A vision of white sand

Images from Boracay Island, July 29 - August 1, 2007.

Check out my newly uploaded flickr album: Boracay sa gitna ng habagat.

Don't bite the foot that feeds you

Some distance away from Crocodile Island, we stopped at a designated snorkeling area. Kapitan demonstrated how fast the fishies come to feed with his foot. The 3-hour boatride (they call it an “island hopping” trip but in our case, we didn’t actually land on any other island apart from the one we came from) costed us Php 1,500 (which is alright since the regular rate for a 4-hour ride comes to about 2,500 during peak season). Immediately as we arrived at the snorkeling area, they asked us to pay Php 20 each as snorkeling fee. Marvel of marvels, who's the genius who decided to set a toll fee for parking in the open sea? We discussed and wondered later where the snorkeling revenues go. I figured it out: the money goes to the sweldo of the person collecting the snorkeling fee. *snort*

Anyhow, never mind about that. Get this: you snorkel snorkel, watch all kinds of beautiful, colorful sea life. It isn't actually as beautiful as it used to be because of the typhoon Sendang some time ago, Kapitan told us. Anyhow, you snorkel snorkel, you’re just under the surface of the water, yet you feel you’ve entered a different world. After some time you pull your head back for some air, and then you hear a voice say “Ice cream ma'am, pampaalis ng alat.” (trans. "Ice cream ma'am, to take away the salty taste [of the sea water].") Ngek. You’re told that the magtataho should come any minute now. If you prefer buko juice, there's also that other guy over there. So much for quiet island paradise. It felt like being in a parody of an island paradise. No no, don't get me wrong, this is not to say that one cannot enjoy oneself in Boracay. All I’m saying is that if you’re looking for a pristine, virgin island that is largely untouched by commercialism and development, then Boracay is no longer it.

Yeah I hear it hasn't been for some time now, but experiencing it for myself drove the point home. Several years ago when I first came, at Caticlan there was no port, no terminal fees or environmental fees, and hardly any porters. When we got to the island, we jumped out of the boat, into the water and felt the Boracay sand underneath our feet as we walked to the shore, backpacks in tow. The only place to buy souvenirs was the small talipapa which was razed by fire a few years later. We hadn't even been able to get a henna tattoo then because there were very few places one could get them and we didn't see any designs that we liked. Buying accessories meant asking a woman to string some beads right before you, something you actually design and agree on together. There was no d'talipapa, no d'market, certainly no d'mall or Budget (not!) Mart. Going out to the beach meant being able to get from your cottage to your chosen spot without being followed by locals inviting you to go island hopping, or by men and women offering to sell you pearls that you can buy at the Greenhills tiangge for roughly the same price. Ah, those were the days. So no, Boracay isn't what it used to be.

(But psst, I did hear about another white beach called Jumabo Island. It sounds promising.)

You up for some adorable & hilarious cuteness?

Check out icanhascheezburger.com where they have pics like this one:

The slideshow below? Really cool.

I mean the slideshow generator itself is cool, not necessarily my slideshow. I discovered just now that if you click on a photograph, it will show you the same captions I have in Flickr. But the pic is cut off to the side - that's my fault. I adjusted the slideshow frame size (original width was 500, I made it 400). Anyhoo, scroll down and check.

ETA. For those who want an even nicer, bigger slideshow, watch it in Flickr. Go to the album, click on "View as a slideshow", and when it begins, click on the "i" to see captions along with the pics.

I love Flickr.

Blogging in un-real time: Why aren't there enough hours in the daytime?

That's rhetorical, of course. Flashback to 2005. It's late fall in California. The setting sun always catches me off guard, even after being here several days already. There just isn't enough time to enjoy the afternoon, to have leisurely walks, take photographs, take one's time to bask in the daylight. The latter half of the day goes like this: We eat lunch, perhaps take a little rest, and then what do you know, the light is fading already.

Cut back to now. I've started to organize my California pics, these are what I have so far. This slideshow - different from the one I used a few entries back, lookee, it's automatic! - was produced with the Flickr Slideshow Generator, wonderful wonderful toy. If you point your cursor at the top of the black box below, you'll find some controls. If you point it at the lower bottom portion, a strip containing the pictures in the set will appear. Detailed captions and anecdotes can be found in my Flickr gallery (go to the California and Yosemite albums; or go to Tags > California).

Of chedis, stupas and prangs *

Finally found the time to dig up and upload my photographs from Ayutthaya. Here's a sample.

Chedi from behind frangipani blooms.
Wat Yai Chaya Mongkol, Ayutthaya. 2/08/2007

View the rest of the pics at my Flickr album.

From Bangkok we took a cab to Morchit station (aka North bus terminal, not to be mistaken for the Morchit MTR station. Note that "Morchit" is itself not written on the facade of the main terminal building.), and from there, the bus to Ayutthaya. The ride took about an hour. We then contracted a tuktuk driver to drive us around. We had intended to work our way from the farther wats to the center, but by the time we got to Wat Mahathat we were worn out already and it was time to catch the bus back to Bangkok. We had to get enough rest because we knew it would be a tough journey to Cambodia the following day.

1st class aircon bus ride: 100 baht
7-Eleven breakfast: 15-35 baht
Tuktuk ride to and from the wats: 440 baht
Simple but yummy lunch at a riverside restaurant: 460 baht
Admission fees to various wats: 20 - 30 baht
The sight of a line of elephants ambling towards the wats in the city center: Priceless
The heat: So intense it makes you breathless

* In temple architecture:

Chedi or stupa or pagoda. A generally bell-shaped tower that usually contains a relic of the Buddha, or the ashes of a king or important monk. The bell-shaped chedi evolved during the golden age of Ayutthaya.

Prang. An Ayutthayan or Khmer-style chedi that is high and slim and looks like a vertical ear corn. Some see the prang as a closed lotus bud, some as Siva's linga (phallus, a symbol of potency).

Yosemite reflections

Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space. -- Ansel Adams

El Capitan seen from Valley View, Yosemite.


Cathedral Rocks reflected on the Merced River, Valley View, Yosemite.

To view larger versions, go to my Flickr album (click "All sizes" to get to largest version). For a 360 degree panorama of Valley View (it's like being there!), go here.

Images from Angkor # 4

Indra sits atop his three-headed mount, the elephant Airavata.
Pediment detail, Banteay Srei. 2/12/2007

[View larger version.]

Banteay Srei, the "Citadel of Women", is one of the most intricately decorated temples in Angkor. It is widely considered as the "jewel of Khmer art". Unlike the others, it was built not by a monarch but by a courtier and scholar named Yajnavaraha who served the king as advisor and guru. The temple was dedicated in 967 A.D. to the Hindi god Shiva. The temple is not vast, but miniature in scale, and largely made of red sandstones.

A History of Elliott's First Hit

allaccess.com has been sending this to subscribers via email.

I'm not a crazy fan of the song itself, I said that right when it was released, but I knew it had great appeal, and therefore, great radio potential. So I'm happy for its success all the same. Wait For You has been topping countdowns in such popular stations in the Philippines as Magic 89.9 and RX 93.1. In case you haven't heard the song, check it out here.

Elliott's album hasn't even been released here yet. It will be most probably, when Elliott visits in September, yay! Thank you Ayala! We Yaminoys have been campaigning for this since AI season 5. (Let's just forget that I heard you had actually been choosing between Elliott and season 6's Chris Richardson, bleh!). Elliott's schedule:

Sep 21, 8:00 pm Trinoma
Sep 22, 8:00 pm Glorietta
Sep 23, 8:00 pm Alabang Town Center
Sep 26, 8:00 pm Ayala Cebu
Sep 28, 8:00 pm Market! Market!

(One last aside: What, no concert? Just a mall tour? *sigh*)

Embedding a Pictobrowser slideshow

Testing this new gadget I found floating around the web...



Huh. Ok, kinda nice I guess. Changed the background because the original code indicated white, I thought it looked boring here. Eh, it cuts off some of the pics. I suppose that can't be fixed, unless I resize the photos in my Flickr album. Or hmm, maybe it's because I changed the display size.

By the way, you can get your own Pictobrowser slideshow by clicking on "Info" above. You'll be asked to enter your Flickr username and presto, you'll get the code.

Elliott Yamin: The Return to AI

What did I say last year, something like "Mark my words, Elliott will be big". A look at my archives for April 2006 shows that I had blogged about Elliott Yamin 3 times in a row. So no, I didn't like the guy. I loved him!

To make a long story shot, Elliott finished at #3, and I along with a lot of Yaminions from all over grieved for some time (yeah we were bat-shit crazy, as noted by fellow Yaminion Progressive), and then agonized about Elliott not getting a record deal etcetera etcetera.

A year later and voila! Elliott got the best deal possible out of all the AI contestants from his season - he went independent and struck a unique partnership deal with publisher Sony/ATV, which allows him to share copyright ownership of his material. Under this deal, they share 50-50 profit - not bad for an industry that is notorious for giving artists only 6-10%. Elliott's album was released in March 20 under a virtual label, Hickory Records. The Croshal Group was in charge of advertising and promotions.

Elliott Yamin (the album title) debuted in Billboard at #3. It has made, to date, the highest new artist debut on an independent label in Soundscan history. I could bombard you with a lot more figures and statistics, but I won't. Just trust me when I say that he's selling a whole lot more than anyone would have thought during his AI days.

Elliott performed his first official single, Wait For You on American Idol last night. And he made us all proud. See, what did I tell you?

My kinda Hiro

Just saw Episode # 20 ("Five Years Gone") and it frigging rocks! Not enough time to write these days so I'll just post these. Cool Heroes links:

Heroes 360 Clues (lots more great links at right sidebar)
Heroes Gallery (Photos, Screencaps, Scans, etc.)
The 5 EW cover variants
EW Online feature: Yesterday's Heroes
EW Online articles (spoilerish! Note to self: Read these later.)

The Dog Whisperer

My friend Isa lent me The Dog Whisperer by Owens and Eckroate as I had been attempting to train Papa Suresh's pups. A couple of weeks ago I began teaching them to sit. Hiro has turned out to be the smartest and quickest of the lot. Momo, bless his tummy, is kinda clueless on the matter. What I did was pat the floor with my hand while I said "Sit [pup's name], sit!", and held a treat in my hand. Hiro got it right away. In fact, he understood it so well that he would just sit there and would not stand anymore, the smart aleck. Micah took quite a while but she got it during our second session that day. Momo? Entirely clueless. He'd look at me expectantly, and when I wouldn't give him a treat, he'd turn away. A few times he went way back behind the pups, tired, and began to sit. I'd go, "Aha! That will do, puede na `yan!" and proceed to give him his reward. (That's successive approximations for `ya!) It happened a few times - Momo got treats by accident, unintentionally. *sigh*

`Course all that was before I had read The Dog Whisperer chapter on sitting, which states that one should hold the treat over the dog's nose so that he tilts his head and looks up. This will make his back end go down, so presto, he's sitting! (It also said the word "Sit" should be introduced after the dog already knows how to do so.) I tried this trick the following week (I get to see the pups only on weekends), and like before, Hiro totally got it. Micah would sometimes stand on her hind legs (she loves doing that, such a show-off) but she knew that didn't earn her a crunchie. Momo? *sigh* Still getting her crunchies by chance. And I thought it would be easy to get him to rest on his behind, it being heavy and all. *sigh*

A couple of pics to remember our training session by (click to enlarge if you can't read the text):

Micah was unavailable for a photograph. She was probably somewhere burying her secret stash - which consists of stuff that aren't always edible, silly girl.

Momo-nitor

Lately I have been babytalking my computer monitor. Hee.

Never been much of a dog person but...

...just look at the cute little buggers. The light-colored one is Hiro, and the darker one is Mohinder. (Sound familiar? Hee!)

Faux Lomo-ed

Lomography was originally an Austrian commercial trademark for photography-related products and services. Nowadays, the term stands for an approach, philosophy or attitude. The emphasis is on casual, snapshot photography, as in shooting from the hip. Lomo images are colorful and quirky. Lomo enthusiasts aspire for happy accidents such as over-saturation, light leaks, vignetting, over- and underexposure, multiple exposures and so on. Lomo cameras are crappy cameras, but the results are cool.

Some months ago I actually thought about buying a lomo camera. My endearingly snooty French art connoisseur friend (love `ya, dearie) huffed and puffed at the thought, indignant that I would consider getting one instead of a slick Canon SLR. (There are cheap lomos out there, see. You can get one from Amazon for as little as $18.) I suppose it's a matter of taste. To cut the story short, I didn't get a lomo. (Which was just as well, since I found myself already overwhelmed with 3 cameras - an SLR, a compact, and a phone camera - during my recent trip.) Happily, I found some how-to tips on creating faux lomo images at Flicker. This is my first try (top image = original image, bottom one = faux lomo-ed):

Eh. I had thought the original image was colorful enough. But now it looks washed-out in comparison to the lomofied version. Here is another one I did. Pretty cool, I think. But that's me. Feel free to be horrified.

Shades of Enlightenment

Embraced by a Bodhi Tree

If you believe you are enlightened, you are actually a little bit crazy.
-- Taisen Deshimaru

Buddha in a Bodhi Tree # 1
Wat Mahathat, Ayutthaya 2/10/07

One of the most photographed images in all of Ayutthaya, Thailand's old capital, is this Buddha head that seems to have grown among the roots of a bodhi tree within the compound of Wat Mahathat built in 1374.

While many Buddha heads were forcibly taken when the Burmese ransacked the city in 1767, this particular head must have remained hidden under brush and leaves for many years, until the Bodhi tree sprang to life and embraced it. The Bodhi is especially significant because it is the tree under which the Gautama Buddha gained enlightenment.

My Angkor Movie

Passage to Angkor
Uploaded by imogen_ph

Presenting my Angkor movie. The file runs for 4 minutes 12 seconds. Click on "Play" to start the movie. Turn up the volume. If the video stops and starts, just let it load until the end, and then replay. It should go smoothly then. Known to work in IE (on PC) and Firefox (on Mac). Freezes up on Netscape (PC) in my case, but that may be due to a glitch in my Shockwave plug-in. I don't know about other browsers.

The song is Somewhere Only We Know by Keane.

Is this the place we used to love?
Is this the place that I've been dreaming of?

Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?
I'm getting old and I need something to rely on.
So tell me when you're gonna let me in,
I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin.
And if you have a minute why don't we go,
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything.
So why don't we go, somewhere only we know,
Somewhere only we know.

Images from Angkor # 3

Sunrise over Angkor Wat, 2/13/2007

The sun rises over Angkor Wat, the temple considered to be one of the most perfect architectural structures in the world. Built sometime in the 12th century under the rule of Suryavarman II, it took 37 years to accomplish. How many suns have risen and shone over Angkor Wat? This thought alone is staggering.

Images from Angkor # 2

South Gate, Angkor Thom. 2/11/2007

Angkor Thom or "Great City", measuring about 900 hectares, is said to be one of the largest cities in its heyday (from the 12th to the 17th century). It was built by Jayavarman VII, the most prolific Khmer god-king known for building some of the most magnificent temples in all of Angkor. One reaches the South gate through a causeway flanked by 54 gods on the left, and 54 asuras (demons) on the right, each row tugging on an end of a great naga (a multi-headed snake), depicting a scene from the great Hindu creation myth of the Churning of the Sea of Milk. On top of the 75-foot gate is a tower with four faces representing each of the cardinal directions.