Saturday, May 5, 2012
Memories of our Trip to Cancun, Mexico and the Mayan Ruins
Friday, May 4, 2012
My Top 15 Popular Posts
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Memories of our Vacation to Boracay Island, Philippines
Yesterday, I was checking on the top ten of my popular post in my blogs. One of the most popular articles I found was about our vacation in Boracay Island, Aklan- a world tourist destination in the Philippines. Here is the article I wrote a year ago which attracted more than 6000 page views as of today.
There must be more than 100 beach resorts, hotels, boarding rooms and other accommodations (condos, private homes, apartments)in this most popular beach resort in Southeast Asia ranging from 1 star to 5 stars.
I have visited Boracay only once in the mid 1990's, but Macrine has been to Boracay two times. Her first time was with me and the second time was with our 4 adult children and three grand children from California in 2007. They stayed at the Regency Beach Resort and Convention Center, a 4-star hotel. They had a grand time and were very please with their accommodation and experience at the Regency.
In my case, I swear I will never visit Boracay again because of the crowds and circus atmosphere of the island. To me, a beach vacation must be quite, peaceful and a lot of solitude, not night clubs, crowds and mayhem. The following video shows both the commercial and non-commercial side of the island.
Boracay is an island of the Philippines located approximately 315 km (200 miles) south of Manila and 2 km off the northwest tip of Panay Island in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines. In 1990, it was voted by the BMW Tropical Beach Handbook as one of the best beaches in the world and again in 1996 by British publication TV Quick as the world's number one tropical beach.
The island comprises the barangays of Manoc-Manoc, Balabag, and Yapak (3 of the 17 barangays which make up the municipality of Malay), and is under the administrative control of the Philippine Tourism Authority in coordination with the Provincial Government of Aklan. The island was originally home to the Ati tribe. Boracay is part of Aklan Province, which became an independent province on April 25, 1956.
Years ago, Boracay Island was an almost possessively guarded secret so that only a few knew of its existence. Tourism only began to develop in the 1970s, when, it is said, a foreign movie crew accidentally "discovered" this island paradise. Others maintain that it was the German traveler, 'Jens Peters' book, which included rave reviews of Boracay that changed the island’s pace from that of being a quiet secret to eventually being voted as having the best beach in the world. Whichever story is true, it was around this time that Boracay Island slowly ceased to be a private hangout for travelers. In the 1980s, the island became popular with backpackers. Since then, Boracay has gradually become more and more a cosmopolitan tourism destination and, in the 21st century has become, one of the major tourist destinations in the Philippines.
There must be more than 100 beach resorts, hotels, boarding rooms and other accommodations (condos, private homes, apartments)in this most popular beach resort in Southeast Asia ranging from 1 star to 5 stars.
I have visited Boracay only once in the mid 1990's, but Macrine has been to Boracay two times. Her first time was with me and the second time was with our 4 adult children and three grand children from California in 2007. They stayed at the Regency Beach Resort and Convention Center, a 4-star hotel. They had a grand time and were very please with their accommodation and experience at the Regency.
In my case, I swear I will never visit Boracay again because of the crowds and circus atmosphere of the island. To me, a beach vacation must be quite, peaceful and a lot of solitude, not night clubs, crowds and mayhem. The following video shows both the commercial and non-commercial side of the island.
Boracay is an island of the Philippines located approximately 315 km (200 miles) south of Manila and 2 km off the northwest tip of Panay Island in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines. In 1990, it was voted by the BMW Tropical Beach Handbook as one of the best beaches in the world and again in 1996 by British publication TV Quick as the world's number one tropical beach.
The island comprises the barangays of Manoc-Manoc, Balabag, and Yapak (3 of the 17 barangays which make up the municipality of Malay), and is under the administrative control of the Philippine Tourism Authority in coordination with the Provincial Government of Aklan. The island was originally home to the Ati tribe. Boracay is part of Aklan Province, which became an independent province on April 25, 1956.
Years ago, Boracay Island was an almost possessively guarded secret so that only a few knew of its existence. Tourism only began to develop in the 1970s, when, it is said, a foreign movie crew accidentally "discovered" this island paradise. Others maintain that it was the German traveler, 'Jens Peters' book, which included rave reviews of Boracay that changed the island’s pace from that of being a quiet secret to eventually being voted as having the best beach in the world. Whichever story is true, it was around this time that Boracay Island slowly ceased to be a private hangout for travelers. In the 1980s, the island became popular with backpackers. Since then, Boracay has gradually become more and more a cosmopolitan tourism destination and, in the 21st century has become, one of the major tourist destinations in the Philippines.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Most Popular Chapters(Excerpts) from Cloyne Court
I was analysing yesterday what are my top ten popular posting. I was surprise to find out that Chapter 19 and 20(excerpts) from Dodie's book, Cloyne Court is on the top ten list. I am reprinting it today and after reading it, you will know why it is one of my top ten popular and widely read posting. It had more than 400 page views in one day. Enjoy!
Dick Fine-Photo from touristseason.tumblr.com
Cloyne Court, Episode 19
By Dodie Katague
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Rated "R" by the Author.
Cloyne Court, Berkeley, California in the late 1970s.
Months later, as I became friendly with the people in the house, Lorna, who did have a slight mustache and a deviating left eye and buckteeth, recounted her date. "A lot of women in the house said I should ask him out. They assured me that Dick wouldn't say no. They told me he was an experience I shouldn't miss. I'll never do that again."
"You were disappointed?"
"Not at all. It was earth shattering, but he was enormous. I couldn't fit it all in."1] She sighed. "At least I can say I rode the big one."
I didn’t like showering when Dick Fine was there, because I knew the women, and some men, were looking at him, then looking at me, and looking back at him and making a mental comparison. It was a low blow to self-esteem. The downside of showering in a unisex shower was just as I could see women in their birthday suits, they could see me naked and think the same things I was thinking about them. How humbling. I was a typical young man with average everything and the law of averages meant nobody was ever going to take an interest in me because of my body.
The shower room was not the sexual playroom it could have been. First, there were too many people going in and out to give any couple or group sex any privacy; second, the militant feminists wouldn’t have permitted it. The shower room was supposed to be a safe, nonsexist, utilitarian place to wash. With some private exceptions, it was.
The co-ed shower idea was supposed to be the epitome of an egalitarian ideal that nakedness should have no sexual overtones. When the unisex shower proposal was introduced at a house meeting, the feminist women supported it. Guilt and shame over the naked human body were religious indoctrinations that had no place in the free exchange of new ideas and social theories, as we were to discover at Berkeley.
However, it is not easy teaching an old dick new tricks. My little William and I would learn the hard way from experience.
As I quickly showered, dried and dressed, the blood rushed back to my brain saving me from embarrassment. I grabbed my books and ran down the back steps toward the campus. Once I crossed Hearst Street to the university, I had gone from Venus to Mars in my little galaxy that I now called home.
_______________________________________
Cloyne Court, Episode 20
By Dodie Katague
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Rated "R" by the Author.
Cloyne Court, Berkeley, California in the late 1970s.
Rhetoric 1A: Intro to Logical Writing
Rhetoric is the difference between rape and seduction. It is the ancient art of logical argumentation and discourse for decisions that are decided by emotion. I chose to study this subject over English, because I felt persuasive writing was of more practical use to me than the study of Jane Austen.
Graduate Teaching Assistant Ms. Barbara Zimmer taught this small class of twenty. She was feminine in her brusque manner, but a feminist in all other respects. She exuded the same attitude of Berkeley graduate students forced to be teaching assistants. She was a “there’s-only-one-correct-answer, do-it-my-way, why-do-I-bother-teaching-undergrads” dictator with the power of my future in her grading pencil, and she wielded it like an old-style Catholic nun with a ruler. Whack!
The assigned reading was Virginia Woolf’s essay, A Room of One’s Own, a selection from the class textbook, The Feminist Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction.
Ms. Barbara taught Woolf's Room as if it were a landmark in feminist criticism. Like Mao’s Little Red Book, she disseminated to our blank freshman minds the revisionist view of Marxism, lesbianism and modern feminism.
“Men have different degrees of access to the mechanisms of oppression,” she said. “Almost every man and woman encounter has sexual overtones designed to reinforce the sexual dominance of men.”
I dutifully wrote the statement in my notebook. I didn't know when the quote might come in handy at some cocktail party.
Ms. Barbara walked down the rows of chairs glaring at the men but gently touching the desks, and sometimes the shoulders of the women students as she continued to pontificate. “Men are socialized to have sexual desires and to feel entitled to have those desires met, whereas women are socialized to meet those desires and to internalize accepted definitions of femininity and sexual objectification. As men cling to the idea that their sexuality is an absolute expression of their need and dominance, they prevent women from effecting new attitudes, self-realizations, and behaviors.”
I translated that to, "Men are horny bastards and women let it happen to their detriment." Perhaps, from the top of the ivory tower, Ms. Graduate Student Barbara’s view of the sexual battlefield had the masculine missiles of October menacingly pointed at the feminist motherland, but she was wrong.
I knew from watching my parent’s marriage and the male-female interactions at Cloyne Court, that women actually run society but let men think they do.
However, I could never state that blasphemy in Rhetoric 1A. My viewpoint would not be given any credence in her classroom, because I had a Y chromosome. Therefore, I suffered in silence at the indignity of learning that I, as a man, was the oppressor of women, the cause of famines in underdeveloped Third World countries, and the inventor of hot pants and disco music done under aegis of politically correct scholarly dogma.
This episode is based on a true story.
Dick Fine-Photo from touristseason.tumblr.comCloyne Court, Episode 19
By Dodie Katague
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Rated "R" by the Author.
Cloyne Court, Berkeley, California in the late 1970s.
Months later, as I became friendly with the people in the house, Lorna, who did have a slight mustache and a deviating left eye and buckteeth, recounted her date. "A lot of women in the house said I should ask him out. They assured me that Dick wouldn't say no. They told me he was an experience I shouldn't miss. I'll never do that again."
"You were disappointed?"
"Not at all. It was earth shattering, but he was enormous. I couldn't fit it all in."1] She sighed. "At least I can say I rode the big one."
I didn’t like showering when Dick Fine was there, because I knew the women, and some men, were looking at him, then looking at me, and looking back at him and making a mental comparison. It was a low blow to self-esteem. The downside of showering in a unisex shower was just as I could see women in their birthday suits, they could see me naked and think the same things I was thinking about them. How humbling. I was a typical young man with average everything and the law of averages meant nobody was ever going to take an interest in me because of my body.
The shower room was not the sexual playroom it could have been. First, there were too many people going in and out to give any couple or group sex any privacy; second, the militant feminists wouldn’t have permitted it. The shower room was supposed to be a safe, nonsexist, utilitarian place to wash. With some private exceptions, it was.
The co-ed shower idea was supposed to be the epitome of an egalitarian ideal that nakedness should have no sexual overtones. When the unisex shower proposal was introduced at a house meeting, the feminist women supported it. Guilt and shame over the naked human body were religious indoctrinations that had no place in the free exchange of new ideas and social theories, as we were to discover at Berkeley.
However, it is not easy teaching an old dick new tricks. My little William and I would learn the hard way from experience.
As I quickly showered, dried and dressed, the blood rushed back to my brain saving me from embarrassment. I grabbed my books and ran down the back steps toward the campus. Once I crossed Hearst Street to the university, I had gone from Venus to Mars in my little galaxy that I now called home.
_______________________________________
Cloyne Court, Episode 20
By Dodie Katague
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Rated "R" by the Author.
Cloyne Court, Berkeley, California in the late 1970s.
Rhetoric 1A: Intro to Logical Writing
Rhetoric is the difference between rape and seduction. It is the ancient art of logical argumentation and discourse for decisions that are decided by emotion. I chose to study this subject over English, because I felt persuasive writing was of more practical use to me than the study of Jane Austen.
Graduate Teaching Assistant Ms. Barbara Zimmer taught this small class of twenty. She was feminine in her brusque manner, but a feminist in all other respects. She exuded the same attitude of Berkeley graduate students forced to be teaching assistants. She was a “there’s-only-one-correct-answer, do-it-my-way, why-do-I-bother-teaching-undergrads” dictator with the power of my future in her grading pencil, and she wielded it like an old-style Catholic nun with a ruler. Whack!
The assigned reading was Virginia Woolf’s essay, A Room of One’s Own, a selection from the class textbook, The Feminist Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction.
Ms. Barbara taught Woolf's Room as if it were a landmark in feminist criticism. Like Mao’s Little Red Book, she disseminated to our blank freshman minds the revisionist view of Marxism, lesbianism and modern feminism.
“Men have different degrees of access to the mechanisms of oppression,” she said. “Almost every man and woman encounter has sexual overtones designed to reinforce the sexual dominance of men.”
I dutifully wrote the statement in my notebook. I didn't know when the quote might come in handy at some cocktail party.
Ms. Barbara walked down the rows of chairs glaring at the men but gently touching the desks, and sometimes the shoulders of the women students as she continued to pontificate. “Men are socialized to have sexual desires and to feel entitled to have those desires met, whereas women are socialized to meet those desires and to internalize accepted definitions of femininity and sexual objectification. As men cling to the idea that their sexuality is an absolute expression of their need and dominance, they prevent women from effecting new attitudes, self-realizations, and behaviors.”
I translated that to, "Men are horny bastards and women let it happen to their detriment." Perhaps, from the top of the ivory tower, Ms. Graduate Student Barbara’s view of the sexual battlefield had the masculine missiles of October menacingly pointed at the feminist motherland, but she was wrong.
I knew from watching my parent’s marriage and the male-female interactions at Cloyne Court, that women actually run society but let men think they do.
However, I could never state that blasphemy in Rhetoric 1A. My viewpoint would not be given any credence in her classroom, because I had a Y chromosome. Therefore, I suffered in silence at the indignity of learning that I, as a man, was the oppressor of women, the cause of famines in underdeveloped Third World countries, and the inventor of hot pants and disco music done under aegis of politically correct scholarly dogma.
This episode is based on a true story.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Foreign-Based Names for Beach Resorts in Marinduque
I noticed recently that a few beach resorts in Marinduque have foreign-based names. In 1996 when we first constructed Chateau Du Mer Beach Resort, it was the only beach resort or hotel with a non-english or tagalog name. Today, there are several beach resorts with either Spanish, Portuguese or Italian derived names. A good example is Bellarocca Resort( beautiful rock) in Buenavista. Bellarocca is a five-star resort and touted to be one of the best in Southeast Asia. Another example is a small beach resort in Balaring named Tierra Azurras ( is this Portuguese?). Of course, there is the old Villa sa APLAYA in Ihatub and Casa de Azul( Blue House)in Buenavista)*. The older hotels have tagalog or English names such as the Boac Hotel, Tahanan Sa Isok, East Point Hotel, Blue Seas, Katala, Cagpo and Love Bay Resorts. I believe naming the resort with non-tagalog names denote class and distinction. In the case of Chateau Du Mer(House by the Sea or House of the Sea), we selected the name after considering more than dozen names( Casa del Mar, Balay sa Baybay etc..) with the goal of attracting European specially French or Canadian tourists. We believe this goal was achieved since our first European guests were from France about 4 years ago. Today, we are attracting more American tourists. The disadvantage of the non-tagalog name, is that majority of the locals have a hard time pronouncing it, thus our local name recognition is slightly impaired. Anyway, we believed that Chateau Du Mer is a good name and the second building we will be constructing in the future will be named Bella Chateau. Note that the gramatically correct french name should have been Chateau de la Mer. But this was too long. For details on Chateau Du Mer, visit http://chateaudumer.blogspot.com *Changed recently to Blue Castle
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Memories of our one Day Tour of the Rock of Gibraltar
Our tour started from our vacation resort( Four Seasons Country Club)in Marbella.
The minibus started along the Costa del Sol and ends at La Linea de la Conception, the border of Gibraltar. The tour included a winding minibus drive to the top of the Rock along the Europa Point and the Galleries. The view of the city and the strait from the top was fantastic. Since I had a fear of heights, I did not look down to see the view. Our visit to the St. Michael Caves and Underground Church and the Barbary Apes Reserve were the highlights of this tour. According to our guide they have concerts inside the cave and the sound is stereophonic. At the end of the tour there was plenty of time to do some duty-free shopping in the many duty-free shops.
We had a typical English lunch of Fish and Chips. The lunch for two cost us $19 ( US) dollars. Gibraltar merchants will accept either US dollars ,British pounds, or Spanish pesetas. Good buys are spirits, tobacco, perfumes, gold jewelries and Lladro sculptures.
Gibraltar is a huge rock found to the south of Spain. The region belongs to the United Kingdom. On one side there is the Bay of Algeciras, and on the other the Mediterranean Sea. Gibraltar borders the town of La Linea de la Concepción, part of the county of Cádiz. The Rock of Gibraltar is the most famous rock in the world.
Gibraltar is situated at the southern end of Europe with a land frontier to Spain on its northern front. It sits at the joining of the Atlantic Ocean with the Mediterranean Sea.
The stretch of water that separates Gibraltar from north Africa is called the Strait of Gibraltar and throughout history has played a strategic part in battles fought and won to control the western Mediterranean seaways. In ancient times Gibraltar was one of the Pillars of Hercules. It was known to the Greeks as Mons Calpe, the other pillar being Mons Abyla on the Moroccan side of the Strait. Gibraltar marked the limit to the known world.
Intrinsically linked with the sea, Gibraltar is one of the busiest ports of call in the Mediterranean. It is also a stepping stone for immigrants all over the world through Africa and finally going to Europe.
Note: This vacation was part of our International Interval Exchange Package in the Fall of 2000.
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