More of Taal Volcano

© Joselito Briones

Here's a digitally enhanced film version of the photo of Taal Volcano, as viewed from Tagaytay. I think last time I showed you the digital version of this, it was accompanied by complaints about food there, so I'm making this one into another foodie, with a recipe for fresh fennel atsara (more like a salad).

Fresh fennel salad (for 2)

Ingredients:
1 bulb fennel, finely sliced and thoroughly washed,
1 small red onion, roughly chopped
1 carrot, diced or cut into decorative shapes
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
fresh chillies or pepperoni - as hot as you can take, optional
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp. vinegar
palm sugar to taste
salt and pepper

Mix fennel with vinegar and lemon juice with hand thoroughly, squeezing the fennel slices. Add ginger, palm sugar, carrots, chillies, and onions. Toss. Add salt and pepper. Chill before serving.

It goes really well with any grilled or roasted meat.


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Don

© Joselito Briones

I'm sure by now you're probably tired of my Hong Kong photos, so I thought I'd change it a bit by showing you a portrait I took recently. This one was taken in Carmona, in the Philippines. This one is of the oldest among my numerous nephews, Don, or Dionisio (he was named after my paternal grandfather, the only grandparent I knew).


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Sleek Hong Kong: The Departed

© Joselito Briones

Just so you won't get the impression that Hong Kong is all old and monotonous, here's a photo of one of the best buildings there, in Admiralty. It's already an icon in Hong Kong, of course, the Bank of China, by I. M. Pei. The best time to look at it is the early evening in Autumn, when the sky is clear and deep blue, there's no fog, and you can see the lines clear and sharp all the way to the top.

As this is the last Hong Kong image I'll be showing you for a while, I'll just write here something else that Hong Kong is famous for. Movies! Action movies to be exact. Okay, fine, it's not about a Hong Kong movie, but something based on one.

The movie, of course, is "The Departed", based in Hong Kong's 2002 critically acclaimed thriller "Infernal Affairs".



And what a movie! The cast was excellent, especially Mark Wahlberg and his filthy-mouthed character. Jack Nicholson just cruised through it, like it's all fun and play for him. Matt Damon adopted his inscrutable poker-faced persona in the "Bourne Identity" franchise, and even Leonardo di Caprio, who showed teen-level angst in what is meant to be a grown-up role, managed to project a bit of grit in his eternally pre-pubescent voice. The star of the movie though, no question asked, is director Martin Scorsese. The way he constructed the twists and plots was the work of a true master. It was also great that, in what I assume other people would see as plot holes, instead of spoon-feeding us, the audience, with every details, he let us figure things out for ourselves. Ok fine, there are still holes in the plot, but who cares! The tension was unrelenting in the whole movie, there was no chance to think of inconsistencies - until the next day when you've had about 24 hours to mull things over.

I'm not even putting a synopsis here. Go watch it, it's great!


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Color overload

© Joselito Briones

Photo taken in Cat Street, Hong Kong.

And another recipe for Wil:

Baked Ribs

Marinate ribs in:
1 Lemon Juice
1 Onion (or 3 shallots)
3 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp A1 sauce (optional)

In a baking tray, put marinated ribs in preheated oven (220 C), bone curve up, for 20 minutes. Take out the tray, cover with aluminum foil, put back in, for at least an hour. Remove cover, and flip ribs. Broil for 10 minutes.


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Staying Low

© Joselito Briones

This photo was also taken in Hong Kong, in Midlevels, and interesting in that these are among the very few low buildings remaining in (Midlevels). Most of the buildings in this area (mostly residential) are like the ones I posted a few days ago. This one was also taken from Josen's apartment window, looking down.


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Midlevels

© Joselito Briones

I know, by now you're probably tired of photos I took in Hong Kong. But I want to post them anyway, and it's not like I've got a lot of things to tell you presently, so this'll have to do. This one's also taken from Josen's apartment in Midlevels, in the south side.


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Windows 07.01 HongKong Edition

© Joselito Briones

This is what one can photograph from Josen's apartment window, and I guess from just about anybody's apartment window in Midlevels. Taken new year's day in Hong Kong.


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Images of Hong Kong II

© Joselito Briones

This is from the same series as yesterday's photo, same technique. This is the street where I lived for a year or two, in an apartment that used to be occupied by Hon and Dwayne.


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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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