D U M A ! ! !

Coming from Iloilo visiting Dumaguete to see my nephews in Silliman (the elder having just graduated cum laude), I was surprised to see a St. Paul University there; this revelation initiated by the monument on the boulevard to the 7 nuns from Chartres, France who came in at the start of the 20th Century (yes, that’s last century) to found the school.  Iloilo has its own St Paul University and interestingly enough, it was the archbishop of Jaro who assigned the nuns here.  However, further browsing on the web revealed that SP Duma predated SP Ilo by a good 7 years (1904 vs 1911) so I can surmise the nuns probably came straight from somewhere but Iloilo.  (See separate site for pics)

The speculation is stoked, the curiosity aroused.  Here are seven nuns in French convent habits, pointing this way and that, and as they landed on the beach, “joyously welcomed” by the locals (though I suspect this had more to do with the prospect of good French wine and cheese than on better NCLEX scores).  I don’t know about you, but I am not inclined to joyously welcome the education of my kids by nuns who should know better than to wear black, close-necked, long-sleeved habits, and go island-hopping in the tropics.  And with hats like those, the small rickety wooden boat probably didn’t need any sails.  As a matter of fact, the good Archbishop of Jaro probably intended them to come to Iloilo, not Dumaguete.  It was those darn hats that got them caught in some intertropical convergence zone and blew them south to this “Land of Gentle People.”

And gentle the people the Dumagueteños are.  And welcoming of tourists and strangers.  Such is the usual case of simple decent provincial folks on the throes of urban sophistication.  We can only hope this balance is maintained at least in my lifetime (hey, everyone has the right to have an ipod and a pair of avayanas at some point down the road, in due time, in due time). But I digress.

It wasn’t exactly a very smooth journey (roro sched mixup, road repairs, road slips and landslides in belatedly discovered overinflated tires), all i wanted to do upon arriving was to lie down for a good nap, which is what i actually did for two hours after i dropped my luggage.

Rizal Blvd with the prerequisite Chow King.

I only stayed for 2 nights and one whole day, not enough for the sites outside town but just right to take in what the city has to offer.  Duma does what the rest of the Philippine cities should be doing: preserve old buildings and make them self-supporting and viable operations.  It has done so very well in Rizal Boulevard (1914) by the bay.  Admittedly some have been turned into bars where, to paraphrase DWF writer Jane Austen, “it is a truth universally acknowledged that a retired white man man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a local brown wife.”  But still.

Thursday.  After breakfast at MacDo (sige, smirk ka dyan), we went to the city plaza to visit the Tourism Office and to do some household shopping at the ubiquitous Unitop.  Across the other side of the plaza, the cathedral has gone through several reconstructions since it was established in 1811, a full two and a half generations before Jose Rizal (my constant 19th century chronological benchmarks, thanks to Yoyoy Villame).  The campanario or belfry started even earlier (1760), as one of four watchtowers used to warn locals of marauding pirates coming to plunder and pillage, or in the local dialect, “dumagit.”  Geddit, geddit?!?!   With a well-visited grotto at the foot of the belfry where the pious and the faithful light candles, adjacent to it on the church grounds is an FRT (Foot Reflexology Therapy) center manned by volunteers.  With some trepidation and hesitation, my nephew and I tried it.  They say in Eastern culture, if it hurts, it’s good for you.  If so, what we had then was probably very good for us.  As nice as Ms. Emily was, she was also quite a chatterbox, punctuating each painful stab of her evil stick with a declaration of the corresponding body part that she allegedly just stimulated.  It took a lot of courage and restraint to keep an expression of calm indifference especially when she attacked the “testicular” and “genital” meridiens on my sole, though I must admit I wasn’t so sure how to react when she got to the part for the, um, “vas deferens.”

After that and a good lunch at the local student population’s favorite chicken barbeque place, we went back home to rest and play some more with the dogs and the day-old calf (see pics).  Then, we were off to Silliman Univ to check my nephews’ school.  A pretty pleasant place to walk around in, especially the area around the Library and the Henry Luce Auditorium (yes, he who found Time Magazine).  Frisbee seems to have taken a good hold in here, with some students taking a year off just to throw it.  Wanted to have some coffee at the campus’ own cafe’ fronting the bay.  Evidently a lot of <fingers doing the quote unquote> cool people  go there for their lattes, but my nephews begged to disagree.  They say the really cool people in Silliman don’t go for wimpy coffee.  They take Red Horse.  At 10 A.M.  With their professor.

Next stop was Centrop, the zoo by the uni where the two main residents are the white spotted deer and the warty hog – both endangered species (with names like that, they could use a really big tube of Canesten).  What they also need is more funding, though the very spare staff do a very good job of keeping the place going.  The partly unkempt grounds though is part of its charm – this is a forest as it should be, impressively old and stately trees with the grounds full of fallen leaves and outgrowth.  It was baking hot in the parking area but 15 meters away, it felt cool and pleasant under the canopy of the trees.

Rolling towards dinner had us at another sugba place.  But before doing so, we had to get some of the famous sans rival before it closed at 7, dining customers be damned.  I need not tell you, the joint is named, um, San Rival, but I’d understand if they imposed a sin tax on that thing, it’s that good.  One other thing I note is that a lot of locals do patronize the food joints for their regular meals, unlike Iloilo where the general rule has been you had to have an excuse or a good reason to eat out.  Iloilo might be more of the exception here, but this probably explains the good number of good value lutong-bahay (home cooked) places around.  Last stop, the Spanish coffee shop that started out simply as a catering business but had the good sense to convert the old wooden house into an open dining cafe’ complete with wooden swinging seats.  A mysterious white lady floating about would not look out of place in this joint, and it wouldn’t surprise me if those 3 coeds seated on the next table were never really there.

The next morning, with foreboding clouds and with the Cebu leg of the trip cancelled, we packed up and headed back.  We did make another stop at the Chan estate, a short but stop-on-your-driving-tracks stretch framed by moss-covered trees that arch over the road.  Formerly owned by the Tabacalera group, the estate has ten 19th century style mansions spread out all over the grounds on both sides of the street. Yes, it’s the Chan family as in Jose Marie Chan, he of the unforgivably sappy songs they use at Guantanamo Bay as and “enhanced interrogation technique,” he who is a regular in the alumni fundraising circuit, thereby ensuring the continuance of this vicious cycle.  The Janet Basco Suite at the Hotel Hades awaits him.

And so my blog entry on Duma ends.  My second nephew still has two years to go; I shall be back this time hopefully with my nieces in tow, and with enough time and planning to visit the lakes, the falls, the caves and other wonders Duma has kept for me to visit and explore.  (blurby enough for a tourism ad?)

For the pics and the captions, please check my photo link. (Work in progress.  Anybody recommends a good photo site?)

Taiwan, Baguio

(WIP – pics to post)

The past month had given this writer the opportunity to travel some more than than the Iloilo trip the last time. To Taiwan and Baguio, as a matter of fact.

Taiwan (Aug 18-23) had always been a regular destination ever since I worked there for a good number of years, and the place has grown into a more mature and confident place than when I stayed there in the 90s (that is last century!). I say that because as the world turns its back politically on Taiwan, Taiwan has shown a more “I don’t care” attitude about it – The world may think so much of China, but that doesn’t mean we cease to exist. And exist well, prosperously and at peace. Commerce seems to be booming, the MRT system buzzes along with the busybees that are the Taiwanese people to-ing and fro-ing about.

A pleasant surprise came into view as my plane descended on Taoyuan airport – windmills! The huge, white, towering types that I saw in science articles are now, with very little fanfare (or simply because I am not in Taiwan), “planted” along what I assume would be the eastern coast (I counted 20 but google says there are more than a hundred now, enough for 105,000 households. Imagine turning on the aircon, browsing the web, while the tv is on, and the coffee pot’s percolating, all from free electricity!) Perfect that I was bringing with me super howler Egay, aka Sepat. It was fretfully anticipated but that didn’t stop me from directly proceeding to the electronics market across the train station and put down an order for an Acer TravelMate notebook and a Benq digital camera.

And what a howler it was! The next day, I knew before leaving my friend Pablo’s house that to carry an umbrella would risk me flying away like Mary Poppins so I stuck through with my nylon jacket. Sure enough, I could barely hold on to my own body against the wind. Ever see cartoon characters Rage! Rage! against the wind, headlong with their arms flailing behind them? Well, walking beside some tall buildings that had a funneling effect, I certainly did look like those ‘toons, but this time, it wasn’t very funny.

Fortunately, the rains only lasted two of the five days I stayed there. Pablo, recently married June of this year, had moved to a new place in Beitou, and there I was in the new guest room with a computer and a DSL connection! In a quiet side street, next to a police station and community center, a short distance to local eats (my favorite fan-thuan!), by the hills, next to a creek, a short distance to very well developed hiking trails: his place couldn’t be more feng-shui auspicious. Good friend, Lily, who now tutors local kids in English seems pretty well settled, a lifestyle so different than what she had before, and quite evidently so much better for her.

A few of the errands I had planned to work on this trip went undone, but intentionally; better decisions I would think. The stock market is down, and I don’t think I’m getting any younger so liquidating some of my stocks and canceling my health insurance may not be prudent things to do. As for the LCD TV I promised my Dad (or rather, I promised myself I’d get for my Pop), the Beijing Olympics is still many months away, and by then, prices would still inch down a bit. And that makes another trip back to Taiwan in the horizon. As a friend and I always say, let’s make a trip that needs a reason.

= = = = = =

Baguio (Aug 31 – Sept 1)

My Cervini (college dorm) graduating class college retreat was the last time I’ve been to Baguio – most memorable for the facts that what was supposed to be a silent retreat ended up being a mini party interspersed with some memorable dramatic moments, courtesy of some Eliazo (the female dorm) residents.

So there we were, some friends and I, driving up north with a stopover at the Shrine of our Lady of Manoag. Thanks to aforementioned Egay slash Sepat, a declared holiday meant that i got leave credits to push through with Baguio.

Congested would be an apt term for Baguio, an opinion I’ve heard repeatedly from other people. Even so, the treats that Baguio offers still makes it worth the trip: the views, the fresh air and the cool weather, the Pink Sisters convent (should go back for the singing, kuno), Mine’s View and the fresh food market (though pesky vendors is one thing they can have less of). Even so, we do note that they have much less beggars than the good ole’ metropolis of Bayani Fernando, and mostly, everyone seems to at least try to eke out a living by vending something. But yes, we also do note that asking for directions from the ordinary man on the street is not such a productive exercise, which we conclude, comes from the fact that it has a very high transient population – which begs the question, if everybody is trooping to Baguio, where did the real old-time local residents go?!?

Oh, I must mention as well that our stay at the Baguio Country Club was quite pleasant, save for particular incidents of bad, unprofessional service from the front desk and restaurant staff. But when the service is good, as it was in the coffee shop where they sell the justly famous raisin bread, it was exceptional and memorable (a banana cake-tasting offer turned into full-service, sit-down affair with a gorgeous view when we told them we are waiting for a carwash to finish). That did translate to a Php980 bakery purchase, so it was the right thing for them to do, sucker customer that I am.

So there, a couple of thousand bucks poorer, but all the happier for having made that trip, we got back to Manila with a resolution to do it again in the future, this time with lesser trips to SM Baguio, please.