A Quick Getaway to Puerto Princesa

My girlfriends and I planned a quick trip to Puerto Princesa in Palawan last August.  Despite the torrential rains in Manila, Palawan only had intermittent showers, so we were able to experience and enjoy roaming around and visiting their notable tourist spots. And we saw many of its famous mountains and mountain ranges.

We stayed at a family room in Aziza Paradise Hotel. This hotel is clean and convenient. And they have great breakfast food, including my favorite marinated danggit! 

We wanted to get immersed in the local culture for three days, so we opted for local food for our first lunch.  We were brought to Ka Inato. We enjoyed their seafood dishes, especially the Panginas Anghang (sisig made of shell meat), the Palawan Inihaw na Isda (very fresh parrot fish with okra, talong, and kamote tops), and the Bulalong Yamang Dagat (seafood in thick gabi soup with malunggay and other vegetables).

 

Then I noticed these bags of water with a coin inside that hung near the ceiling all around the restaurant. I could not resist asking what they were for. Guess what? They are to ward off flies! The idea is that flies will get scared when they go towards the bags of water.  What they see will be their own magnified reflection or the flash of light from the metal coin within and be frightened off!

Dinner was at the famous Kalui Restaurant.  We took a tricycle (roomy tricycles are numerous around the city) to get to the place.  The place has a warm, local, homey feel.

Their menu is very simple, comprising of mostly seafood.  We hear that reservations are required as their kitchen never stocks up.  They buy enough for what they need for the day as they don't freeze the day's catch. Everything is served fresh; you will notice it. It was a delicious and satisfying dinner.

We were also able to go thru the world-famous subterranean river. We saw the caves, the bats and the limestone structures. Along the way, we saw monkeys on the trees.

This is the cave entrance, where you enter, riding small boats with no more than 8 passengers and one boat man / tour guide. It's very dark inside the caves.  It's an experience too enthralling for pictures to describe.  The limestone structures formed slowly thru the passage of time are truly sights to behold.

After the underground river tour, we had a local lunch by the beach.  And it featured the tamilok. Tamilok is actually a shipworm, a bivalve mollusk that burrows into the woods of mangrove. It is my very first time to try this native Palawan delicacy. It is eaten raw, dipped into spiced vinegar, like a kinilaw.  It's taste is very similar to raw oysters. Not bad at all! 

And since we are talking about "firsts", I had the chance to hold on to a live python in the Palawan Butterfly Eco-Garden and Tribal Village on this trip too! 

Another not-to-miss attraction is firefly watching in Iwahig. You take a small banca and go around the river among the mangroves in the dark of the night.  It is serenely beautiful!

I end this blog with another must-try food place. Go to Rene's Saigon.  It is located very near the airport. Mang Rene is always there to give recommendations. The noodles soup and the spring rolls are very good and affordable to boot.  And don't miss their homemade french bread.

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Among The Ten Thousand Things

"Maybe they're right, and we will be safer when we finally think of everything, of all the things that can do us harm, and make rules against them."

We women tend to lie to ourselves as a matter of course. Especially in their relationships and marriages. I know I have.  I lie to myself because I want to continue to believe in what I hold true. I lie because it's easier and convenient. I lie to continue to have hope. I lie to protect myself.  We turn to lying as a defensive mechanism of sorts. 

"The point is I could, I could do the easy thing, or I could do the hard thing.  I don't even know which would be harder.  Divorce? Do you know what a nightmare? And I want to be married. I got married because I want to be married, Jack.  Why did you?"

This is what happens to Deb Shanley in the novel. She lied to herself. She convinced herself that the affair her husband, Jack, was having with a much younger woman will eventually die down, and she need not worry about it again. She makes a decision to keep quiet about it and to work at being happy. But when a box of correspondences between the illicit lovers lands in the hands of her eleven year old daughter Kay, and then shared with her fifteen year old son Simon, she knew she could no longer hide from the truth.  "She was the victim, yes, but in front of her children, she understood at once what else she would become, which was a guilty party, and she began to notice her breathing."

As a mother, when my children become exposed and vulnerable, I know cannot I hold on to false hopes any longer, and more is necessary than inactivity and passive protest. My being a mother consumes me, takes over all other characters I play--wife and lover.

And then to face a mother's worst torment: to cause her child's anxiety, burden and resentment.

"What she couldn't do, she knew in that moment, was go to her father, who might never tell her mother, if he had the box, because how could she live with him then."

"She didn't even look at most of it.  That was something Simon couldn't believe, how his mother didn't pore over every page.  As furious as he was with his father, he was furious with her too, for reasons he couldn't explain yet but that had something to do with how her reaction was not enough, not nearly enough. Though he didn't know what would be."

"And I want Kay to be able to tell me what she's feeling.  I don't want Simon to think of me as a person who lets these things happen." 

What goes on in the minds and hearts of the characters tell more of the story alongside their manifested reactions. We go thru life with a veneer of normalcy masking the other life lived inside our head. Nothing seems unremarkably out of place on the outside, but there is restiveness and turmoil underneath.

Like Deb, I've tried staying on and letting time do its work. Hoping against the odds that I can fix whats broken. But resentment builds up, in danger of blowing up. Especially if efforts and motivations flow singularly from one side only.

In the end, life always go on for all.  We see truths in a different light. And things get resolved one way or another.

"An artist seemed the greatest thing one could be, also the purest, and her whole life shrunk next to that, her father the salesman, her mother the secretary. She hadn't learned to look for the difference yet between what one did and who one was. Hadn't even known there was a difference."

Very sensitive writing and deeply explored characters make for a good story involving a time-old tale of failed marriages.  "Among the Ten Thousand Things" is an impactful debut novel.

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Juice Fast by JUJU Cleanse

I wanted to give my digestive tract a rest, after my recent "food trip". I felt I needed to do a clean-up and a restart. So I decided to do a juice fast by JUJU cleanse.  Lately, I've been having their salads and drinks (surprisingly very palatable) at The Podium branch for some doses of healthy food.

JUJU cleanse involves fresh, raw, cold-pressed juices.  I read up about it, and found out that cold-pressed meant subjecting raw fruits and vegetables to high pressure, but no heat, to produce what is called HPP-- high pressure pasteurized. Compared to juice derived from centrifugal extractors which produce more heat and oxidation, cold-pressed juice preserves much of the fruit and vegetable enzymes and vitamins as it is exposed to a minimum of heat and air.  

The juices are pure liquid, no meat and no fiber.  My digestive system can take it easy for a day and just absorb nutrients. I will be running on mostly minerals and carbohydrates. Zero fats. And very little protein, which I was a bit apprehensive about.  

As it is my first try, their website suggests I have their introductory level one cleanse. And since I am a busy working mother with long days, I settled for a one-day cleanse duration to make sure I can stick to it. 

I had 500ml of juice every 2.5 hours, from 7:30am to 8:00 pm-- six rounds of juice drinks. I took the juices slowly on their scheduled time.   In between, I took in water and some hot mint tea.  I never felt hungry.  I didn't lose energy to work.  I wasn't tempted to eat other food. No headaches, no irritability.

What I endured though was feeling cold.  More specifically, I couldn't stand the air-conditioned environment at work.  This feeling started near noon time and it got worse towards the afternoon. What helped was when I walked around in the office, and when I went out for a brisk walk during lunch time.  But in the afternoon the "chills" came back.  

Since I was consuming less calories, I presume my body was not burning as much fuel as before to keep me warm.  Fasting slows down our metabolic rate, thus the difficulty to bear cold temperature. Less energy, less body heat. But it was tolerable, and was much easier when I stayed out of air-conditioned rooms for the rest of the evening.

It was a good rest of sorts.  The one-day pause made me eat lighter in the days afterwards. I just wasn't as hungry like before. Which must be good and healthy for me.

I'm having another mini-break next week. I will try the level two JUJU cleanse.

I will just remember to dress more warmly, and bring layers I can add.

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New and Old Favorites at Konbini Store

The Konbini salad is new!  With very generous mango, avocado, and crabstick, mixed with lettuce and cucumber strips, it's filling and very tasty. Good paired with the Super California roll which has grilled unagi and wasabi. I had it with a cold Suntory honey and lemon drink. 

The vegetable and fruit juices are back in stock. These are some of my personal picks. 

And having Japanese food at home is so much easier and more authentic with the sauces you can find in Konbini.  

Try these ready-to-eat appetizers-- mustard stalks, mushrooms, and mustard leaves.  They're healthy, nutritious and delicious. 

Meidi-ya 100% wagyu beef in a smart cup is ready-to-eat and very delicious. And the Soken corned beef is Kobe beef-in-a-can! People buy these by the boxes!

For breakfast, consider their new soy and fruit granola, and their rice and bran cereal choices. I chow them down mixed with cold milk, yogurt, and some honey.

This is a "hopia-like" biscuit made of baked sweet potato.  It's very tasty!

If you like cheese (I love nibbling on cheese), try the QBB smoked cheese. In spicy and regular variants. I'm looking forward to trying these with some wine.

I also love to nibble on these almonds for snacking, either with dried fish or coated with wasabi and cheese.  These are great finds, especially the boiled peanuts. 

 

Another healthy snack alternative: the dried fruit, in orange, apple-mango and peach. Handy to bring along too.

I saw some new biscuits-- coconut sable, sesame sable and 3-nut sable. They also again have my favorite wheat wafers. 

And this is the fresh kani kama. It comes with vinegar sauce. They bring this in hand-carried every Tuesday and Friday. Very very good!

Konbini Store is along Connecticut Street in Greenhills.

It's open Mondays to Wednesdays at 11am to 8pm, Thursdays to Sundays at 11am to 9pm. 

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Where They Found Her

"Where They Found Her" is Kimberly McCreight's second novel.  It did not disappoint. It is an engaging book filled with twists and red herrings.

The "her" in the title pertains to more than just the dead body of a newborn infant girl found in Cedar Creek, at the edge of Ridgedale University. It also alludes to the three women whose three different points-of-view comprise the narration of this mystery novel. They are Molly, Sandy, and Barbara.

Molly is a reporter in the small town paper. Molly is also a mother to a young daughter, and a mother who recently lost another baby. She is a woman who has battled depression. So getting this next assignment hits quite close to home. Yes, her personal pain affects her work. Yes, the line between work life and family life blurs. Yes, the case she is writing about pushes her to her limits. But this makes her want to know more, makes her more persistent and more responsive to the clues that present themselves to her.

Sandy is a tough teen-aged dropout who's forced to to be a "mother" to her own mother.  She is the one who saves for a rainy day, then finds her money stolen by family. She is the one checking on her parent, always anxious. She is the one who adjusts to her older tutor, giving assurances constantly . In her unstable life, Sandy has to step up and be strong for others always, despite her own needs.

Barbara is mother to Hannah and Cole who are 12 years apart, and wife to chief-of-police Steve. She is trying to build a picture-perfect life. She shows a very pulled-together look but is frantic inside. Always defensive and protective of her family, she eventually turns a blind eye to the truths in front of her.

Three different women:

One goes into depression yet eventually comes up for air.

One forces herself into the role of a grown-up, handling too much too soon.

One denies and represses and blames, until it is too late.

These are characters we identify with.  We all juggle relationships, responsibilities, guilts and histories. We all strive for normalcy. But the order of things is not always how we require them to line up.  We find ourselves in difficult circumstances.  We find ourselves where we are, not as we pictured it, unplanned and unprepared.

Past finds its way to the present as the end of the story is reached. The book will pull out surprises you didn't expect.

I'm reading McCreight's "Reconstructing Amelia" next.


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