Kiss

A red sunset at Manila Bay.

Moving on

After a light rain shower in Quezon City.

What beach?

The wide, white sand beaches of Boracay are well-known among tourists all over the world, but I have to confess that my husband and I had never visited the island until his youngest brother got married there last June.
  Trust that our first time in Boracay would be at the beginning of the southwest monsoon, when there was hardly any sign of its fabled powder-fine white sand because of the high tides.

But I exaggerate, of course. The waters would recede in the afternoon and we could walk comfortably on the well-packed sand to one of Boracay's equally fabled cafés, restaurants and bars. And I am very happy to report that the sand definitely lives up to its reputation.

East and west

The town of Pagudpud in the province of Ilocos Norte is gaining popularity as a beach vacation destination. However, its coastline is quite extensive and we found out, too late, that it is best to find out which direction the wind is blowing before choosing which beach to go to.
  Saud Beach is the most developed (relative only to the rest of the town, of course) and generates the most results when doing a Google search for "Pagudpud resorts." It faces west and, because we arrived just when the Southwest Monsoon (habagat) was about to start, the wind was blowing sand all over the place and the current was a little too strong for beach bums like us who only stay near the shore. The habagat season in the Philippines is from May to October (or thereabouts).
  During those months, it is better to stay at Blue Lagoon, which faces east. We drove the extra half hour needed to get there from Saud, and it was worth it. The water had the barest of ripples. During the Northeast Monsoon (amihan)—the other half of the year—this part of Pagudpud gets windy and the waters more turbulent, and it is better to stay in Saud.
  I wish we could have experienced Blue Lagoon in the middle of summer when it would not have been overcast. There is a reason why it got that name, after all.

Sun and rain

I guess this photo is a good summary of the kind of weather we have in the Philippines—sun and rain, that's it. It's just a matter of degree.

The Mindanao cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro, and smaller towns around them, have been devastated by floods caused by Typhoon Sendong (international code: Washi) and the death toll is now more than 500. If you can spare a little, please help the 8000 families who have been affected by the floods. The most convenient way to donate is online through the Philippine Red Cross' website but if you want to know about other options, please leave a comment and I will try to give you more information. Thank you.

A rainy Sunday in December

When you just want to stay in bed the whole day.

MMMoody

Bukal ng Tipan is situated on a hilltop (Maryhill) and has commanding views of the towns of Rizal Province and the cities of Metro Manila (MM). From this height, the skyscrapers of the cities of Pasig, Makati and Taguig suddenly look quite puny.




With the backlighting provided by a setting sun, one can even see the skyscrapers of distant Manila and Pasay cities.




Our weather has been really strange, with strong rains—and even a typhoon, Bebeng (Aere)—in the middle of what is supposed to be our summer. Combined with Metro Manila's air pollution, one can hardly see the metro during an overcast day.

Gray and green

The looming 35-story residential condominium along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City, which I first wrote about in March, is almost done. Only the pavilion on the roof deck remains unfinished. It's called the Berkeley Residences and the developer is the SM Group of Companies, the same company that filled Manila, and many other parts of the Philippines, with enormous malls. The Philippines is still in the middle of its monsoon season and our skies look like this, or worse, almost everyday. It's a bother, but as long as there are no devastating typhoons, I don't mind much—just look at that wonderfully green grass!

Visit the Sky Watch Friday home page and tour the skies of our beautiful world.

So it begins

The first typhoon of the season lashed the northern and eastern part of the Philippines Tuesday night. As I write this, 21 people are known to have been killed and sixty are missing. Basyang (international code name Conson) didn't bring much rain in our part of Quezon City, though I hear that it caused floods in other parts of Luzon. The worst of it in our area was at 4:00PM and it let up just in time to let office workers go home relatively dry. I really ought to have something done about the pathway to our office building—because of the slope of the terrain, it always gets inundated when rains are strong and becomes quite useless as a path.




The winds of Basyang were another matter altogether, however: sustained winds of 120 kph (74 mph) and gusts of up to 150 kph (93 mph). We lost power at home at 11:00PM of Tuesday and I wasn't the only one who had a tough time sleeping that night, not only because of the noise of the howling wind, but because of the fear that I might hear a part of the roof being torn away or a tree falling on the house. This was the scene that greeted me when I got to the office yesterday morning, off to one side of the path above. Power at our house was restored yesterday at 3:00PM, and we are one of the lucky ones. Metro Manila's power distributor, Meralco, estimates that it needs two to three more days to restore power to its entire grid, which also covers much of the island of Luzon. As the colleague of a friend tweeted, "Blackouts, howling winds, heavy rains, falling trees and flying billboards. Welcome to typhoon country, Philippine-style!"

The last days of summer

During the past two weeks, Manila's daytime weather has still been that of summer: hot. But it has also started becoming very humid, and late in the afternoon, dark clouds would gather, the wind would become a little cooler and sometimes, rain would fall in the early evening. I saw this young man flying a kite in the brown fields of the University of the Philippines as the sun was setting behind the evening's rain clouds. Pretty soon, the grass of the fields will be bright green again.

Visit the Sky Watch Friday home page and tour the skies of our beautiful world.

Boiled koi

This is the small koi pond of Dencio's Bar and Grill in its enviable location on the roof deck of the strip mall beside the Capitol Hills Golf & Country Club. Outdoor dining is nice, but not for lunch in the middle of the Philippine summer. Even the koi are taking shelter in the shadow of the pedestals. Thank goodness the restaurant has an airconditioned dining room.

Natural or man-made, take a refreshing dip in Watery Wednesday.

Broccoli trees

Walking around the perimeter of Timberland Sports and Nature Club (see yesterday's post), an office mate pointed out these trees on the slope of the next hill. Since it is the middle of summer in the Philippines, most of our grasses and plants are brown, pale, thin, dry or downright bald, so these trees are striking for their lush, bright green leaves. They were too far to identify with any certainty, but another office mate said that they looked like broccoli and thus were they christened.



Kidding aside, my guess is that they're mango trees.

Bored

Caught in slow-moving traffic one rainy morning, I finally noticed the graffiti-covered buildings under the Katipunan Avenue flyover. They're not abandoned but are still being used as offices of some kind. And no, I wasn't driving.

Natural or man-made, take a refreshing dip in Watery Wednesday.

For my soul

After spending almost the entire week indoors at the Ateneo Art Gallery looking at some very strange artwork, let's step outdoors for a breather, shall we? Just another beautiful day looking at the boats docked at the Manila Yacht Club. This photo is from the archives. After three weeks of almost constant rain, my soul is yearning for some bright blue skies.

Visit the Sky Watch Friday home page and tour the skies of our beautiful world.

Metal monstrosity

When our typhoon season rolls in, some of the more responsible outdoor advertising companies roll down the large tarpaulin billboards found all over Metro Manila. Too many have fallen in the past and brought down power cables, destroyed property and caused car accidents. Of course, the empty metal frames make for an awful city skyline, but then I think that's true of most advertising billboards in general.

Visit the Sky Watch Friday home page and tour the skies of our interesting world.

A bright spot

Looking south towards the hills of the province of Cavite from a ferry in the middle of Manila Bay, I saw clouds moving towards the east to join the rain clouds that were already over Metro Manila. The edge of the largest cloud was lit by the last rays of the setting sun. When we reached Manila, it was dark, cold and wet.

You can view the beautiful skies of our world through the Sky Watch Friday home page, but before you do, please spend a few minutes for one country whose people right now are facing a such a violent crackdown against their right to make their voices heard that I am sure none of them are even noticing what their sky is like, much less appreciate it. Please sign the petition of Avaaz (which means "voice" in many Asian, Middle Eastern and Eastern European languages) for Iran to
Stop the Crackdown.
The link is to the English page, but you can choose from thirteen other languages.

Evening sunlight

Walking east out of the campus yesterday at 6:10 in the evening, I noticed that the sun was still high in the sky. Less than two weeks ago it would have been quite dark at this time and night-blind-me would have been having a hard time on the gravel paths. Summer has arrived.

Visit the Sky Watch Friday home page and tour the skies of our beautiful world.

Of hills and heroes

December 30 is Rizal Day in the Philippines. It commemorates the death of Dr. Jose P. Rizal by firing squad in 1896 which made him a martyr of the Philippine Revolution against Spanish colonial rule. So today I offer you a photo not of Metro Manila but of the province named after him. Rizal province is to the east of Metro Manila and has one city and 13 municipalities. It is hilly, situated as it is on the slopes of the southern portion of the Sierra Madre mountain range, and the weather is cooler than Manila's. It can actually support pine trees! They're on the scrawny side, but still. Because of Metro Manila's congestion and high land costs, the nearest municipalities of Rizal are seeing a lot of development. This photo shows some of the new subdivisions in Taytay. Next to Cainta, it is the nearest municipality to Pasig City, which is part of Metro Manila. In fact, Pasig City itself used to be the capital of the province of Rizal until it was made a part of the metro in 1975.

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Just a reminder to all you CDP bloggers out there: If you haven't voted for the February theme yet, please do so! The poll is in the February Theme Day Poll forum topic. Please help spread the word too!

Flash flood

Tropical storm "Helen" (international code name "Kalmeagi") passed through the Philippines this week. It skipped Metro Manila but since she enhanced our regular southwest monsoon, our rains yesterday were stronger than usual. The result: flash floods all over the metropolis because the drains couldn't handle the water volume fast enough. On our short, five-kilometer route to work, we had to go through four spots of this deep, muddy water. But this was still nothing compared to other areas. The cities of Navotas and Malabon, which are on the coast, had to call off classes because the floods were too deep.

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Eki Qushay Akhwan of Bandung Daily Photo has honored me with the Arte y Pico blog award. Thank you, Eki!

Here are the guidelines for the award:

1. Recipients choose five blogs which they consider to be deserving of this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and which contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language they are in.
2. After selecting your honorees, list the name of the blog author and a link to his/her blog so they may be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award, identify the person who conferred the award, and link to his/her blog.
4. All award winners will link to the Arte y Pico blog so that everyone will know the origin of the award.
5. Provide a copy of these guidelines.

One can always decline the award, but I gladly accepted it, mainly for the chance to pass it on to some of my favorite blogs. Fun! It was difficult to choose just five blogs, though. But after agonizing over it the whole day, here are my choices (as eclectic as my interests):

1. Joel of Switchblog. Joel is an artist, designer, and computer and tech geek. He gives me credit for his switching to a Mac, but even back then, his proficiency with anything technology-related was way beyond mine. Switchblog is his minimalist gadget news and tips blog. Love how it looks and if you're a gadget freak, extremely useful.
2. David of Tamarindo, Costa Rica Daily Photo. I'll just put it this way: if my husband and I ever decide to immigrate, I know what country I'm going to push for.
3. Elisa of Confetti Cakes. Elisa doesn't blog often, but her cakes are gorgeous works of art. Look for the cake she made for her dad—an edible sculpture of his labrador-poodle pet. It's awesome.
4. Andy Ristaino and company of P.I.P. The Post-It Project. Miniature works of art.
5. M. Patrizio. When I'm feeling blue, I just go to her site and I'm sure to leave with a smile on my face. She not only creates cute and whimsical illustrations, clothes and crocheted dolls—almost everything in her own house is designed to give one a warm and fuzzy feeling.