MEDIUM RARE Fukuoka, Japan’s sixth largest city. Laid back, compared with the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, or with the touristy Osaka. Fukuoka, call letters FUK, gateway to Japan. We landed in Fukuoka, too late to catch the cherry pink of the season of cherry blossoms, too early to earn a glimpse...
MEDIUM RARE Now that our Christmas tree is up and dominating the living room, let me sing praises to what makes it different. First, it’s not new, it’s no longer young and fresh. Next, many of the ornaments hanging on it are older than the tree, and they come from cities near and far,...
MEDIUM RARE My all-time favorite Christmas book, published in the last year of the last century, 1999, is The Twelve Teas of Christmas. Not that I’m that deep into tea, but because it’s a charming book with pretty illustrations and notes on decorating, gift-making and giving, with a table of...
MEDIUM RARE Seven days to go before October gives way to November. Thirty days in November. Then it’s December, the merriest month. Peru, a Catholic nation like ours, jumped the gun on us by declaring Christmas officially opened on Oct. 1. One supposes their season ends just like ours on...
MEDIUM RARE Like most people, my mother was my first teacher. She was a real teacher, with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. Yaya Andrea was a real public school teacher who helped me with my Tagalog and handicraft projects, plus her uncanny knowledge of the names of flowers, plants,...
MEDIUM RARE A prophesy has been made by the United Nations that the next pandemic will be a familiar condition called loneliness. In a one-act play, Lea Salonga and Dolly de Leon take turns playing an anonymous middle-aged character who their audiences assume is an overseas Filipino worker,...
MEDIUM RARE When a tree falls in the forest but no one hears it, did a tree fall in the forest? Can a musician make music without touching someone? What is the use, or usefulness, of music if there is no one to hear it? It may be a philosophical or rhetorical question, but how many...
MEDIUM RARE I don’t know much about architecture, I only know what I like, what I see when I step into a house for the first time. For such a house as old as Goldenberg Mansion, built in 1898 and one of the gems that form the President’s residential estate, it has got to be the prettiest of the...
MEDIUM RARE “Look at you all, such great potential!” That was Imelda R. Marcos speaking to a roomful of about 40 ladies and one or two gentlemen, here for the fourth in a series of first-Tuesday-of-the-month Merienda with Meldy in Malacañang’s Goldenberg Mansion. “You can do so much...
MEDIUM RARE On the same day that the alliance of PBBM’s 12 senatorial candidates was announced, this newspaper featured an article headlined on its opinion page: “Accompanying Him were the Twelve and some women” – the 12 meaning the first disciples of Jesus. Among the senatorial bets were...
MEDIUM RARE For one reason or another, the four of us alumnae, belonging to different batches, missed the big homecoming, the one marking the 50th anniversary of Immaculate Conception Academy Alumnae Association. To make up for it, we had our own little reunion – a reunion of...
Foodprints woke up once again! This is my show on the Metro Channel where I go to a city (here and abroad) and feature food that viewers can get tips from. It’s basically telling people where to find delicious food. The show was on vacation for a few years until I got a call from Gie Interior of...
