"My body is my journal, and my tattoos are my story."
The Wedding Lounge (see previous post) is a boutique which gathers all the services one needs for a wedding—or any large party, for that matter. Invitations, gowns, jewelry, cakes, flowers, photographers, videographers, makeup, chocolates… about the only thing you need to provide yourself is a bride or a groom.
Visitors to the 2013 Philippine Wedding Summit at the (unfortunately-named) World Trade Center in Pasay City over the weekend were greeted at the lobby by this miniature Eiffel Tower created by ambiance stylist Pido Villanueva. If you can't go to Paris for your wedding, you can bring Paris to your wedding instead.
Our neighborhood is full of small businesses located in converted houses. Aside from restaurants, spas are also very popular. One of them is Asyenda Beauty & Wellness, which offers different kinds of massages, facials, and salon services. Most of them are very inexpensive too. How does a one-hour full-body massage for US$8.50 sound to you?
How our utility men can make sense of this jumble of cables—power, phone, cable TV, internet—I have no idea.
For only Php700 (US$17.25) a year, Wheelers Club International assures members of 24/7 road assistance, towing, and ambulance service when you need them. In a city where government towing services are more expensive, it's a fantastic deal. And if you don't use any of their services within the year, then say "thank you" to whatever gods are out there. I don't know where the "international" in their name comes in, though—the company only serves Metro Manila and Metro Cebu.
Two of the Philippines' most popular mobile phone service providers have cell sites inside the Quezon City campus of Ateneo de Manila University, located on a field near the Manila Observatory. Part of the deal is, the observatory gets to place some of their weather and atmospheric instruments on the towers. The spindly tower on the right, as well as the white and brick building beside it, belongs to the observatory.
Near the entrance of an alley which leads to a poor community, the water meters of a row of apartments are locked in a metal cage whose base is cemented into the ground. The cage helps prevent three things: coconuts falling on and damaging the exposed pipes, illegal tapping into the water line, and stealing of the steel meters for resale.
At the Blue Market social enterprise fair where I took yesterday's photo, I was immensely gratified to learn about Quezon City's Sikap Buhay Entrepreneurship and Cooperatives Office. More than just a microfinance program, the office helps its poor clients with business development and planning, and it also helps the micro enterprises find new customers and markets. In fact, their stall in the fair featured the handicrafts of several cooperatives and enterprises, which included bags, mats and picture frames woven from fabric scraps, used paper and foil packs. Less garbage for the city, livelihood for the city's poor, and useful products for their customers. Everyone wins.
The Bangui Wind Farm is the first of its kind in the Philippines. Its twenty turbines are arranged in a single row along a nine-kilometer stretch of shoreline in the town of Bangui in the province of Ilocos Norte, which is at the northwestern-most tip of the big island of Luzon.
It has become such a popular tourist destination since its completion in 2008 that several bamboo and nipa huts offering refreshments, souvenirs (bamboo windmills, anyone?), and much-needed shade, have been erected on the beach where the dirt roads leading to the windmills end.
The Development Bank of the Philippines, which is a government financial institution, primarily finances the medium- and long-term needs of the agricultural and industrial sectors of the country, with a special emphasis on small- and medium-scale enterprises. Its headquarters is in Makati City and this is its branch along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City. Like most other banks, it is closed on weekends.
