fun times at home

parties anytime, birthdays or no birthdays at all

it now becomes a legend - this bachelor's pad. it now becomes a haven for those who are tired, weary, hungry, and bored. and a place too to share the joys and smiles of life.

the pad has no father. it has no mother either. there are no children. yet it is a home of a family who simply seeks to live a happy life inspite of how sad the world has been. there is fun in this house. there is food too. the food is brought by whoever who wishes to bring one. a person who only knows how to cry has no place in this pad. he must know how to laugh as well. this is a place of extremes. cry. laugh. shy. aggressive. leader. follower. strong. weak. busy. no work. hungry. full. abundance. emptiness. this is an assembly of those who believe that in this world, to be complete means to experience both sides of two extremes.

this is where i live. this is my world. you are welcome to come in.

relived

artpix by gemma, taken at our yard; background pix is actually a pineapple fruit

when old things become, uhmmm, yeah, old, we tend to put them in a box and forget all about them. nostalgia is not my cup of tea, so do these old things are never really remembered. until one day heaven opens up and lo and behold the old things just simply resurrect. just like these things.

they are toys. or i called them so. souvenirs from the good old days in japan. when i arrived home, they become just accessories to the crimes i had committed in japan. boxed. or rather placed in one corner. dusted. untouched. one day, my niece, who has an eye of a budding artist, took them all, arranged them, and shot them. the once dusted toys now become pieces of artwork. and nice they are.

and so my memories of the good old days resurrected. i thought of how it had all been. and i remember to blog once more.

comes with this are two emails from my very good friends while i was a stranger in a foreign land. binh san remembered. sethy remembered. the resurrection of my toys becomes also the "resurrection" of memories with my two good friends. they wrote. and my memories relived.

how wonderful it really had been.

(if one friend of mine happens to see this, and recognizes the picture, my hope is for that person to remember to write me. i have been waiting.)

pictorial

serge, the kapalmuks

the scarf and the ski google i used to wear in japan are now useless in the philippines until the kids in my house found a new purpose for it. this is my dog as he gets ready for a foreign trip. or so he assumes. this is the first time i saw my dog in a 2-piece. to tell you, i didn't see the actual shooting for this until i opened my computer and had these images flashed before my eyes. i was amused, but never really laughed until i saw where the scarf and google 'landed' after this doggie pictorial... (see images below)



niece and nephew, the kapalmuks juniors.

i love my home... :-)

the bomb

sandy beach, sept 05, tacloban city

vintage bomb. wp-81. evidence of war. my hometown is a depository of such war remains. one was found in the beach resort near my house. some fishermen caught this bomb in a fish net. brought it on land. and made a show out of this. everyone was curious. no matter how the soldier guarded this relic, people still managed to get hold of it.

i was told the bomb remains active even after a hundred years. and yes, that bomb was. i noticed smoke billowing from the bomb. but we didnt feel any fear. instead, we were awed. we saw a vintage bomb "on live". we felt a sense of being part of the history of my country. that was 1945. and today is 2005. sixty long years, and it seems only yesterday. but that was bygone. no point of crying. after the bomb experts took "home" the remains of war, our day went on. we swam. we enjoyed. we frolic. after all, this is my place. the beach was inviting.

and i think this is the way life should be.

wanted

you get what you see. interested? email your CV to syrob_2p@yahoo.com. first come, first serve.

flowers in the yard

it is just one of those days. nothing extraordinary. so common. one hurries off, mind preoccupied of the day's business. write a report. meeting with a client. sales qouta to meet. now eyebrows meeting, face sagging, more wrinkles getting noticed. this defines the routine of most human beings in my place.

except me. i saw flowers and saw them all in a place uninviting. i saw flowers being spit on by a man walking by. i saw flowers being trampled by dogs playing. and when i took notice, i saw these all. and i saw these all in a yard in a sidewalk.

for sale

for lack of things to do, or better yet, for lack of better things to do, or more accurately, for doing not the better things, here is what our office has come up when i was away. who says we are not productive? or who says we are not encouraging entrepreneurship among the locals? this is the way it is now, part 2.

today, i have consumed 3 packs of moby caramel puffs, 5 pieces of green mango, sinagmani, yakult and happy peanuts. my stomach has bulged geometrically, whatever does it look like. i like my job. and i say it one more time, this time shouting.

so my day ended with one more pack of moby. 24 minutes more, and i am off to my beloved place - the street. see u tomorrow.

d way it is

shadow, 8/19/05, basey, samar

after more than a month of hiatus, i am back. this is the way it is now for me. i am back to my old work, i am back to my home country. and i am feeling different. the philippine situation is hotter than expected - hot in weather and more hot in this impeachment brouhaha. my office situation is worst than ever. sooner i will try to write about this. but this is home, and i love it to be this way.

so hello to everyone.

tokyo

today is our last day in tokyo. i don't think it is the place that i am starting to miss. i think it is the company i have kept for 2 years...

all the best for everyone.

my final bow

photo by rudy (indonesia), june 29, 2005

a bow is either a commencement or a culmination of a certain chapter of a particular event. in japan, that bow could mean a greeting when meeting someone or a gesture of thanks when it is time to say goodbye. in my case, it means goodbye to the pain and pleasure, loneliness and joy, friends and foes, anxieties and excitement of my 2-year sojourn in a place aptly called the land of the rising sun. my bow also signals of another opportunity to take, another race to run, another life to live.

it was indeed 2 fruitful years. i was blessed.

(it is now 3:03am, i am still packing my things. at 12:51pm today, together with other JDS fellows, i am leaving for tokyo. i have accumulated so many things such that my 2 pieces of luggage already exceeded the limit of 40kgs. i have to repack, and leave some things, essentials and nonessentials alike. one friend texted me saying u can never really bring all, if at all u can bring things once you leave this world. she's right.)

after all

june 29, 2005, sawarabi hall

let now the pictures speak for me. it's not in the diploma, sir, it's in the day to day experiences and the company i was, am and will be with.

____________________________
a little later...


NPO farewell BS, June 29, 2005, shiozawa

and more experiences... i am blessed with a good company while i have my sojourn in japan.

congratulations to my friends!

packing and eating and more eating

the good thing about leaving is that goes with it is the fare-you-well dinner invitations. in between packing my things, i don't need to think twice to go for free dinner. (this is one sure antithesis of economic belief that in this world "there is no free lunch.")

_______________________

fishing park, echigo yuzawa, 6/27/05 photos by daniel and leah

together with leah and daniel, we got to fellowship with the takahashi family (and their friends) in a fishing park in yuzawa town. barbecue for lunch, plus the chance to go fishing in a river, there is no need for me to proceed to PhD. (hey they paid around 2,100yen for the equipment, what can my fisherman friend in the phil say about this?)

______________________

alpo no sato, echigo yuzawa, 6/27/05

the bonus for this time-to-say-goodbye was the chance to climb (hehehe gondola de) the alpo-no-sato of more than 2,000 meters high. it was raining but it was great. a cone of ice cream in the rain and in the mountain at that gave me a different high.


_________________________

beside the river, yonuma, 6/26/05

the church also gave us (graduating christian students) a nice barbecue party near the river. (this river is my haven in times of loneliness and celebration, often come here, but still the name of this river remains 'anonymous'.) we rendered our last song (as a BS group) during the sunday service. the song was timely for all of us as it tells us to "dare to run with our eyes fixed on Jesus." i am starting to miss my church here. God has been wonderful to us.

_________________________


well, a dinner like this in uonuma murakami (muikamachi) after the bbq party won't do us harm, so off we went in the evening. thanks to our church pianist who knew where to find a nice place to hang out and eat. salamat sa donor.

_____________________

6/25/05

this was in kita no yada, famous among iuj for its okunomiyaki, yamato style. dinner courtesy of channa from cambodia.

____________________

6/25/05, photo by daniel

and this one was in cafe west in muikamachi. ah this time i paid.

____________________
thanks also to the countless dinners with leah and daniel, hai from brunei, yusril from indonesia, mirzo from tajikistan, soib from uzbekistan, prof. nakamura, prof. kuroda, filipino parties, aoki sensei, isahaya san (oh thanks a million) and all those patilaw dinner by cambodia and vietnam. my decision for the month of june to stop cooking (tipid and diet) served me right. almost everyday, i get a free meal from either one of them. kahit wala nang diet basta libre...