Hanoi

Oh by the way: 

The entire family went to Hanoi, Vietnam in January this year.  This is my and Marvin's first time to visit a country twice in a period of 7 months. Must be love.

Well, perhaps not exactly love.  If I'm being totally honest, I'd say we picked Hanoi because it's a perfect destination for budget-constrained travellers who want to tick off another UNESCO World Heritage Site in their bucket list.   Hanoi is of course the jump off point for Ha Long Bay. 

Hanoi didn't disappoint, and not only because of the majestic sceneries of Ha Long Bay and Tam Coc.  The city is a destination in itself - charming and cool. I loved how their lakes are well cared for and prettified.  Baguio's Burnham Park and San Pablo, Laguna can take a lesson or two from Hanoi when it comes to making lakes a buffer against the city's noise and chaos, a place where tired commuters and workers can wind down and breathe in nature in the midst of urban clutter.  

Unfortunately, our cities here have a particular talent for ruining what's naturally beautiful with tackiness. I think we're uncomfortable with negative space. We want to fill a perfectly good spot for quiet with stalls and noise and all the things that we think make a space fun. You'd probably say, but that's who we are as a people; we love to have fun, boisterous fun. And we should just embrace it.  We're just being authentic. 

No, we're not. We're being shallow. We can't see what makes Manila beautiful and so we don't hold those things sacred. We reclaimed a huge portion of Manila Bay only to fill it with buildings that lack imagination. Look at that hideous tower at Star City. Look at those buffet restaurants at SM By the Bay that don't even afford its patrons a view of the bay. Look at the decay around the old Film Center. Look at Intramuros now brimming with illegal settlers. Look at the condos that have grown out of marshlands. 

Hanoi is by no means the most beautiful city but it doesn't take whatever magic it has for granted. It knows what makes it beautiful and flaunts them. It crowns its lakes with flower beds and benches.  Beautiful old French buildings are maintained and updated. 

It does have its share of what other cities may consider 'nuisance' like makeshift kitchens and food stalls right along pedestrian lanes. But in Hanoi this nuisance kind of makes sense.  It's a picture of the 'old' blending with the 'new', 'traditional' with 'modern'.  It gives you a sense of Hanoi holding on to its traditional way of life even as it makes way for progress.  

I know of course that a few days in a city doesn't give me a complete picture of the place.  Our short visit has afforded me to see only the good parts of Hanoi, and so those are the things that stayed with me. 

But Manila I know so very well.  This is my home; I'm intimate with both its pretty and ugly parts. I know the dark secrets of its innards and alleys. And the ugliness could be all that I see if I allow it. So I don't, and everyday I actively seek Manila's beauty.  It's a matter of perspective anyway, and so I see what I seek.

Anthony's Vietnam

Even before having set foot in it, I have already decided that Vietnam is one damn cool place.  Anthony Bourdain made that decision for me long time ago when he declared in No Reservations his love for Vietnam (particularly Saigon) and how he feels so connected to the place. And I’m the one who believes everything Anthony says because he’s the coolest traveler in my book.

So you could say that the main reason why I wanted to visit Vietnam was to see for myself how a tiny Southeast Asian country found a special place in Anthony’s Ramones-loving heart.  Well, I have some theories.  For one, the Vietnamese, I think, are one of the world’s most kick-ass people (Anthony loves kick-ass).  They’re fighters and survivors.  Just look at how they’re standing up against Chinese intimidation in the West Phil Sea! And they’re so spunky they require visa for their colonial masters of yore (Americans and French).

Then of course there’s the FOOD! The food is sooo right in every way (the coffee though was, surprisingly, a disappointment).  You realize just by walking the city streets dotted with ambulant vendors that there’s infinitely more to Vietnamese food than the more well-known exports banh mi and pho.  The food culture is unapologetic and authentic.  It doesn’t try to suit your western preferences and expectations.  It is what it is, so grab a stool in some suspicious looking alley and eat your pho. 

Authenticity.  That’s the vibe of this city. You feel it even in those parts that have been gentrified. It’s Quiapo and Greenbelt co-existing in District 1.  There are kids in house clothes playing right along the frontage of some posh boutique (I think it was in Rex Hotel?) while their father sells kitsch nearby.   In fact, right beside that posh store is a general merchandise stall, the kind you see in Divi. I can’t imagine that happening in Ayala 6750.   

One of the things that usually strike me in most foreign cities is that you don’t see a lot of policemen and store guards around, sometimes not even one. In Saigon, I didn’t notice guards in the stores but I saw a few policemen (or were they military?) who all seemed to look not older than 25. They also slouched.  And so even if they wore a stern communist uniform, they looked like they can’t even intimidate a kitten (what more a city mouse Pinoy?).  

Marvin badgered me to rent a motorbike to see more parts of the city.  I wasn’t really up to it at first because I felt that that was too much of an adventure for parents with kids waiting back home.  You can’t blame me because in Manila, riding a motorbike in the city feels like a rogue adventure.  But I’m glad I gave in to Marvin’s badgering because the motorbike was the best part of the trip.  It wasn’t as scary as I imagined it would be because the streets were filled with mostly just motorbikes. The streets are not like EDSA brimming with bully buses, egotistic cars and rascal jeepneys. And, the concept of lurking traffic officers and traffic violations seems lost on this city.  Might be wrong but that’s how it felt. So it was fun!

Then there’s the seeming Vietnamese penchant for the narrow and tight: the traditional dress (Ao dai) is long and tight; the houses in the city are tall and skinny (I later learned that this design was tax-induced);   vendors can do their stuff (cook and sell) in a space no bigger than a circle with a diameter the length of an outstretched arm.  I mean, those Cu Chi tunnels weren’t made by claustrophobics!  And look at the shape of Vietnam on the map -it’s long and narrow (They got shabby and took away some coastal parts from Cambodia). 

For someone who doesn’t get Anthony, it’s probably hard to see what makes Vietnam so endearing to him. It’s not culturally glamorous, hygiene is questionable in some foodie spots, people are not really as warm as Pinoys… But I’ve seen enough of Anthony’s shows to understand what he likes about a place or an experience.   Vietnam doesn’t play bull.   The Vietnamese know who they are as a people and don’t apologize for it.  And it shows.  Spunk is cool.

Look Ma, no pesky jeep (only bikes :)

i wish we have a park as lush as this right smack in the metro

taken at a public toilet. leave your footwear, or else....

food. it's all about FOOD

breakfast scene

night life in Pham Ngu Lao district

Hey, Jollibee!

District 7 //not your idea of HCM

That's the Rex Hotel I was telling you about

Summer 2014 (also, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)

The summer of 2014 just whizzed by. I wasn't into it (meaning not doing the usual summer vacation stuff) until May came around. I feel guilty for not getting the kids into any summer class. not that they were complaining. I even suspect they liked it that way because they are not really fond of schedules and structured play.  But I guess summer isn't supposed to just go by without the kids learning a new skill.

Well, I forced them to try skateboarding. All because of Walter Mitty, which I watched on the 16-hr flight from UAE to Brazil (and again on the home bound flight). That movie saved me from my anxieties about my then upcoming Brazil talk (in particular, and maybe a little about life in general, too). You see, I have this above normal fear of public speaking and I was feeling so anxious days leading to the trip.

For some reason, Walter Mitty calmed my fears. I can't exactly explain how and why.  It was probably about perspective - a realization that I had nothing to lose even if the talk tanked (thankfully it didnt) because it was all part of an adventure. And what is life but a series of adventures. If you're not having any, then I guess that's pathetic. The purpose of life is to live it. To go out there. To pursue things that matter to you. To give it a go and give it your best while you're at it.  Which was what I believed I was doing.

And that was a liberating thought.

Maybe it was the soundtrack. Or the landscape of Iceland. Or Sean Penn's character. Or Kristin Wiig singing Major Tom.  Maybe it was the motto of Life magazine which was engraved in walter's wallet:

“To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”

So. Back to the skateboard (I got sidetracked there a bit).   I got the boys a skateboard in Dubai where we had a quick stopover from Brazil. I was hoping they'd love it and be great at it. Because after watching Walter Mitty, I have come to think of skateboarding as a life skill, similar to swimming. For example, if you need to run away from an exploding volcano in Iceland and there are no cars around, you'd thank God that you have a longboard which you actually know how to ride (but don't quote me on that, ok?)

So I was telling the kids to learn it and they did practice a lot. But after three weeks, they weren't really progressing. So I looked for skateboarding classes but couldn't find one. Maybe it's because you're supposed to learn skateboarding in your neighborhood, with your friends, by just riding on that board every day until you get it. Like how you learn riding a bike. There is no summer class for learning to ride a bike.   So, the skateboard eventually got forgotten and they're back to riding their bikes.  Which is also a lifeskill anyway.

Aside from the skateboarding, I also wanted them to see and appreciate artworks (and not just Adventure Time and other cartoon shows which can be argued as a form of art too). So I brought them to Pinto Art Museum in Antipolo. Thank God for people who build a charming place like that, for people who make art a little bit more accessible and less intimidating for folks who can only think of Amorsolo as just a street in Makati. I like the art pieces on display, but I think I liked the landscaping of the place more. It had a rustic and organic feel.  Plants were allowed to crawl, grow lush and stray. My kind of garden and my kind of place.  Don't ask me though if the boys enjoyed it as much as I did.

Our only true summer getaway this year though was Pico de Loro. I like that place. I like any place where the mountains meet the sea. And I like Nasugbu in particular.  We all in the family do.  I'm glad  we were able to make a trip to the beach just before school started . Because a summer vacation without a beach trip is doomed to become one of childhood's greatest infamies.

So I guess Summer 2014 wasn't bad at all.

Indoor rock climbing

Mountain Dew skateboard park

I see ferns // Pinto Art

With Lola

This has to be my favorite piece in Pinto

I wish this was our backyard // Pinto Art

Doesn't he look like Ezra?

One of the paintings I liked. I forgot the name of the artist. 

The chapel in Pinto

We just had to take a picture in front of the Kaybiang Tunnel. Where I come from, a tunnel is a novelty.

My favorite people in the world

One of the many uses of a Coleman chiller

If all days in the summer were spent here and if not for the unrelenting heat, we'd love for Summer to stay.

 

A pink late afternoon

I could wake up to this view every day

The banca reminds me of my little town in S. Leyte