not too bad, especially when it comes to dissertations and local research. If you find something you definitely like, put it straight out on the query card. The rest you can write on a sheet of paper.


A faded green query card from Filipiniana.

7. Enter the "inner room" (I'm speaking from my experience in the Filipiniana section) which is actually where all the books are. You will be allowed to retrieve your own books. They are quite well-organized.


Inside the vault of books.

8. Take your books out of the morgue-like room. The lady by the door "checks out" your books. You will need to write the details of the books on the abovementioned query cards (if you haven't already), and give these to her with your library card. You can't actually take these books home. You need to give your card just to sit around and read them. Needless to say, this measure has surely ensured the continued presence of actual books in the building.

9. Research away. Around you will be similarly engrossed students from nearby universities. At the end of the day (4:30 PM), return your books to the lady, take your card, and scoot. You cannot take books home without resorting to theft.


Lots that you won't find on the web.

You have now extracted, with much effort, some benefit from your tax payments to our national government. You will no doubt be back, to maximize the effort you expended in actually obtaining both a card and information about the library's existence.


Pambansang Aklatan (National Museum)
T.M. Kalawa Street
Ermita, Manila
(+632) 525 1748 / (+632) 5253196
Hours: Monday- Saturday 8:30 AM-4:30 PM. During summertime they shorten hours and skip Saturdays. Call to make sure.
LRT Station: UN Avenue (I got lost because I missed my stop, but I ended up there eventually. Just ask around. FXs also go down in front of the building itself)