Don't freak out please

Probably the most popular party dish in the Philippines is the lechon, whole roasted pig. One can buy lechon by the kilo in several places around Metro Manila and if the party is big enough, one can buy the entire roast pig. At the party, it is laid out on a table and someone—a waiter in this case since it was a catered event—chops it up to serve to guests. The crackling skin is doled out carefully because almost everybody loves it. After the meatier parts have been served, the waiter carves out the remaining meat from the bones and puts them on a platter. The head is displayed too, proof that what was served was the entire roast pig and not just a kilo or two. Lechon is usually served with liver sauce except for the ones from Cebu, a province in the Visayas which is an hour's plane ride away from Manila. I don't know what Cebuanos use to baste it with, but their lechon is very tasty and does not need any kind of sauce. Cebu lechon is what Anthony Bourdain had when he came to the Philippines and as of February 16, 2009, it is number 1 in his "Hierarchy of Pork."

Sunbathing

I've always found the stuff that taxi drivers place on their dashboards fascinating. There was that one who had a whole bunch of stuffed toys hanging from a sun visor, and now this: a robed and veiled Virgin Mary and a resin mermaid au naturelle with her hair positioned just so.

Find more Odd Shots—or post your own—at Katney's Kaboodle.

Subic Bay

I wasn't able to post a photo last Thursday because I went with my sister and nieces to Subic Bay, a couple of provinces north of Metro Manila. Subic is an excellent, natural harbor surrounded by hills covered with thick woods, and is located between the provinces of Bataan and Zambales. It used to be the location of the largest American naval base in the Pacific before the Philippine government asked the U.S. government to close it in 1991. Now, it is the Subic Bay Freeport Zone. Aside from its obvious industrial and commercial use, Subic Bay is a popular weekend destination for Manila residents because of its eco-tourism theme parks, beaches and duty-free shopping. This is just a small portion of the bay. In the foreground is the old base's airport, now the Subic Bay International Airport, which was FedEx's Asia-Pacific hub before they closed it in February 2009 to transfer the operations to Guangzhou in Southern China.

Urban or rural, natural or man-made, take a sightseeing tour of our world's diverse scenery!

Late night movie

The fruit smoothies and shakes of Fuzion Smoothie Café are unusual compared to those of other Manila restaurants and cafés. They don't add sugar and don't use ice. They only use fruits flash-frozen at the peak of their ripeness, addressing both problems at once. This is their space in Trinoma mall, just outside the cinemas on the 5th level. It's kind of creepy walking in a dark and empty mall after midnight, which is what happens when we watch the last show. And we always tend to watch the last show. I've already caught one of their after-hours cleaners here.

Little palace

The interior of the Minor Basilica of San Lorenzo Ruiz or the Binondo Church. I wish I knew more about it, like who designed it or if it replicates the interior design of the old church, but I can't find anything about it. All I know for sure is that everything that you see here is post-WWII, unlike the facade and bell tower from the previous post.

Chinoy church

Soon after the Spaniards settled the Chinese who converted to Christianity in Binondo in 1596, the Dominicans built a church for them. This was destroyed by a British bombardment in 1762 during their brief occupation of Manila. In 1852, a new Binondo Church was built on the same site with an octagonal bell tower which echoes Chinese architecture and design. The church was severely damaged during WWII but the facade and bell tower survived. The rebuilding and reconstruction of the church was done in several phases and took a long time, from 1946 to 1984. Binondo Church, dedicated to Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, is also known as the Minor Basilica of San Lorenzo Ruiz, named after the Philippines' first saint, who was born of a Chinese father and a Tagalog mother. He served as an altar boy in the original church and was tortured and killed in Japan in 1637 for refusing to renounce his faith. He was canonized in 1987.

Anthony Charles Lynton

Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, was the speaker at the fourth Ateneo MVP Center Leadership Forum yesterday and I was privileged to be among the 1,200 people invited to the talk. I had a great seat too: not orchestra center because the first few rows were reserved for important people and the rest of it was immediately filled up, but the first row of the left side which turned out to be right in front of Mr. Blair's podium! His topic was "The Leader as Nation Builder in a Time of Globalization." The topic was specially chosen by the Ateneo de Manila University for its 150th anniversary whose theme, The Ateneo Way, comprises excellence, spirituality and nation-building.


I'm not going to say anything about the lecture itself because I've already seen three articles written about it and will just point you to them. The articles of John Nery, a journalist and columnist at the Philippine Daily Inquirer, are "Blair: The battle is about Islam" and "Her Britannic Majesty’s loyal texter." The article of Rick Olivares, an alumnus who writes regularly for the Ateneo de Manila website, is "Tony Blair: An ordinary human being in an extraordinary situation." And the article of Joaquin Alonzo Narciso, a young high school student, is "Servant-Leaders as Nation Builders." After the lecture, Mr. Blair was presented with several gifts which hold great meaning to the university: a replica of the statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus carved by Philippine national hero Jose Rizal while he was a student in the Ateneo; a set of books collecting the essays and homilies of Fr. Horacio de la Costa, a historian and the first Filipino superior of the Jesuits in the Philippines; and, probably a first for the university during a formal occasion, an Ateneo de Manila jacket.

Used, used and used

At the Penguin Café Gallery in Malate, Manila while the next band was setting up their equipment, a DJ would be spinning some vinyl records. Aside from a shiny new player, he also had one old beat up player. And take a closer look at his lamp. It's made out of an empty can of mushrooms.

Find more Odd Shots—or post your own—at Katney's Kaboodle.

Playful breeze

The plaza and fountain in front of the main entrance of Robinsons Place Manila, part of a large chain of malls in the Philippines. This entrance is along Pedro Gil Street in Ermita, Manila. It has other entrances on two other streets, but I hear they're not as pretty.

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My sister and her three young daughters are arriving tonight for a visit again, this time for two weeks. Actually, she's here to get some much-needed dental work done. Even factoring in the cost of the airfare, she says it's less expensive to get it done here. I guess there's something to that medical tourism that our Department of Tourism is pushing. Like last October, I will try to post photos regularly and visit as much as I can, but if I can't, then you all know why. Have a wonderful week, everyone!

Bubbly chicken

Since it opened in 1945, Max's Restaurant has been known for almost only one thing: its crispy, tender, juicy fried chicken. Drop the diet and forget about cholesterol because you just have to eat the skin of this one. Instead of regular potato, Max's fried chicken is served with kamote (sweet potato) fries. Sweet potato has a higher nutritional value than the common potato and is popular as an inexpensive snack food among Filipinos. My favorite accompaniment to their fried chicken is their pancit canton. Named for the southern Chinese province of Guangdong (Canton is the anglicized form) where the original egg noodle dish came from centuries ago, Max's pancit canton is topped with vegetables, pork, shrimp and chicken, including its lamang loob (innards), which makes it even tastier. Don't worry if you can't eat those—I can't either and just push them aside. And for a refreshing drink, a tall glass of buko pandan shake: fresh young coconut, milk, sugar and ice run through a blender and served over cubes of pandan gelatin.

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Max's Restaurant has always been popular in Metro Manila for large family parties, and I thought this would be an appropriate post because one year ago on this date, I posted my first photo in My Manila. Back then, I had no plans of making it a daily photo blog because I already had Happy at Home. I only joined City Daily Photo two months later, and silly me even registered the wrong email address so I couldn't get into the author forums until I emailed the Eric of Paris Daily Photo and he corrected my information. Thanks again, Eric! And thank you to all of you who have made blogging such a wonderful experience for me—for your comments, your appreciation, and more than anything else, for your own blogs. I truly enjoy all the blogs that I visit because of the fantastic photos and the wonderful information that I learn—about history, lifestyle, customs, architecture and nature. What some people assume as ordinary can be so fascinating to me because it's so different from my experience. When people write about their country's painful circumstances, I am always humbled and shamed, and reminded and challenged to see beyond myself and try to do some good. For all of these, and much, much more, thank you. Now dig in!

Vulnerability

Notice in yesterday's photo of the train station that all the people within view are women. I'm not sure about the two LRT lines because I've rarely used them, but in the MRT, the first set of cars are reserved for women, children and senior citizens. If a child is accompanied by a male guardian, then he can stay there too. When I'm traveling alone, I always stay in those first cars. The sisterhood of women may really just be a dream, but I feel much safer there than in the other cars, especially during rush hour when people are packed like sardines.

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Now, all you CDP bloggers rush on over to the forum and cast your votes for the May theme! Don't forget that you can choose two. And do you have your yellow photo ready? Yellow is the theme for the first of April!

My station

Metro Manila, which is about 636 square kilometers in area with more than 12 million inhabitants, only has three light rail lines. Two lines belong to the Manila Light Rail Transit System and one belongs to the Manila Metro Rail Transit System. Together, their daily ridership totals less than 1.5 million people, so it is not surprising that traffic congestion remains one of the metro's biggest problems. The three lines have color codes but everybody just calls them the MRT, LRT-1 and LRT-2. This is at the MRT's Quezon Avenue station, where I begin and end most of my train rides.

Funny face

Manila Ocean Park's underwater tunnel is quite short compared to those of other oceanariums around the world. It is only 25 meters (82 feet) in length. But for Filipinos like me who will never be able to scuba dive for one reason or another, it is still a real treat. It was awesome to just stand there and watch all the fish swimming around and above you. It was the first time I saw the underside of a stingray, with its mouth and gills.

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

Get them while they're young

Back in January, I posted a photo of the main gate and facade of Claret School of Quezon City. It has a second gate on a different road, which I think is closer to the preschool classrooms because the metal letters to the right of the tree read "Claret Childhood Center." If the mural is also a sign, then that little structure with the red roof is the vocation office of the Claretian Missionaries in the Philippines.