hello from davao!

I'm currently in Davao City for work. Actually, I've been here since yesterday but I'm leaving for Manila tomorrow. Today's sort of a free day for me so I decided to go out and explore downtown Davao a bit. I'm now in Kangaroo Coffee Company, a really nice coffee shop here. Love the coffee (they have durian coffee!!!), love the interiors, and love it that there's wifi haha! :)

I'll post another entry later this day, since I have to do a bit of work now...

Bukidnon, My Home

I was neither born nor raised in Bukidnon, but I consider it my home--my second home, that is. Almost 10 years ago, my dad moved there to make use of the farmland my maternal grandmother's family owned but never bothered to use until we had problems with illegal tenants who were claiming that the land was theirs. So, despite having no experience in farming and having been raised in the city, my dad moved to Malaybalay to start a new career as a farmer. Well, as a businessman/farmer. It wasn't an easy decision to make because that meant he'd have to leave my mom and me and my brothers here while he was there staying with my grandmother's relatives. Fast forward to 2010, my dad would rather stay there than go back to Manila I kid you not. I'd like to think that my dad has always been a 'probinsyano' at heart. He wasn't your typical Manileno. Adjusting to the provincial life wasn't as difficult for my dad, and the major adjustment was just not having us with him there. Well, my mom and brothers followed after 3 years and they're feeling the same way about Manila. It was their home almost their entire lives, but they'd rather live out the rest up in the cool mountains of Bukidnon. Even if I never moved to Bukidnon, I consider it as my second home. I get excited whenever I find the chance to leave Manila and visit my family there. I don't really need to adjust that much.

I spent Holy Week this year in Malaybalay with my family. My grandmother was in the US visiting my uncles, while my other brother spent it here in Manila because he still had work. I've gotten used to going there alone so I didn't mind.

As usual, I'm not going to dwell so much on narrating every little detail about what I did there. I'd rather show it to you through pictures (with the help of captions, of course :p).

Our coffee shop--Bukidnon Brew Cafe

Our home

Living Room

Dining Room Mirror

Dining Room (with a view of the kitchen)

Our long parking area/'runway'

Dahilayan Outdoor Park (with Asia's longest zipline!)

Dinner at La Vetta, Cagayan de Oro. I treated my family :)

happy happy weekend

This weekend was just amazing. No, I didn’t go bungee jumping or do anything spectacular. I spent the weekend doing things I’ve never had the time to do for the past month. I started my weekend early so as I mentioned in my previous entry, I had my nails and hair done this Friday. On Saturday, I spent my morning at Lay Bare. In the afternoon, I met up with my friend Dianne so she could teach me how to use my Smena 8m Russian lomo. We were able to do a bit of catching up as well. Dianne and I talked about a lot of stuff. I had fun just hanging out, with Dianne’s hot chocolate and my lite dark mocha frappe (no whipped cream, of course) on our table, and us just chatting away. It’s a good thing I was able to meet up with Dianne. Unfortunately, her family also lost everything in the typhoon. They actually had to wade through the flood to be able to leave their home in Cainta. I feel like Dianne really needed to talk about it. I know it was hard for her to share what she went through, but I think talking about it relieved her a bit. On the lighter side, we talked about Glee—which happens to be my current favorite show. I’m so glad that there’s a show about the glee club. Finally, a show that isn’t about fashion, ‘popular’ kids, and what-not. I’m sick of that storyline. I guess that’s why I’m not so drawn to Gossip Girl and 90210. Anyway, I spent a good couple of hours with Dianne at the Starbucks in front of our univ. It’s been a while since I last visited Pearl Drive. My office is so near my former school but I really don’t have the time to visit it.

After my coffee date with Dianne, I picked up my friend Val at her house. It took me an hour before I was able to reach her house. Blame it on the horrendous traffic from Ortigas to Commonwealth. I knew I should’ve taken the UP route. Anyway, Val and I wasted no time so after I picked her up we started our trip to Tagaytay—which is a good 2 hours away from Manila (coming from her place). Thank God traffic at EDSA was a bit light. We arrived at Tagaytay around 9 p.m. Val and I decided to have dinner at Café Platito, one of the restaurants at Cliffhouse. Good thing we stayed there since the ambiance was relaxing and conducive for good conversations. I had steak and fries for dinner. Hahaha, I know I’m supposed to be on a diet but I couldn’t resist just having a decent meal for dinner. It’s been a while since I’ve eaten steak, might as well indulge a bit. Val had the tuna sandwich since the other fish dishes weren’t available. The food was okay, nothing spectacular that I’d really rave about. But the entire feel of the place was really nice. I’m giving Café Platito 3 out of 5 stars. They can improve on the food, but the ambiance made up for it.

Val and I were supposed to have dessert and coffee at Café Breton (right across Café Platito), but we were informed it’d close at 11 and it was already 10:30 so we decided to just go to one of the Starbucks—I think the one across Josephine’s. Val and I just chatted the night away. We spent a good 4 hours just talking about a lot of things, sipping on our hot coffee, and almost freezing to death because it was so cold! I miss the cool weather of Tagaytay already. It’s been awfully hot here in Manila—which is a good thing, I think. With the floods and all…the Sun is very-much appreciated by us Manilans.

Today’s a Sunday, and I spent the entire morning sleeping. My little cousins arrived this afternoon, and I spent the rest of the day with them. I love it that this weekend was so relaxing. I’m looking forward to next weekend because I’ll be (finally) seeing my friends and we’re going off for another photo-adventure.