Lantana

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Lantana beside the rice paddies in Batad rice terraces

A flower that grows in the wild, (like most flowers in the wilderness) is more beautiful than those in well tended gardens.

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Lantana in Malapascua Island, Northern Cebu

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Closer look of a cluster of tiny flowers

Bagong Pag-asa

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Almost all boats in Malapascua were destroyed by typhoon Yolanda says Mike, a German who runs a resort in the island. In the present, one can notice plenty of yellow bancas around the island. These yellow boats called Bagong Pag-asa (translated as New Hope) were donated by entities all over the world to help in the livelihood rebuilding of affected residents.

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New hope...

Banca Boatyard

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This banca will take 5 days to finish and sells for 15,000 pesos

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Banca making is a livelihood here in Malapascua island

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He maintains the banca of others

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Working daily by the white sand beach. Such a beautiful workplace

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Men build bancas, women mend fishing nets

Meanwhile…

The partaking of some Cebuano fare which can only be captioned well in the local dialect, particularly:

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Lami gyud ang tinowa na isda

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Mao sad ang sinugba na isda

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Unya apilan kining guso, kanang utan gikan sa dagat ba

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Usahay mangita man ko ug mais kay bagay man sa tinowa

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Gimingaw man ko sa ngohiong ug puso

Piso Water

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ATM or iWater? (ATM – Automated Tubig Machine)

Such a common sight in Cebu is this drinking water vending machine of various color, model and style (of its box). What is typical is the faucet, the round 5 gallon bottled water as its source, piso coin slot, and the glassful amount of water that comes out for every one peso coin eaten.

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Lesser frequency of replacing the 5 gallon purified water in this dual container model

One has to bring some container to catch the water that automatically comes out of the spout once you drop one peso inside. I expect the water to be tepid, but amazingly it was cold.

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A trash receptacle at the side of the tubig machine

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Looks like a karaoke machine

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This one is chained as precautionary measure against thieves that may cart it away I suppose. Love the mayana plants on the roof

Cebuana Yakult Lady

Pintos

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Bus window peddling is one reason why I prefer ordinary non-aircon bus apart from the chance of smelling each passing town and having clear view of roadside everyday life

When traveling by bus to northern Cebu, whether to Hagnaya or to Maya, it’s highly likely that Ceres bus will have rest stop for few minutes in Bogo. A happy stop for it means one is almost at the end of the bus journey, and also it means the acquisition of pintos via bus window sellers.

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A pack of 5 costs 20 pesos

Pintos is distinctively Cebuano, a specialty of Bogo City that’s primarily made from ground corn. The smell of the warm corn husk wrapping is pleasantly barriotic, and snacking on pintos is akin to making memories where one would love to recall fondly this delight especially its texture, taste and aroma sometime in our lives.

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Honestly simple packaging of young corn husk

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For only about 15 minutes of stop in Bogo, bus vendors’ pintos will do for now

Bounty Beach

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A quiet beach where one can see solo travelers walking barefoot on the white sand. A quiet place to run too

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It's low season at this time of the year, but it doesn't mean the sun won't come up most of the time

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Mostly Europeans of varied ages are the frequent visitors of this place

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Setting foot on Malapascua Island instead of SM Aura where I've never been inside yet no matter all the hype of this and that coming to Manila, else I'll just be like the rest

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Original beauty remains despite of typhoon Yolanda's destruction of most boats and structures in this island. See that decapitated coconut tree courtesy of Miss Yolanda?

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Practically most boats are new in the island, as most boats were destroyed by typhoon Yolanda

Secondary Function

A beached banca’s great exposure to tropical sun makes it a practical option for clothes drying.

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Banca as clothes drying rack in Malapascua Island

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Fishing pants I suppose, also at Malapascua Island, Cebu

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Fishing pants in San Juan, La Union

Adlaw

Folk Oxymoron

Handwritten Illustration: Election Voting System

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“2016 Election” in the sample ballot in Figure 3. Figure 4 is cute but terrible for it can make someone a president of the Philippines in 2016

 

I came across this photocopied handwritten information with illustrations, promoting an election voting tool that is manual yet fast. Handwritten illustrations, instructions, including handwritten maps have certain kind of appeal to me. I’ve picked this somewhere in the exhibit area on an empty table but only get to read it at home. So, I didn’t get to see this “fast manual” tool at the Science Nation unlike the Smartmatic’s state-of-the-art touch screen voting machine, a super upgraded PCOS system where I got to touch the candidate’s name with picture beside it to cast my trial vote.

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They even made a pitch on the lower left “The excitement and suspense in watching the counting of votes can still be experienced!”

Well, this election voting system on paper says no electricity needed. Voting will be fast for instead of writing, one just needs to punch holes. Reminds me of the beginnings of computing systems where punched cards were used.  Also reminds me of the paper bus tickets in the country.  An entertaining read.

Pulot Boy’s Improvisation

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Old tennis racket repurposed into pulot boy’s ball snatcher by fusing some netting around the racket’s rim

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Pulot boy (ball boy) in action

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Convenient ball catcher, picker and collector

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More on ball boy in action

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Ball boys are maintaining the shell tennis court by marking lines using chalk and leveling the crushed shells using net mop

Anti-Malnutrition Chips

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At the science exhibit of Department of Science & Technology, I bought this chips to relieve my starvation in the duration of my 4.5 hours visit. This un-junk food was developed for the purpose of improving nutrition in young children. The snack is made from rice and monggo and it tasted even better than most local junk food, not that because I was starving but the taste is somewhat addicting. Similar to how addicting Chippy is.

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It’s rare thing where one can see DOST’s and FNRI logos in a chips pack. The high protein and energy content makes this a nutritious and convenient snack in evacuation centers for instance. Other than that, in preparing a disaster grab bag, why not put some Rimos instead of junk crackers inside. The disaster grab bag is a wise move already, having Rimos inside makes it wiser, I suppose.

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Mango Picker

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Manual fruit picker as seen in Science Nation exhibit by DOST at MOA

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Low tech practicality

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Head of the mango picker consist of blade in triangular shape housed in an acrylic like material to manually sever the fruit from the tree, and a net to catch it

Baby Wearing

Menu Miscellany

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[Yogyakarta, Indonesia] Warung makan menu

Scrolling through my snapshots, I found several menu pictures which perhaps at that point in time struck me as something interesting to snap on.

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[Yogyakarta, Indonesia] Here’s the warung place. I’d find this again just for their ayam goreng

I think the place and my ala carte eatables were quite interesting too that each experience merits preservation by means of a menu photograph.

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[Tokyo, Japan] This is Tokyo so that’s the menu – that vending machine to prepay for one’s order. This menu machine will give you a sort of receipt to hand over to the one-man restaurant guy. Very efficient

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[Tokyo, Japan] Restaurant counter where the guy (not visible in the picture) is preparing my prepaid ramen

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[Makati, Philippines] Somewhere in Poblacion is this tiny Korean eating place managed by an ajumma who sits by the cash register table

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[Makati, Philippines] The inside of Magpie’s menu. A picture menu is logical for a foreign restaurant

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[Makati, Philippines] Magpie’s menu also in the wall with couple of magpies, a symbolic bird of South Korea

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[Makati, Philippines] Beni’s Falafel menu of vegetarian, kosher, Israeli fare

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[Makati, Philippines] Beni’s Falafel place

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[Makati, Philippines] List of Puerto Rican viands with some background information written and printed in several pages of bond paper that are stapled together

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[Makati, Philippines] Another page of Sofrito’s menu. I don’t have snapshot of the place but it’s a small one similar to Beni’s Falafel

Multipurpose Cauldron

Green Eggplant

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Nine months ago, I got couple of eggplant seedlings from a palengke vendor in Tagaytay. Turns out to be green eggplant which is even better.

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I’ve planted the seedling in one container only but so far it yielded 6 green eggplants already and still continues to flower.

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Filipinized Spaghetti

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Dole’s ready-made Filipino style spaghetti sauce

Filipino variation of spaghetti is sweet, cheesy and meaty, generally. No vegetables added aside from onions and garlic used in sautéing ground meat. Sub variations exist depending on family heirloom recipe.

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Hunt’s

Apart from being sweet, ingredients are namely, ground beef or ground pork or corned beef (depending on one’s budget), hotdogs (those red Filipinized hotdogs like Purefoods), canned spaghetti meat sauce or canned tomato sauce, Filipinized ketchup (made from bananas, not tomatoes), evaporated milk (my mother also put this in the sauce), sugar, processed cheese food (like Eden or Kraft), and of course dried processed spaghetti noodles (like Royal). All these create a spaghetti variation that only exists in the country.

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Also Del Monte. Plenty of branded pre-made Filipino style spaghetti sauce for the big market in the country and the Filipino marts worldwide

Perhaps the introduction of spaghetti concept  is a legacy of American colonization, and along with it the affinity for processed ingredients.

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Ketchup that is close to the hearts of Filipino masses. This Filipinized ketchup is made of bananas, hence the potassium power in place of lycopene power

Such is the affection of the Filipinos for spaghetti that several brands of ready-made spaghetti sauce sell Pinoy style sauce, also that imported fastfood chains have spaghetti in their menu. McDonalds and KFC for instance, but only a local chain knows how to make better spag (local nomenclature for spaghetti). Sa Jollibee bida ang sarap.

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No one makes a fastfood Filipinized spaghetti better than this Filipino chain. Sweet sarap na the best!