Images of Hong Kong

© Joselito Briones

First scan of film photos from hong kong. This was taken in Peel Street, which runs perpendicular to Hollywood Road. With such a high tonal differences between the highlights (in this case, the sun in direct view) and the shadows, I used the old reliable -3 technique with kodak tmax100 film and rodinal.


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Nathan Road

© Joselito Briones

More leftover photo from Hong Kong. I picked up the film versions from Frankenlabor today, so by tomorrow I could probably show you the proper photos. Not that Nathan Road is all like this. It's a mixture of high-end shops, old dirty-looking buildings, and lots and lots of tourists.


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Overspill

© Joselito Briones

As I said yesterday, next few days will probably be overspill of holiday pics, both from Hong Kong and Philippines, while I try to catch up with everyday humdrum here in Erlangen. This one's in Hong Kong, perpendicular to Hollywood Road, next to Man Mo Temple.


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This bird has flown

© Joselito Briones

Just as Eric's representation of a perfect world can be found in a Mall, an SM Mall to be specific (he observed that it's the one chain-mall consistently well-maintained), I suspect partly because his current buying power in these places sufficiently compensates for all the times he felt underprevileged in the past, Itay’s is his caged birds.

What Itay (literally, Filipino for "father") is trying to compensate with, I can only guess. Let's see, he's the head of a big family with a lot of male members, and he's aging. He's even made a request (albeit jokingly) on how he wants his funeral to be when he dies. It's getting more and more difficult for him to show power and insist his will on others. Gone is the time when his word meant the law to everybody else. I think it started with Norie, in California. She's the eldest among my siblings, and most willful too. He must've felt rather powerless when it came to dealing with her, and as a result they were always at odds with each other. Now that he's gone back to the Philippines, it's the same show-of-will game, only now it's with his grandchildren. Hit hardest are Joie, who's gone so far as to now avoid going to the family house altogether, and Jaycee, who recently snobbed the family Christmas party. If only my dad would realize that he's respected no matter what, and that he doesn't need to show his power anymore, the atmosphere within the family would be a lot more peaceful. But maybe boring, too. I say let the man be who he is.

Oh yeah, the birds... they're always happy and singing as long as you feed them, and they don't care that they're kept in a cage.


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P.S.



Today is Jose Rizal day - the day of his execution by the Spanish who occupied Philippines during that time, and against whom the revolution started 110 years ago today. Dr. Jose Rizal is the national hero of the Philippines.

© Joselito Briones

I flew to Hong Kong today. The photo above shows the view from the window of the plane. The body of water shown is the Pasig river, one that prominently featured in Jose Rizal's novel, "Noli Me Tangere".

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Mini Reunion

© Joselito Briones

We had to rush to Jing's place in BF Homes in Paranaque. I was under the impression that the reunion that we've been planning for sometime, for our batch in Architecture in Mapua Institute of Technology, would be held at about the same time as the last time - early evening. She sent me a text messages saying the first attendee family has arrived. at 9am. We didn't make it until 2 anyway. The ones present were: Jing (Arch. Geraldine Legaspi to anyone else, now doing mainly restaurant projects and thriving, aside from teaching in the same uni), her sister Joy and her kids, Ramil and his wife, Nora (Arch. Nora Soriano, please, currently terrorizing the new administration of the school), Maricel and her daughter, Norman and Ching (uni sweethearts who had their first baby they lovingly refer to as their thesis, having been born in our last year in Mapua), Boyong and Weng also uni sweethearts, and their kid.

There's so many stories to tell, I'm sure once in awhile these annecdotes will make it here. Right now it's just great to see old friends again, and to know that they're doing well.


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Christmas

© Joselito Briones

Having distributed all the gifts last night, we took it easy today. It was the exact opposite of the frantic house-to-house trek of the kids, collecting money from relatives and Ninangs.

We decided to treat my parents to lunch today. We went to Tony Roma's in Alabang Town Center with Kuya Toto, and thankfully so. After several misses on restaurant choices, at least this one, albeit still formulaic chain restaurant fare, delivered the goods, at least with the baby back ribs. We ended up bringing back two extra racks, one for Kuya Toto and one for Ate Julie. My mom wanted to see if she can produce the same texture, if not the taste, so we passed by Makati Supermart to buy some frozen ribs, but the grocery was close today.


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P.S.
The image on top is actually a movie, a trial if it's worth putting flash movies here. It's probably too big a file if you're on a slow connection, but if you're using broadband, it should load smoothly.

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Tagaytay

© Joselito Briones

Less than an hour's drive from the house is this town called "Tagaytay", with a fantastic view of Taal volcano and the lake surrounding it.

My mom said she wanted to come here to try Josephine's, a traditional Filipino restaurant. So Josephine's we went, with Chris, Irma's eldest. The view from the deck is just awesome, and in itself worth the trip - and fortunately so, because this is all Josephine's has to offer. Although the receptionists were very courteous and friendly, the waiter assigned to us was downright rude. The food wasn't something to recommend to anybody else either. The only dish passable in quality among the ones we ordered is the char-grilled stuffed calamares. The sizzling gambas has this sickly red coloring that screams "artificial!". The "Kare Kare" was of unidentifiable slabs of beef fat and skin. The boneless "Inihaw na Bangus" was tough, and, in what ought to be classified as a crime, the "Kinilaw na Talaba" was a sheer waste of good oysters, which was indiscriminately drowned in nothing but vinegar.

Lesson learned: if you want to go to Tagaytay for the view, and your best option is Josephine's (I'm sure there are other places to see the spectacular view from), go straight to the coffee bar for a capuccino, then to the viewing deck. Skip the food.


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Free of Duty

© Joselito Briones

It’s sooo hot today. Even with the car airconditioning in full blast, driving through south expressway, we could still feel the heat from outside. We went to duty free shopping, mainly to get my Inay a new blender. The place, located close to the airport, was chaotic. And of course they had to impose this mess to everyone, by limiting the route of shoppers to one where everyone has to go through every section and every shop in the whole building. We also bought some whiskey for my Itay, his preferred alcohol.

I guess this frees us from our main christmas present requirements. The rest is a cinch. It's a good thing that the family politics is still well and alive. You take care of those high up in the pecking order, they take care of the rest. It's something so obviously still in place even with the kids. The younger ones listen to and look up to the older ones. With so many kids in the family, it's a relief that everything and everyone has, and knows, his own place, and responsibility is something left to trickle down the hierarchical chain. The danger, of course, if someone breaks the chain at any point.

© Joselito Briones

The pictures, top and above, are of the family house where we're staying.


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Pop Quiz: New Voices

© Joselito Briones

Can you guess who sang what?

"I got all the right clothes to wear, but I just want to cry now..."

"...Yesterday was easy, happiness came and went..."

" I can have another you in a minute, in fact he'll be here in a minute"
(ok, this one's not a new voice, but I thought I'll put at least one give away)

"Oh you're a stupid girl, oh me, oh my, you talk
I die, you smile, you laugh, I cry..."

"The world just chewed her up, and spat her out "

"Drinkin’ tea in bed, watchin’ DVD’s
When I discovered all your dirty, grotty magazines..."

"B-b-b-baby, I think I'm going c-c-c-crazy
And why should I be sane without you?"

"See I buy my own bags, my boots, my jeans
Wear La Rok with my Rebel Yell underneath"


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Picture, above, was taken in Ulrich and Christa's garden. And yeah, this one's prepared-in-advance, a filler... Too busy now preparing for the trip to Hong Kong and Philippines, doing things that needs taking care of this year, arranging meet-ups with friends, etc., to post something new.


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In passing...

© Joselito Briones

We are loved and at times lucky that we, too, love... We share a part of ourselves to those we are with, to those we'll eventually leave behind, until they, too, make their own transit. It's a wonderful cycle that, luckily, we all have to go through.

It's a sad day... I learned that a good friend's father passed away recently.


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The Spider's Parlor

© Jane Guevarra

Remember I told you that Jane, my good friend in New York, said she's finally done with her living room? Well, she's sent a photo of it, so I thought I'd show it to you. She's naturally very proud of it, she took more than the usual effort in making it look good... The sofa and the table are new, so's the carpet... the eames chair on the left was from me, and the curtain and the fortune plant are also new (or at least new since I was last there, March this year)


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Ein Brief

© Joselito Briones

Erlangen, den 30.11.2006

Lieber James,

vielen Dank für deinen netten Brief. Du hast richtig gehört, ich wohne jetzt in Deutschland. Die Stadt, wo meine Wohnung ist, heißt Erlangen. Diese Stadt is nördlich der Gegend, wo die Leute Lederhosen zu tragen lieben. Ja, ich lebe in Bayern.

Erlangen ist eine schöne Stadt, aber zu klein. Es gibt kein kino für Filme auf Englisch. Es gibt auch kein Geschäft mit dem A3 Fotopapier.

Die Leute hier sind nett, aber manchmal gibt es auch hässliche, alte Damen in den Geschäften. Ich glaube, sie sind wirklich unzufrieden mit ihren Männern. Sie sind ganz, ganz unfreundlich.

Meine wohnung liegt in einem roten Haus, das Gebäude ist sehr modern. Du musst mich besuchen.


Herzliche Grüße,

dein Joselito

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Yep, another homework sent to you. My Lehrerin, Aline, has corrected the mistakes I made in the text.

The photo is of a house, right in front of the building where I live. It will soon be demolished, to be replaced by a new multi-family building, similar to ours.


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Filipino Food

© Joselito Briones

This is something I see everytime I go to my German class - a Siemens building, an annex to the tallest one in the neighborhood, that is used as company canteen. I always like to peep in to see what sort of things they cook there, there's always a few white-hatted employees visible from the street, busy preparing enormous amounts of food. I like the building's horizontality and openness, it reminds me of the pictures of modern buildings in architectural books that I used to browse through in uni.


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I was browsing through magazines when I saw this mention of a new cookbook, from one of my favorite restaurants in New York, "Cendrillon". The book is called "Memories of Philippine Kitchens" (Stewart, Tabori & Chang). Can't wait to see the more than 100 recipes inside.


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My Dear Mr. Bond,

Promotional photo of "Casino Royale" from Sony Pictures

Damn good movie, this one. When's the last time you did "woaaahhhh!"'s and "holy crap!!!" in the movies? As with the last few Bond movies, the opening credits alone was worth the ticket money already. So cool!

Daniel Craig puts the character back to its original erhmm... character. One played to perfection by Sean Connery and softened to parody-status by Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan (OK, fine, Brosnan's still the best Bond, first few times he did it, if one takes into account the "fit" of the characterization with the times). Craig didn't really have any choice, with Hong Kong movies having redefined the adrenalin-level standard of action movies, he might as well have refused to make the movie if he was just gonna do another Brosnan film.

The chase alone, on feet, in the beginning, was enough to carry the whole film, action-wise. That guy Bond was chasing was just awesome! I actually wanted him to be able to get away from Bond.

I started getting bored somewhere in the middle, with the long poker game sequences, and wondered why they even bothered with it, before I remembered that the movie's title is "Casino Royale". Another downer was how everything was explained to the viewers... like "M" asking Bond if he knew why he's still alive, explaining how the girl (Eva Green) made sacrifices to make that possible. Like, hello? A five year old would've figured that out by himself (if he's allowed to watch the movie, I mean). And Bond professing his love to the girl??? Come on! I'd rather he act it than say it. Heath never said anything about his feeelings for Jake, did he?

The jokes are better too, more clever. Or maybe it's just Craig's delivery. His face is always so serious that when he delivers a punchline it's usually unexpected, unlike Brosnan from whom everybody expects jokes all the time. The best proof that Craig can really act are the scenes where he was being tortured, the worst when he was all mushy with Green. You'll never see anyone more uncomfortable with a smile.

I enjoyed the movie so much that only when I got back home did I realize upon thinking about the story, that it didn't have a good one.


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P.S. I've noticed that recently more and more people wanders into this correspondence of ours, looking for celebrity pics. I wish they'd come to look at the photos I've taken, but alas, it isn't so. Having said that, in case some random people do wander in here looking for Daniel Craig's naked photos, I thought I'll do the nice thing and direct them to right place. They can be found in this link. Bye, and thanks for dropping by.

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Fusion

© Joselito Briones

My first attempt at fusion. Or maybe I've always been doing it, just don't realize it. For tonight's dinner, I curried (yellow) mashed banana and with lemon juice, kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass, coconut milk, and grapefruit slices. I thought the curry would overpower the banana flavor, but the banana persisted. I ended up with a thicker than usual curry sauce, poured all over pan-grilled fish fillet.

The photos above are quite old... on the left is Tour Eiffel, of course, taken September 1994, and on the right is a temple in Bangkok, Thailand, taken September 1996. I used to do my travels mostly in September.




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