Sandwiches. Why I Love Them.

I love sandwiches. I am a pretty lazy eater, especially when I have other things to do. Since it's midterm week I try to  spend as little time on food preparation as I can, and this is where delicious sandwiches come in. My mom bought this loaf of whole wheat bread from the local mall which I like since since you get so full after two or three slices, and the wheat and all that fiber just makes you think that you're doing something good for your body.

I like to put anything in my sandwiches but lately it's been tuna, instead  of the usual ham or salami ( although salami is pretty good too!). This is also the first time that I got to try this mozarella which according to my brother, is probably  made by local farmers from Bacong from goat cheese (cool, eh?) At P50 per pack I you can make a dozen sandwiches with the cheese, methinks. Lettuce, slices of cucumbers, tomatoes, topped with cheese make up this snack. Paired with a cup of hot coffee, perfect lunch! Works for dinner, too! :D

Weddings, anyone?

I don't know if this happens to every 28 year-old out there, but suddenly it seems like people I know can't wait for me to get married. Friends ask me why, why not get married now? My mom has been asking the question, and just recently, a well-meaning aunt sent me a rather lengthy Facebook private message on why I should get married (according to her, I'm at the right age, and I have a pretty great boyfriend-- all you need for a walk down the aisle, apparently). I don't get irritated by these questions, especially the good-natured ones, but there are times when you get tired of having to explain yourself why you and your boyfriend choose not to get married yet.

Why not? I just realized that I haven't asked myself this question. A lot of my friends are married. Most of them already have families of their own. But not once did these influence me into getting married myself. It's all about timing, I guess, and knowing in your gut that you are not in that place in your life to settle down. 

I have other reasons. For one, I want to prepare for my wedding. See, I do want to get married. I think about wedding venues and vintage wedding dresses and flowers and choosing the design for my wedding invitations. A lot. I get headaches just fantasizing about catering and caterers and stringing up lights enclosed in delicate paper lanterns on trees and hedges and bushes around the reception area. Bridal fairs give me butterflies in my stomach. I think about how many days it will take me to prep up the venue, and how much the food and music will cost. I think about the prenup, who will take the pictures on the wedding day, and if I should solicit the services of expert photographer friends to do a little bit of pro bono work for me (*wink wink*) I think about the shipping costs of having a vintage wedding dress shipped all the way from where I'll be buying it from.

There are a lot of reasons aside from these. Weddings, and more importantly, a marriage, is not something you enter into just because you are at the right age or because you have finished college. It's not that simple. There's still a lot of stuff I want to do, and I want to be single doing them. I want to have a house before I get married, get a stable job, build the foundations of a career, and of course, prepare my wedding, before I make the jump. I'm sure my boyfriend has his reasons too, but I'm sure he will agree with pretty much what I'm saying.

So see, I do think about getting married. It just doesn't mean I'm going to do it tomorrow.

Jollibee Deliveries

Heavy reading is not possible if you have an empty stomach, so I try to have food handy when the need to study arises. With midterms just around the corner, I found myself looking for delivery services so that I won't have to spend an hour dressing up and heading downtown to buy food myself. There are a lot of food places in Duma that now make deliveries ( Hayahay,  Neva's, Alberto's). Jollibee also makes deliveries, and I think they were the first to do so in the city when they first opened.

The minimum is P200, so I make sure to order, aside from my usual cheeseburger, large fries, and pineapple juice, other edibles such as their pies or another serving of fries. It's such a shame that they discontinued their cheesy fries (I had the worst cravings for those fries back when  JB was still serving them, cravings that would last for a week!). They have flavored fries now, but it's not the same.)  They usually take 45 minutes to get the order ready for delivery ( a little bit long IMO) but the good thing is that Jollibee is located along the national highway, which means they can deliver to my house in about 7 minutes.

cheeseburger and fries

peach and mango pie

Alberto's Pizza

I find it really convenient that two pizza chains are just a ride away from my house. Alberto's and Biano's put up shop along the National Highway near Claytown, and they've been doing brisk business ever since. Dumaguete  is a great place for pizza, especially cheap pizza ( just ask Neva's). Alberto's and Biano's serve pizzas that are eerily similar in taste, although I've been calling Alberto's more often lately because they deliver at ALL HOURS of the day (I even had a pizza delivered at 1 in the morning) and they don't charge anything for the delivery.

Alberto's serves two kinds of pizza, one with Quickmelt and other with mozzarella. I prefer the latter, since it's not as salty as quickmelt and you get that rubbery texture  that always makes pulling out another slice so pleasurable.  Hawaiian with mozzarella and Hungarian taste really good. My most recent delivery was ham and egg, which turned out to be not as tasty as the other's I've tried. The egg was runny, which gave the pizza top a really wet, soggy look. It tasted ok, but this time the crust tasted sweeter than I had previously remembered. Lesson learned, I think I'll stick to the Hawaiian and Hungarian next time.

The great thing is that they also deliver ice cream (Sorbetes, P100 per half-gallon) and yogurt shakes. I 'm  the only one in my family who loves Sorbetes ice cream so I could be the only person here who's happy that they are delivering ice cream for free. You can't beat having ice cream, pizza, and yogurt shakes delivered to your door. It saves me a lot of money on pedicab fare alone, and I don't have to get dressed just so I can go out and  get my pizza. With their 11" pizzas costing just a little over P100, it's so hard to go wrong with Alberto's.

Call 422-6392 for deliveries. :)

Travel {Malasag Eco Tourism VIllage, Cagayan de Oro}

JP took me to Malasag on my last day in CDO. About 30 minutes from the center of the city, the park looked like a little village in Baguio to me, with its lodges and trees and the overloooking view. It was cool there, and I almost missed Valencia. On the way up, JP pointed out the stations of the cross marked by white crosses that stand right along the road. 

The ride to the park is really cool, as if you can touch the droplets of moisture in the air. It was so cool that when JP and I arrived, our lenses were all fogged up, and I almost freaked out, since my lens from the outside was already opaque with the thick layer of moisture. However, after a few vigorous wipes our lenses were back to normal. 

entrance to the park

There's a restaurant that overloooks the city and the coast. From there you could see the brown part of the ocean, remnants of Sendong. 

The coast, still brown from the storm. 

one of the many little footpaths that lead to flowers and more flowers

 The park is perfect if you are tired of the all the dust in the city and you want fresh air for a change. The good thing is its just a few miles from the highway so the ride to the park if you are in the city is not really a big thing. If I was living in CDO I'd be here every weekend, my notebook and Tattoo in tow. I bet I can do a lot of writing or studying here. It's so quiet except for the sound of the birds and crickets, and you have the restaurant if you ever get hungry. People who like to emote alone [and I do know of a few ;)] will surely love this place.

Travel {Christmas 2011 in CDO}

Dec. 25, Christmas Day,  I was on a ferry to CDO. It's a good thing that Cebu Ferries has a ferry bound for CDO during the day. With all the news about bad weather I was pretty apprehensive about going anywhere near water, but what could I do? I made a promise to go to CDO for Christmas, and  I was pretty excited to see a new city for a change.

The 8-hour trip was very comfortable, at least. A classmate of mine was also making the trip to see his girlfriend, so that made two of us making this trip for the sake of someone else who lives in another island, eight hours away. But I can't complain. This is my first trip to see my boyfriend, and he has basically done this a dozen times for me during the year. Besides, the tourist cabins were really clean. This is my first time to ride Super Ferry (before that, my sea-voyage experiences were all done aboard GP, which really left  a LOT to be desired when it comes to sea vessels especially if you want to enjoy a good night's sleep during the trip).

Cebu Ferry on Christmas Day

I arrived at exactly 4 pm, which was an hour earlier than I anticipated. We made our way out, and Carlo, my classmate, was kind enough to walk with me until I met up with JP before heading out to catch his taxi. JP was waiting near the gate, and it was surreal, seeing him someplace other than Dumaguete. I also got my first impression of CDO at this time. Exactly a week  after Sendong hit, CDO was among the worst affected places, and I could see it in the streets, where piles of soil and debris were gathered on the sides of the road. Despite the calamity, however,  it looked liked business as usual for the people of Cagayan. The part of the city which was least affected was still bustling with people who were most likely busy preparing for Christmas Day dinners and for the coming New Year. We drove through the town to the hotel, which was a block away from Ketkai, the mall that JP always talked about.

To get to Pearlmont you have to go through this street that resembled Colon in Cebu.

Ornate. That's what I could describe this hotel. Inside and out, the hotel was big on details. I especially loved the Christmas decorations that they strung out. JP told me that a lot of people displaced  by Sendong  who could afford to stay in hotels were staying in Pearlmont. I also saw a lot of volunteers going in and out of the hotel during my stay there. I love the hotel's look at night, when it's facade turns into this red-orangy color due to the lights.

Christmas dinner was at Golden Cowry in Ketkai. Golden Cowry is still relatively new there, and I was really craving for their ginataang langkka.

Finally made it to Ketkai!
JP always talks about Ketkai since the mall is just right across the street from his school. 

We explored the mall after dinner. The mall was packed with people. Compared to Rob in Dumaguete, Ketkai is big. There's a Robinson's inside the mall, and it is connected to other buildings in the area via skywalks, which is really convenient since you don't have to go out into the street if you want to go to the mall from Gateway Towers, which  is where Travelers Pod is located.

Travelers Pod

I moved to Travelers Pod on Tuesday, the day I was supposed to leave. This is a relatively new hotel at Gateway Towers, and it was just a skywalk away from the mall. Upstairs, Chowking, Teriyaki Boy and Figaro have set up space. I would really, really, really love to post more pictures of the hotel. It is none like any other hotel I've stayed in. They have rooms for anyone who simply wants to take a one-hour nap, but they also have rooms for overnight stays. Called pods, beds for hourly guests are surrounded by fabric walls, which are drawn together like curtains when not in use. The pods for overnight guests are bigger, but just enough to avoid being cramped. JP told me that the rooms reminded him of Japanese rooms, which are also notoriously small. I also remember  reading about hotels like these sprouting all over Japan in 2000, which usually accommodated corporate suits who wanted to take quick power naps in between meetings. The hotel has strict rules about noise. During my stay, JP and I had to speak in whispers. I was even afraid of using my blow dryer, since someone sleeping on the pods could wake up because of the noise.  Spa music piped through the walls all throughout the day, which added to the place's relaxing feel.

JP took me on OBTs during the evenings, where there is less heat and dust. CDO has a lot of cars, and jeepneys, and buses... compared to the relatively laid back way of driving in  Dumaguete, CDO drivers are really scary. We also crossed the bridge to where most of the damage of Sendong happened. A part of the highway did not have any lights, so it was pretty eerie driving through the area at night, knowing that a lot of people died nearby during that week. We also made our way to Divisoria. where a lot of people gather in the evenings to eat, have coffee, and even get a massage! Afterwards we to a park lit up by hundreds of water gallon lights. People who lost their homes were also temporarily staying in the park grounds.

I did not know what to feel seeing people in the malls and then going out and seeing other people sleeping on the park or taking baths by the street. We went through Makasandig after JP took me to see SM, which was located up a hill. Makasandig was were some of the evacuees were housed, and as we went by the cramped  basketball court where the people are gathered,  I saw people taking baths near the side of the street. However, I could also see children who were happily playing, seemingly oblivious to what just happened to them and their neighbors. Perhaps, being a kid in calamities like these can be a blessing.

Park illluminated by hundreds of water gallon lights

We went to Malasag the day before I left. Malasag is an ecovillage halfway between the city and Bugo, where JP lives. Thankfully, the ecopark was spared by the damage brought by the storm.