Travel {Quiet Corners and Good Coffee in Gewai}

“Quiet had a roof and it had walls around it, and you could sit inside it. She had never thought of silence as a place.One of the friends, Tom Williams told her,

'the place is in your heart, Louise. Everything else is just clutter.” 

― Lloyd Jones

 Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance

Discovering new places and things often require taking the bus, the train or a car service, partly because we thought we have left no stone unturned in our walkable neck of the woods in CQ. So it was a pleasant surprise when the husband stumbled on a location for Gewai  or 格外小馆·山顶顶店.     格外小馆·屋顶顶店 which roughly translates to "very small hall on a rooftop."

Gewai is a coffee shop that offers specialty coffee, good food, and comfortable, rustic and homey interiors, and it is just two bus stops away! I pestered him to go by this morning, not for a bite or a cuppa but just to check the place out before we shopped for staples at IKEA. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we got lost on the way to the shop (it was located on the roof of an arts building) so we were hungry and itching for a place to sit down by the time we pushed the cafe's wooden doors open and stepped inside. 

The lovely lady who served us sat us down in one of the nooks at the back where we had the corner all to ourselves. Big windows let plenty of light in. Potted plants, magazines on the console, and artwork on the walls give the place a modern yet rustic vibe. I wanted to go out to the outdoor patio just outside, where a riot of flowering plants and a cacti garden were allowed to overgrow during the holidays. They were in the process of fixing things there, so I stayed put and took photos while we waited for the food. 

Our server was kind enough to  give us complimentary  油炸汤圆 or Yóu zhá tāngyuán, which roughly translates to "round balls in soup."  It was basically porridge with dates, nuts, orange zest and a host of other ingredients that created a rainbow of flavors in the mouth once you get a spoonful in. It was also a warm dessert which made it the perfect thing to tide us over as we waited for our food. 

The husband ordered the stir-fried vegetables in fish sauce while I had a serving of beef tortillas. Both were served in eye-catching, colorful presentations, flavorful but light and filling at the same time, so no regrets in the food department. As for the coffee, we didn't try anything hot (the husband had a  cold mocha with ice cream) but we came from another Gewai branch last night and my sea salt caramel coffee, with its full, creamy body and chocolatey aftertaste didn't disappoint.

A couple of shots from our little corner in Gewai.

Personal {Autumn 2018}

What I'm most grateful for, what stops me in my tracks especially when I let my mind go blank, is the fact that for several months in a year, I get to stay in a country where the leaves turn into wonderful shades of red, orange, yellow, brown and purple. Just as much as I am often left awestruck by the glorious blues of the sea from a bench on the Rizal Boulevard on a sunny day, I am equally amazed at how the pigments in these leaves transform and rearrange themselves as they prepare to fall. During our fall walks last year we were able to walk through streets turned yellow by fallen ginkgo leaves and parks with tree-lined pathways. Their canopies were green, then light red, and then fiery orange. 

 Creation is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

Personal {Calligraphy}

“Why are things beautiful? I don´t know. That´s a good question. Isn´t it pleasing when you ask a question of a person, a teacher, or a speaker, and he or she says, That´s a good question? Don´t you feel good when that happens?” 

― Nicholson Baker

A Box of Matches

I joined my first ever calligraphy workshop at the start of 2019! K, a photographer friend from Dumaguete has been holding calligraphy workshops in town and I was never around to join them, until last month! I was scheduled to fly off to Manila the day after for law-related stuff, but that didn't stop me from signing up for the workshop and finally getting some sort of expert-assisted training with calligraphy. 

It was just the basics but it was fun and it made me realize how important practice and technique are in creating consistent brushstrokes that look pleasing to the eye. I usually wing it with my calligraphy (if one can ever call it that), and following any form of technique has never been my thing so it was a great learning experience. 

The workshop was also for a good cause (proceeds were donated to help the family of a local photographer), so I was more than happy to sit in on this and learn. 

A few shots from that afternoon.