villa escudero - MUST visit

Sprawling over 40 hec of country farm land, villa escudero is a one-of-a-kind place you MUST visit when you are in the philippines.

His memory of the villa did not present him with any wow impression. He visited the place during marcos time, but did not find anything worth any special mentioning. He rememered there was the buffalo-cart ride, a museum(not remember what's inside) and lunch at the side of the river, and the scenary was something typically countryside.
But when he visited it this time, he had to re-access the place and put it up there in the list on places to visit in the philippines.

First the museum, now housed in a building that replicated the manila old church, complted in 1991, were historically and geographically signifcant artifacts,like the collection of colonial religious arts.

After the museaum, they took the 15minute buffalo ride, to have feel of the pace of rural life. He was pleasantly surpirsed to get entertained by a lady singer and a man guitar player with a few very melodic and lovely filipino classic songs.

Lunch was in the middle of a river, at the bottom of the dam, just beside the waterfall falling from the top of the dam to the bottom. It was an experience never had, for him and many others especially the kids. They had a whale of time playing with the water at the bottom of the falls, while their parents watched them from nearby tables enjoying their bountiful buffet lunch.

the dam provided a very ideal place for a cool and placid rafting. Each bamboo raft took 2 people, kids were not allowed. the trick to turning the raft with the oar, is to roll it from in to out, not parallel to the raft.

the filipinos are big eaters, especially of rice. They did and dig at the rice, and also they scoop and scoop on other dishes... The dishes are mountains of food. But like other well-off people, the left-over on the tables reminds one to think whether there's any poor people in this nation. Perhaps all the people who could afford the 1250P entrance fee are by no means poor in any standard.

The swimming pools for kids and adults were just nearby. The whole family could spend the rest of the day, swimming, rafting...

There's huts built on the side of the rivers, and nearby, for overnite accomodation.

And a big hall in native structure for showing the traditional filipino music and dance.

this place for all to enjoy. if you do not bring your kids there, you enjoy watching the others' kids.... enjoying themselves just like kids do!

san pablo city - rootedness

Overnite stay(12 hrs) in pine rock hotel in san pablo is P600 with ac and attached cr, towel, but no tissue, no tv(with, P700). And the bed is just a super single, not big enuff for 2.

Woke up in the morning, took a walk along the busy street next to the hotel.

He was surprised to find a chinese cemetery, with the gate to it written in chinese.
The chinese came to ph long time ago.like the spanish, they spread all over the philippines. Like chinese elsewhere outside china, they doing their business, engaging in their trades and raising their families, contributing to the growth of the country they live in

In countries like the ph and thailand, they already assimilated with the locals and has wielded significant political power, though they do not acknowledge publicly their chineses rootedness which is commendable, just like the different ethnicities in the usa do not bring their roots to the fore as far as politics are concerned.

But in countries like indo and m'sia, the chinese are an obliquely distinct group(though indo chinese speak bahasa indo), why?

Because of religion? in fact islam and been into china longer than any of these countries, and has converted many chinese,and the religion upholds man as the master over woman, can have 4 wives, all of these teaching should appeal to the male-centric chinese, why the local chinese in these two islamic countries did not take the plunge?

If you look at the muslim distribution in china, most of them are in the inland west. And the immigrants to southeast asia were mostly from the coastal east, and they are strongly rooted to their tao-buddhism. But why they can be converted to christians easier?

Is there something in islam that intrinsically push these chinese away?

dragin fruit - farmer

Farm life, he had a taste of it. When he was a kid, they owned a small plot up in the slope of the hill, and they planted various vegetable and had good harvests.

Now sitting in a palm hut, chatting with his bakadas, looking the dragon fruits plantation, he dreamt of one day to own a farm again.

But kulya ric said, "farming life is not all that fairy-tale, living-life-happily-ever-after kind of life. There's a lot of hard work, a lot of obstacles have to surmounted...like, dealing with snakes, birds and bats that steal the fruits, watching out for diseases of the plants, get people to help out during harvest, getting buyers to buy the produce...."

kulya ric owned the dragon fruit plantation in san juan, batangas. he planted dragon fruit beginning of this year, expect to have the first harvest a year after that. the access road to the plantation was bad; it's narrow, squeezed in by high walls of other estates, for some distances, muddy when it rained... but he did not mind these distractions, he's focused to have his bumper harvest on his dragon fruits.

he would be retired next year, he wanted to settle down as a farmer.

san juan - good farm

The lot is almost a rectangular plot of land, planted almost exclusively with a few hundred dwarf coconut trees. They drank and ate the coconuts plucked freshly from the tree.

Putting on the farmer's boots for the first time, they had a comprehensive tour guided by the caretaker and the helper.

It was a good farm. The owner wanted to sell it to raise money for his new rice meal.

there were a couple of pigs raised by the neighbors, they were individually tied to a tree and left to wrestle itself on the mud pit. to us mud is dirt, to pigs, it's a good body rub.

they went to check out the other nearby farm after that.