Boracay, Night 1
April 28, 2006My sister Marielle, my cousin David, and I decided to walk down the beach to take in the sights. We left the rest of the family — Uncle Rene and his wife and three kids, Aunt Gel and her daughter (David is her son), and our parents — at the cottage.
According to Aunt Gel, who honeymooned on Boracay in the 1980’s, two decades ago there were no commercial establishments on the beachfront itself. There used to be about fifty meters between the shoreline and the first of the rows of private houses and mom-and-pop resorts. Of course, two decades ago there was also no electricity on the island and only gas lamps provided illumination at night.
Twenty years make a big difference. As the night darkened around us, neon and fluorescent lights flicked on. We were walking on the footpath in front of the beachfront buildings, about a car’s width plus two feet on either side. On the beachward side of the footpath some restaurants had marked out their al fresco dining areas under the coconut trees, where strategically-positioned speakers blared out reggae, chillout, and rock music.
Clothing was also for sale, including the obligatory touristy souvenir shirts and caps with "Boracay" printed on them. Small stalls at irregular intervals along the path sold jewelry or hair braiding and henna tattoo services, and one of them sported a sign with a Korean greeting written out in the Latin alphabet. I said it out loud jokingly (I’d heard a Korean friend say it before, so I knew how it should sound) and all of a sudden the girls who were tending the stall got all excited, yelling the greeting at me. "I’m not Korean!" I exclaimed, and scurried away with Marielle and David. Apparently, Koreans make up a big portion of tourists to the island; some of the bigger establishments along the beachfront have signs with Hangeul characters on them.
I was surprised to see three Internet cafes along our route, but I shouldn’t have been because there was cable television back at the cottage. The island has two or three tall spires with satellite dishes providing telecommunications support: cable television, internet access, and cellphone signals.
With a jolt, I remembered that I had registered for the second Philippine blogging summit, to be held on April 18 — the next day — back in Manila. I had forgotten that our Boracay trip was scheduled on the same week. I shook my head and tried to shed a sudden impulse to enter one of the cafes and digitally splash a huge notice on my websites proclaiming "I’M IN BORA! W00T!"
We three seemed to have been walking in a straight line for hours, but when we met with the rest of the family for dinner at Sealovers Restaurant, it was only about 7pm. Time seemed to pass slowly on the island, in stark contrast to Manila’s frenetic pace. As a result, people took their time; unfortunately, the restaurant staff also took their time with our dinner orders. It took them an hour to get everything together, so David, Marielle, and I got bored and hungry and decided to look for someplace that served barbecued street food, like isaw. By the time we got back with twenty sticks of pork barbecue, the orders were on the table and we all proceeded to stuff our faces.
Tired from our long land trip, our evening ended early at 9:30pm when we all returned to the cottage. I barely heard the sound of live music from the bars up the beach as I drifted into sleep.
To be continued…
(Originally posted as "Boracay, Night 1" on In My Pocket.)
Boracay, Day 1
April 27, 2006 
I have this calendar with the special days of the year marked as red-letter days. Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, however, were marked off as April 20 and 21 (they’re really supposed to be on the 13th and 14th of April). I think my Uncle Rene had the same misprinted calendar because he was the instigator of the whole Boracay trip. "We’ll arrive there on Monday, April 17, and leave by Thursday when the Holy Week crowd starts coming in," he told my Aunt Gel after he’d shelled out for expensive PAL tickets. "Holy Week? But Holy Week falls on the previous week!" my Aunt Gel informed him. Too late: earlier flights had been booked up, so we had to stick to the strange schedule.
To save money, my mom and Aunt Gel plotted a way around the inflated PAL ticket prices. We’d take a morning flight out of Manila to Iloilo, where we would rent a private shuttle that would drive us to Caticlan. From there, we’d take a jetty to Boracay Island.
I didn’t think the five-and-a-half hour drive would have us going out of our minds and trying to scratch our way out through the windows of the Nissan Urvan, but we started out late at 12 noon from Iloilo. I pronounced a gloomy outcome by the third hour: "We’ll get to Boracay with the sun setting." We wanted to catch a few rays and start on our tans, but the sea had already swallowed up the sun by the time we got into our swimsuits and out of our cottage on Station 1.
Then again, they say the fun starts when the sun goes down.
To be continued…
(Originally posted as "Boracay, Day 1" on In My Pocket.)
Bikini Bodies
April 7, 2006 
I do have my fair share of angst, but I’m sure it’s partly caused by not being able to fit into a bikini. I’ve gotten grief for it for every summer I go to the malls and discover that nobody makes affordable two-piece swimsuits for girls with buxom dimensions. Tankinis (two-piece swimsuits with longer tops) are even more unflattering for my body type as they draw attention to the salbabida (lovehandles) area peeking out from between the top and bottom parts of the suit.
This summer, as I set my sights on Boracay, I resolved to find a bikini that would defy all my previous experience: it would actually fit and flatter my body. Hey, I have seen a pregnant lady (four or five months along) at Subic wearing a bikini and looking quite attractive in it, so no one can say it can’t be done.
The first thing I learned on my quest is never to go to the department stores. The lighting is harsh, the mirrors tell lies, and the bikinis–though cheap–do not fit too well. At least, they don’t fit the vital stats 35-29-36, causing all sorts of parts to move around and spill out. Also, they chafe and I don’t need to tell you how uncomfortable that is. Dare I even mention having to dig wedgies out? It’s enough to make you start bawling inside the changing room.
The second thing I learned is never to try bikinis on right before that time of the month. Pre-menstrual syndrome is a pain, and for some it causes water retention and bloating. Since I’m not going swimming when "surfing the crimson tide," I don’t think it’s necessary to find out if I can shoehorn myself into a suit while feeling like a beached whale.
The last and most important thing I learned is never to settle. "Okay na yan" should not be in one’s vocabulary when bikini shopping. A woman should know her own body; if she feels something doesn’t fit right, she shouldn’t waste her money on something about which she second-guessed herself. This is particularly important when buying clothing that shows large patches of skin: she must be confident that she looks good wearing it, or else it’s Manang time and she’ll have bought the bikini for nothing. (They don’t even make for good underwear, you know.)
My quest ended happily early this evening when I stopped by the Tomato exhibit at Cybermall in Eastwood City, Libis. The store’s offering various gorgeous bikinis within the P300 to P400 price range: cheap, and they fit, too, if one finds the right style. Tomato’s only going to be there until April 30, so I’m planning to scoop up another bikini before then. This time around, I’ll have my vast (ahem, ahem) field of experience about buying bikinis to guide me.
(Originally posted as "Bikini Bodies" on In My Pocket.)
Trip to Quiapo
July 4, 2005I would have loved to stay under the covers of my flannel blanket all day and maybe get up in the afternoon to play some tennis. That would have been my idea of a perfect birthday.
Instead, I had to haul my butt out of bed at seven in the AM and head over to Quiapo to claim an NBI clearance. (For the record, I am not a known felon. Ü) Marielle’s new job has its perks–namely that I have the house to myself, hahaha–but it also has its requirements. She has to submit certification from the National Bureau of Investigation that she is not a criminal and has no pending cases. Since her job keeps her in the office from 9 to 6, it fell to me to claim this clearance.
I’m used to quiet subdivision neighborhoods and sanitized malling areas. Quiapo is… not any of those things. It’s noisy and chaotic, with vendors hawking their wares right in the middle of streets made inaccessible to auto vehicles. The streets are narrow and sooty buildings loom over them, giving one the impression of newer buildings built right on top of older buildings in an attempt to conserve space. Claustrophobia or a similar concept possibly doesn’t exist in the vocabulary. You know the saying "On a jeepney, there’s always room for one more passenger"? This rule of thumb seems to apply not only to jeepneys, but to the general sensibility of old Manila, whether Quiapo, Intramuros, or Remedios.
Normally I don’t get the chance or see the need to go to these places. When I do pass by these areas, I usually see them from behind a pane of glass and the door of a car. Not today. To get to Carriedo Plaza Mall where the NBI clearance center is, you have to get off at least two blocks away and hoof it. There are no available parking spaces for private cars, and if by chance you do find a place to park, I don’t think you could stand being away from the car for too long for fear it might not be there when you get back.
For some reason, this part of Manila reminded me of the hidden side of Hong Kong. My family and I were there last year for three days taking in the glitzy neon-lit and freshly-painted sights, and we mistakenly wandered into one of the back alleys that dead-ended in a dumpster. The alley was narrow, damp, and the buildings on each side seemed like solid monoliths of cement with small windows and dingy sidewalks.
That alley and Quiapo are the same thing: they exist side-by-side with these glistening images of modernity that we’ve built up around ourselves. Sometimes we think reality is the well-manicured grounds of Greenbelt. We forget that there’s a whole other reality out there, and it’s not entirely separate from our own circles. A trip to Quiapo reminded me of that.
(Originally posted as "Trip to Quiapo" on In My Pocket.)
