Reminiscence

A year ago, Mama, Frandon (Kuya Lem’s son), Ate Betsy (Kuya Leo’s wife), Kuya Jed and I went on a trip abroad.  It was our first out-of-the-country with almost all of us together and will definitely not be the last.  Following will be an attempt to bring you to the places we’ve visited.  Join me as I go on a trip on memory lane back to those fateful days, August 10-August16, 2011.  It has been more than a year now since that journey to unknown lands but the memories are still clear.

Day 1/ August 10-Manila

Today we travelled to Manila to stay overnight at Nanay In’s place in Paranaque.  Our flight to Hong Kong is tomorrow. We needed to come to Manila as the airport in Tacloban doesn’t cater to international flights YET. 😉  We spent the day with our late Grandfather Ayding’s sister and her family.  And I especially enjoyed babysitting my nephew, AJ.

AJ playing with my pen and notebook

AJ and me, “reading”

Day 2/ August 11- Hong Kong arrival a.m.- Ocean Park p.m.

We arrived at the airport at around 4:30 in the morning, for international flights, you need to check-in 3 hours max before the flight schedule, our flight was scheduled to leave at 7:45 a.m. (I think).  We wouldn’t want to be late for this very IMPORTANT event. 😉  So there we were, me, Kuya Jed, Frandon, Ate Betsy and Mama, walking through the tunnel to the plane at 7:30.  We had light breakfast minutes ago, yup, just light, we don’t want to have extra baggage, if you know what I mean. Haha!  At 10 a.m., our plane had landed in Hong Kong, the so-called Pearl of the Orient, or for some people, the Golden Egg.  After changing some money to HK$, we went on to find the EXIT of the airport, their airport is way up there, by the way, we had to ride a train from where our plane had landed to the arrival area where we needed to have our passports stamped by Hong Kong immigration.  Cool, ayt?

Who came to greet us at the airport was Mama Yaya Toto, my nanny since I was a baby, who left for Hong Kong when I was in grade two to work here.  We exchanged hugs and kisses, she was dumbfounded at how Kuya Jed and I have grown.  Mama introduced Frandon and Ate Betsy to her.  Of course, we all cried.  I hugged my Yaya so much!  Now she has time to make it up to me because she left me when I was young.  I could still remember how I clung to her knees and cried big time when she was leaving home. :’)

Spiral from left to right: 1. Us, having breakfast 2. Excited me! 3. Hong Kong bus, MANU is LOVE 4. Mama crying, Yaya in pink 5. Me, Yaya, Kuya Jed, Ate Betsy and Frandon, Mama was the one who took the photo. 6. Mama and Ate Betsy

Yaya is still super “maalaga”, she brought apples, grapes and food for lunch.  We rode the two-storey bus on our way to Goldencourt Guesthouse where we will be staying for the next few days.  Of course, Yaya Toto was our official tour guide, telling us stories behind landmarks that we see along the way.  It has now sunk into me, that we were indeed in a foreign place.  New sites, new sounds, new aromas, to behold and experience.  This is the sweet life!

Upon arriving at the place where we were going to stay, we organized our things, had lunch and readied ourselves to our first Hong Kong adventure – Ocean Park.  Then off we went, me, Mama, Yaya Toto, Ate Betsy, Kuya Jed and Frandon, riding on the MTR and a taxi afterwards to Ocean Park Hong Kong.  Let’s get it on!

Ocean Park Hong Kong!

We definitely had fun in Ocean Park, too bad though that my camera drained its batteries during the dolphin show.  Fully-charge batteries and have some spare: lesson learned. 😉

Day 3/ August 12 – Disneyland

Today is the day we went to Hong Kong Disneyland.  It is every child’s dream to go to Disneyland.  And even if I was already 22, turning 23 the time we went there, I still felt like a child being able to fulfill one of my childhood dreams.  Who would have thought that the Disney shows and characters will come to life in Disneyland?  Guess what? Even the MTR to Disneyland is Disney-inspired. 😀 Slow-motion “wow!”, that’s what I uttered upon entering the magnificent place.  Everything there was spectacular!

More pictures this time… 😉

The day at Disneyland came to a close with a spectacular display of lights and fireworks.  I was literally in tears while watching the flamboyant display of artistry.  We went home with lightness in our hearts.  We rode on a bus back to Goldencourt Guesthouse.  Going back to Hong Kong Disneyland is definitely in my bucket list…  That’s all for now, watch out as the reminiscence continues in the next entry… 😉

A Letter to a Friend

Dear Marie,

This is a thank-you letter, shared in public because we all can relate to the idea of friendship and it may bring a smile to another’s day the way you brought a smile in my heart when we became friends.

     They say people come into our lives for a reason.  And I know now why I met you and Katha.  You made me realize that the world is full of possibilities.  Who would have thought that in this lifetime I would meet two young visionaries who are intelligent, sweet and kind?  Our friendship began because of a common interest – football.  And I guess it’s true that it has a unifying power, bridging the gap of race to let friendship flourish.  That moment we met in UP, you waiting in your motorbike for me, for a football game at the Grandstand, I thought to myself that “this girl and I will be friends at once.”  And instantaneously, we were talking as we rode your bike as if we had known each other for a long time. The talks we’ve had, the food and the booze 🙂 we shared, the games we played together – football and badminton with Mikki and Katha, the laughs and the smiles will always be remembered.

     Just like you, I will be seeing more of the world.  At such a young age, you have been to different places and experienced different cultures.  And just like you and Katha, I will do my best to make this world a better place for all of us.  I hate goodbyes, I’d rather say, “’til I see you again, my friend.”  I will see you back here in the Philippines and I will visit you in Germany soon. *wink*  Good luck and God-speed in all your endeavors.  You’ll always have a friend in me.

Always,

Patrina

P.S. We should have taken more photos, but then again, the memories we shared will be vividly remembered even if years pass

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Eat Pray Love (A Novel Review)

When the movie with the same title as the book came out in 2010, I tried to ask the boyfriend, while we were deciding what movie to watch in the cinema,  if we could please watch the movie.  He won the discussion and we ended up watching one of those superhero movies (I think).  I had fun watching the movie but I was saddened by the fact that he really doesn’t like the idea of watching romance movies even if for me, he is the sweetest being on earth.  Anyway, I just think, it wasn’t meant to be THEN.

Two years after the movie was released, I am still dying to watch the movie.  Then by what seems to be fate, I came across a copy of the book in the library of the college where I teach.  The book cover, with the uncooked spaghetti noodles spelling e-a-t, meditation beads spelling p-r-a-y and orchid petals spelling l-o-v-e caught my attention amidst hundreds of book covers in front of me (lots of books came from abroad that day).  So I got it and said to the beautiful librarian, “I need to read this book!”  So I did.  And I am with no regrets here.  I will find a DVD of the movie and will watch it soon.

An American friend of mine said that she loved the EAT part, PRAY was okay and LOVE was boring.  And I just nodded with a grin, after all, I was just in the EAT part of the book, I could only say too much.  Now that I’m finished with the book, I have a different opinion.  EAT was okay, PRAY was better and LOVE was the best part.  I don’t know why but maybe because I am in a relationship right now, as many of you could notice and like Liz and macho Brazilian, Felipe, it just seems to have been written in the stars that he and I met.

I will not bombard you with thoughts of my love story, which is definitely, going to be a novel someday, so going back to the novel…  It’s the author’s memoir on her travels through Italy, India and Indonesia to find herself after she had suffered a gruesome divorce process in the United States.  In Italy, she had eaten to her stomach’s desire.  She experienced all the pleasures in eating that for her was an alien thought, she’s a thin person after all.  She did gain a hefty amount of weight in Italy and lost most, rather all, of those earned pounds in India where she stayed in an Ashram to find God through meditation and vegetarian food. And she tried to find balance between worldly pleasure and the divine in Bali, Indonesia.

I liked how the novel was written in a sense that it’s as if an old friend of mine were just talking to me and I was empathizing through her sufferings and celebrating through all the ups in her life…  I was able to go to Italy and have the best pizza with Liz in the small family-owned restaurant in Venice.  I was able to go to the Ashram in India where I woke up with Liz every 3am to meditate 128 Sanskrit verses.  And I was able to go to Indonesia and meet Ketut Liyer, the old healer who told Liz 2 years before that she was to return to Indonesia to live there for 4 months.

I am now in the process of trying to figure out what my word or phrase is, just as Liz has been looking for the right word or phrase for her life… New York, for example, has the word SUCCESS engraved in its aura.  Rome, with all its religiosity aside, has SEX for its word, from the words of Guilio, an Italian, in the book. Liz found her word, it’s antevasin, a Sanskrit word, meaning, “one who lives at the border”.  In Yogic text, the antevasin lived in sight of both worlds (human and divine), looked toward the unknown and was a scholar.  I would like to find my word, but I think it’s still not meant to be. I’m thinking about sensai, I am a teacher, after all… But then again, I’m not old enough to be  called a “wise one”.

What I’ve learned from the book is that everything in our lives happens for a reason.  We get hurt to realize that it’s not worth it and sometimes we keep on experiencing the same problem if we don’t get the lesson it has been trying to let us learn.  All the minuet details in our lives will do something to us, sometimes, the seemingly least important detail would teach us the most important lesson.  The people who come in and go out of our lives all have a mission – to help us discover who we really are.  Even if sometimes, some people would hurt us too much to the point of losing reason for life.  But then again, that inner voice would help you, what seems to be God’s voice would whisper words of comfort for us to be well again. With knees on the bathroom floor, Liz Gilbert asked for God’s guidance if she had to end the marriage or not, what she got was an imposing, “go to bed, Liz”, “leave”.  After that, she did leave the marriage, it wasn’t healthy for her.  See, there’s nothing wrong with leaving and riding on a journey to the unknown, Elizabeth Gilbert did not know where she was going to be in a year.  But somehow, everything came into place and she had been to three equally beautiful places, four months in each and she had learned lessons from each.  So this goes out to all of us, taste everything that life has to offer, let’s not be afraid of living.  After all, when all this comes to pass, we will not regret what we have done but what we have not but should have.

I still do not know my word, but I am in the process of finding it.  There goes, now, to the next novel that I will read.  Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.

The Story of Paulino (by Patrina Kaye N. Caceres at 7 or 8 years old)

I have been writing at a young age… And I would like to share a piece I wrote when I was a child.  I am not sure though if this was the piece that made me win a thick Webster’s dictionary and a set of kid’s encyclopedia.  Anyway, here it is…

 

The Story of Paulino

by Patrina Kaye N. Caceres – Tacloban Angelicum Learning Center

             In a faraway land lived a boy named Paulino.  Paulino is a kind-hearted and intelligent child.  When he was three, his mother died.  His father called on for his stepsister to take care of Paulino.  Paulino’s aunt was very mean and jealous.  And one night his aunt killed his father.  Paulino saw his father lying dead on the floor.  His aunt stole all the riches of Paulino’s mother.  When his aunt was asleep one night, Paulino tried to escape from his cruel aunt.

            Finally, he saw a small cottage near his mother’s house.  When he saw all the furniture untidy, he cleaned it all up and went to bed.  But when he was sleeping, he heard a noise from the kitchen.  He was afraid, maybe it was his aunt.  Then he went out of bed to see who it was.  It was a beautiful lady with a very kind and good heart.  When she saw Paulino, she was not angry and asked why he was in her house.  Paulino told the truth and the lady believed in it.  When Paulino told his name to the lady, the lady told her name to Paulino.  Her name was Jane.

            One morning, Paulino’s aunt went to the cottage to see if Paulino was there.  When Jane opened the door to see who it was she saw a lady.  She asked if Paulino was there.  Jane answered no.  To make sure, Paulino’s aunt went inside and saw no Paulino but Paulino was hiding inside the cabinet.  Jane let Paulino go to school because he had nothing to do.  When Paulino knew that the principal was his aunt.  He was afraid to go to school.  Jane had a good idea, he should not use the name Paulino but Paul.  Paulino agreed on Jane’s plan.  When Paul’s aunt knew that Paul was his nephew, she tried to kill Paulino but he had escaped.

            Many months later, Paulino had a plan on how to get rid of his step-aunt.  All of his classmates and schoolmates gathered around.   They tried to scare her by spooky ghosts.  And his aunt was afraid.  They all got rid of the evil principal.  And Jane was made by Paulino principal of the school.  They all lived happily ever after.