Ned Vizzini’s *It’s Kind of a Funny Story* called to me at least three times in bookstores. The last time I was shopping for a book to take home with me at an airport bookshop, I was caught between Gillian Flynn’s *Gone Girl* and this book and chose the former, only to end up buying the...
WHAT WAS LEFT Nagasaki was the second target hit by an atomic bomb dropped by the US in Japan during World War II (Photo: Encyclopedia Britannica) I grew up at a time the word Nagasaki, like Hiroshima, was synonymous with the atomic bomb. It also conjured up to me eyes bulging out of sockets, teeth...
THE HEAT IS ON Chef Charles Montañez cooks his dishes upon a live wood fire Many say that food is memory. This is true. But food is also a close encounter with the unknown. You can’t get closer to anything unfamiliar than when you put it in your mouth. Remember the very first time you took a sip...
9,627KM The Parthenon is the most iconic of ancient ruins in Athens, which can also take you as far back in time as 2,500 years ago I might have gone very far, but surely not far enough. I’ve been 200 kilometers into the Arctic Circle, crossing the white vastness on a snowmobile and a dog...
DRESS THE WORLD IN FILIPINIANA From left: Dutch Ambassador Marielle Geraedts, German Ambassador Anke Reiffenstuel, French Ambassador Michele Boccoz, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, Federal Republic of Nigeria Ambassador Folakemi Akinleye, Hungarian Ambassador Dr. Titanilla Tóth, Brunei Ambassador...
GOING UP THE GALATA TOWER At the end of this quaint street from a bohemian neighborhood in Istanbul towers an old, 62.59-meter Genoese structure in the Galata part of the Beyoglu district Long before I made it there, I’ve always seen Istanbul through a soft-focus lens. My first encounter with...
I once took a trip to Singapore with zero plans, as in nothing scheduled, nothing I wanted to do, except to sleep, eat, maybe shop a little, and read a lot. I booked myself a room at a cheap hotel, not so cheap that it would be uncomfortable, as I was prepared to spend much of my four-day stay in...
FLAVORS OF THE SOUTH EAST From left: Beef percik with lauk pauk or side dishes When food expert Angelo Comsti, in his desire to bring together chefs young and old, established and emerging, came up with a personal passion project called Asian Culinary Exchange (ACE), it was in fact only a logical...
In his acceptance speech at the Nobel Prize banquet in 1954, which the American ambassador to Sweden at the time read in his behalf, Ernest Hemingway wrote, “Writing at best is a lonely life.” It’s ironic that in order to connect with the world, a writer has to be alone through torturous...
A CHANGING COUNTRY Portrait of Orhan Pamuk by Ozan Kose at his desk in his Istanbul home (AFP) There’s an ongoing promo package put together by Deluks Tourizm and Travel Warehouse Inc., in partnership with Oman Air, for eight days and seven nights in Türkiye. It’s $1,888, all in. The package...
SEASON OF BLOOMS Flowers give the browns and beiges, the tans and taupes, the off-whites and ochres of Cappadocia's volcanic landscape in central Turkey in May (Photos by author) I will take inspiration from a flower, in eternal bloom, for if it has wilted, is it still a flower? The remains of a...
PANIMULA Linupak na Kalabasa at Alimasag, Binuro na Maya Maya sa Asin, and Silog Only a few weeks ago, while immersed in the glorious waters of the Philippines, I told two foreign members of my family separately that it was a good time to be a Filipino. While at the beach near the West Philippine...
