Lessons from C

1. In the months when I was getting treatment for cancer, I was always the youngest one in the waiting rooms.   There were days when I almost felt ashamed. Maybe it was my fault I had cancer.  How come I am the only one here below 50?   But  a few months ago, on a visit to my oncologist,  about a year and a half after my cancer diagnosis and  after getting a clear scan (Yipee!),  I  walked out of the oncology hall just as  young lady in her twenties was walking with her companion. It was obvious from her frail frame, and the cropped hair that she just finished a chemo session.  I wanted to hug her, tell her, hey it's going to be okay!   Living with cancer,and getting treatments really pushes one to rely on once's inner strength.  The pain from the treatments are sometimes too much that  you question yourself  if it is better to just let the disease run its course.  But then you think  about the things that matter - family, the longing to be with them longer, the adventures still waiting for you, your dreams. And you go back again the next day for the next session, and grit your teeth through it. You do it, day after day, despite fears, frustrations and sometimes, despair. You see, every cancer patient is a warrior.

2. I am mighty proud of how I drove myself to my radiotherapy sessions. Most days, my husband drove me, but in the last weeks of my radiotherapy, when he was inundated with work and meetings, I drove myself to the hospital.  It did feel weird, waiting there on my own for my session, surrounded by patients and their carer. I was the only one without a companion. But it also felt liberating.  Having cancer, you basically have to depend on a lot of people -- doctors, nurses, therapists, family. Cancer treatment becomes this big blanket that cloaks all else. Those  90  minutes of driving time gave back a sense of self,  that, I am still me somehow. How I could still be independent, and braver.

3.  I went back to work six weeks after my surgery and worked 50% of my normal  hours. So when I was having radiotherapy,I worked in the morning, and drove myself in the afternoon to  the hospital.   Four months after my surgery, I was back fulltime at work.  Looking back, I wondered if I should have taken it slow. But I also knew this. Work was the one thing that made my post-operative routine feel normal. Even though I was still suffering from brain fog and fatigue due to the post-surgery treatments, knowing that I had to do tasks everyday, with deadlines looming allowed me to not be overwhelmed with morbid thoughts about cancer.  I just had to focus and do what was needed to be done. Work was the perfect distraction.

[Visit Ph] Three Days Out of Manila, Part 1 of 3

Hello there! I´m back from my two weeks vacation in the Philippines!  It was a short break, and although I was tempted to cram those two weeks with trips around the islands, in the end, I decided I wanted it to be a very laidback experience, one that would allow me to enjoy the everyday moments with the family.

Of course, being travel-crazy Pinoys who wouldn´t stay put,  my family and I decided that  a short weekender  in Calabarzon would not be too much of a hassle, so that´s what we did!   Calabarzon, if you do not know, is the region just south of Manila made up of 4 provinces - Cavite, Laguna, Batangas and Quezon.


Our Base: Ricarte´s Hill , Batangas via AirBnB
I rented a small vacation house in Airbnb in Nasugbu, Batangas.  It was the perfect location, since it was just 10 minutes away from Tagaytay city center, but it was far enough to be really peaceful and provincial.  The two bedroom resthouse with a wading pool and a kiddie pool was inside the owner´s mango farm, so the location was very rustic and full of trees.

    itsy bitsy spider in the garden

                             
The house was just big enough for the six of us, with two rooms, one with a queen sized bed and another with 2 double beds.  There were foldaway mattresses and extra pillows available.

The house itself was spic and span, the pools were cleaned daily and there are helpers who can assist you.   The cooking area itself is separated from the house by a few yards, but that´s okay.  We didn´t cook at all haha!  We did avail of their cooking services and had one breakfast and one dinner catered.  For breakfast we had garlic fried rice, tocino, tapa, longanisa and ham plus putok pandesal. For one dinner we had kare-kare, laing, inihaw na liempo, rice, leche flan and buko pandan.  The food while not stellar is full of that homecooked goodnes, like something an auntie would cook for you. For our three day stay inclusive of the two catered meals,  I paid only  250€.  Truly value for money!

Because our rented flat was right smack in the middle ofNasugbu and Tagaytay, we could, if we wanted, enjoy the beaches of Nasugbu and the cool highlands of Tagaytay.

We decided to forego the beaches and instead went on a trip to a hacienda in Quezon, visited a bee farm in Cavite and went around Tagaytay for some fun and food trips.  Details on my next posts!

Ricarte´s Hill Garden Resort
Book through AirBnB 
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Beauty Haul: Foreo Luna Mini, Elizabeth Arden Intervene, Chanel Vitalumiere Compact

I spent a little over 250€ last Friday for this beauty haul.  It is certainly  extravagant and somewhat excessive for my ordinarily thrifty lifestyle, but my skin´s been pretty bad lately, so bad that even my ever-reliable Guerlain Lingerie de Péau foundation could not cover the red splotches around my mouth and the tired pallor of my face.

And then there is the fact that the sale season in Europe has began, with 30% to 50% markdowns on goodies.  And so I got a little crazy and bought goodies which will hopefully help me in my beauty battle against stress and ageing.

The Haul: Foreo Luna Mini, Chanel Vitalumiere Compact Powder, Elizabeth Arden Intervene Products (Anti-Fatigue Eye Cream, Time FightingRadiance Serum, Skin Tone Perfecting Capsules), and my freebie of Smashbox Makeup Pouch 

A Spring of Tulips in Holland

Ah, spring!  The season of beginnings. The earth resplendent in a robe of colors, and for those of us who lived through the darkest of winters, spring means a sigh of relief, a promise of light.  Spring holds with its arrival the promise of rebirth, of beautiful blooms,  of nature being at its flirtiest.

It was my first spring in Holland.  And like most first-timers, I marked it with a rite of passage.  In Japan and Korea, spring is a time for hanami, the annual flower viewing custom to enjoy the pristine and ethereal cherry blossoms.  In Holland,  the gray landscape is cracked open by a carpet of unfurled bulbs.

    Tulips: From bulbs to blooms

Cochem, Germany: A Castle, A River, and A Fairytale Town

Warning:  THIS POST IS PREGNANT WITH PHOTOS!



Cochem, Germany is an insider´s secret.  Most people who come to  visit Germany target the bigger cities --Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Dresden.  And that is understandable,  with limited time, we choose the cities with the biggest media mileage. What, in the age of social media, is deemed as  brag-worthy.  But Europe, being a traveller´s  dream,  offers so  many landscapes.  Just as there are different sorts of tourists  --backpackers, those in search of romance, those who want to hit all the iconic cities, those who want to forget--- Europe has  as many cities and towns to cater to every traveller´s preferences.    Last year, I embarked on a solo trip to Dusseldorf, Cologne, and Hamburg, and early this year I visited Berlin.  And how I enjoyed Germany!  Next to Spain, where I lived, it is Germany that made me feel so comfortable and safe -- the germans are unmatched when it comes to friendliness and  even in the big cities, it always felt safe to roam around alone.

And yet even though I enjoyed my past trips to Germany,  it was only when I went to the little town of Cochem that I was dazzled, so dazzled that I uttered with hope and longing,  ¨ I wish I could live here!"  

Mussels and Waffles and Laughter in Ghent

I am truly getting older.  My equally-single friends and I are now talking about mid-life crises, about (not) coming to terms with living alone, about past loves, hopes and frustrations.  The Polish friend and co-engineer, older by close to five years and prone to drama, sighs why the Lord has not blessed her, and enumerates her ¨misfortunes¨. By that she refers to her still being single, a few months shy of forty.  She then points to her perfectly okay figure and complains of weight gain, and points to her clear face and her little laughlines in despair.  We tell her, come on, B! You are so blessed! You´re still pretty and you have a good job, yes? And then of course, she talks about the enemies she´s made at the work site.  I think she really wants to anchor her life now with something, she wants to get rooted to a life and stop the traveling.   She is ready to buy a house, but she doesn´t know where. She just wants to not be alone anymore.

Ah, the travails of being a thirty-something woman,  living  on her own in a foreign land.  I, for one don´t share her desperation yet. I still don´t feel old.   And, having come from a long talk  not too long ago with two Christian elders who fundamentally counselled me about my life direction, I am not worried at all about my life path.  But, B surely needed some cheering up so yesterday,  we went on a road trip to Ghent for a day of waffles and mussels and laughter.

Ghent is a city in the Flemish region of  Belgium, about  a two-hour drive away from my place in Rotterdam.  M, my college best friend and also former workmate of B, was our designated driver.

                                         Ghent is full of canals and ornate buildings
     

   A shop along the canal.  See the windows under ground zero.

My List of Things To Do in Madrid

    Lavapies: one of Madrid´s older, working class areas

For those who don´t know,  I lived in Madrid for two years until late 2014 when I got a seemingly better work offer in Holland.  I figured,  it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to work in an environment where I can learn  aspects of my industry that I can never hope to get exposed to in my (then) current job.  So when 2015 came, I jumped ship and am now living in The Netherlands.

Eleven Things To Eat in Ilocos

It is summertime in the Philippines!  The streams on my facebook is filled with images of  our tropical brand of happiness!  Here I am cocooned, sweatshirt and all, watching the gloomy Saturday run its course, my mind miles away filled with a longing for...


Halo-halo - the quintessential Filipino frozen dessert

    (Image from nytimes.com)

That Green Gunk!

See that slimy green gunk on the left? The one that looks like
        a) radioactive waste
        b) something  that´s meant for the garbage can  or
        c) something that´s ermmm, too gross to mention.

Well, that green gunk is the one food that I love above all else in The Netherlands.

An Almond A Day...

I  just realized that  I have been eating a lot of almonds these past few weeks.  I always thought of almonds as these nubbins that´s  supposed to be a healthier snack option to chips.   Rich in Protein! Food for the Brain!  Well, you know the drill...

On days when I get into one of my get-fit-or-die  mindset, I  do turn to almonds to carry me through my snack cravings. Although to be honest, I do get bored eating almonds after sometime, because let´s admit it, absolutely nothing is as satisfying and guilt-inducing as munching through a bag of  lipsmacking Ruffle´s Cheddar & Sour Cream potato chips!

CHOCS

And then there´s Almonds with Chocolates, or is it the other way around? Let´s just say that whoever discovered this delicious combination is a food hero.  Because let´s admit it,  life, hard as it is already,  would just be a bit harsher if there were no chocolate-covered almonds  in the world to perk us up!

 Meiji Almond from Japan

A Sweet Hello to Gu´s Delicious Treats

Hello! How are you? Sorry I´ve been quiet for some time.  I just moved countries and although The Netherlands is only an hour and a half away from Madrid, my base for the past two years,  there were still a lot of things to get used to.  The weather, for one thing.  It´s always cold and drizzling in Holland.  But the past few weeks there have been pockets of sunshine.  People are all looking forward to spring and the tulips in full bloom!  and the sun! How I miss the  hot scorching rays of the sun!  I never imagined I would say this, but there are days when I miss Madrid so much.  I miss the  mild weather and the good, inexpensive food  that can be had at the restaurants all over Madrid.  Here in Holland, the groceries are not really expensive but eating out is.  I miss Madrid´s 10€ two course meals with dessert and wine! Ah but that´s life.  One has to make do with what is on her plate at the moment.

One good thing about Holland is the plethora of grocery goodies from Belgium, France, Germany and the UK.  Take for example my super delicious find this weekend.  It´s a brand called Gu from the UK founded after the owner got inspired by the desserts he tried in Belgium.

The first time I tried this was on a brief trip to Paris. I remember I bought a chocolate pudding and it  was delish but relatively expensive at about 2€ for a small ramekin.  Imagine my happiness then when I saw packs of Gu at my local grocery today and they were on sale!  From 3.5€ for a double serving pack,  they were only 2€ a pack!

Going Home To Ilocos #1: Playing With Frogs

                                 Ilocos landscape

Five years.  It's been five years since I've gone home to my parents' hometown in Ilocos Norte.  I really have no excuse --- life just buzzed by and with my meager vacation days, I could not find the time and the willpower to go home.  I figured it's enough that my mother goes home every couple of years or so,  and that I did see my nieces three years ago when they came to Manila while I was on vacation.  There's  facebook  and  phone conversations to keep us connected.

But who am I kidding?  The truth is that going home to Ilocos somewhat made me uneasy.  It's a mixed bag of joy and frustration, of belonging and not really fitting in.  It was easier and far more comfortable for me not to go.

On the one hand,  Ilocos defined my childhood.  My happiest memories as a child were the two months of summer spent with my mother's parents,  Nana and Tata. This went on every year until I was fifteen when Tata died. 

My brother and I have not much to bank on when it comes to love between our parents.  I am luckier perhaps, because the seven years gap between my younger brother and me  meant I had the gift of time to spend with my grandparents.  Since I was six,  I  have spent my summers nestled within the loving adoration of  Nana and Tata.   They were the sweetest couple ever,  my Tata would arrive from his day at his farm and he'd holler to Nana,  Good evening, Darling ko!  And kiss her on the cheeks. And then he'd tug me and give me a warm embrace.

Despite the simplicity of life in Ilocos, I thrived,  and at the end of every summer I'd come back to Manila healthier and livelier.  In Ilocos, I could not be the picky eater that I was in Manila,  I could not demand for hotdogs and all those processed foods so readily available in the city.  Instead, my Nana taught me a  love for pinakbet, to eat malunggay soup, enjoy adobong saluyot and enjoy the clean taste of ukyang soup --- river crams in a clear broth of ginger and  sliced tomato.

                                Walking through farmlands

In the city, I was a quiet kid who filled her days reading Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins  detective stories.   In Ilocos,  I learned how to climbed trees, joined my cousins in the afternoon walking through farmlands, picking tomatoes and uprooting a few of the peanut plants we passed by  for our snacks( which is bad, now that I think of it), and when the  wet season came at the tailend of the summer I ran with  them to welcome the rain.

                               Image from amigurumiisland.wordpress.com

We'd play in the mud,  overturn  stones, and poke little crevices with walis tingting sticks (broomsticks) in search of ...frogs.  Yes frogs.  We never did anything to the frogs we found except gather them and throw them  back on the wet earth.  It was their croaks and the crazy hops done in panic that amused us, how foolish and funny these creatures were, how totally different from us.  I suppose in this time of political correctness,  our innocent joys of torturing these frogs, plucking them from their hiding places for our amusement, well the high and mighty they might say we were cruel,  but for us kids,  those were precious moments, there was something elemental with our happiness as we watch in amazement how  these little creatures scrammed away from us, mere kids.  Perhaps to them we were big forces of nature who could if we were so mean, squash them in a single  stroke.  But to us, they were these emerald, bug-eyed creatures, our  precious pets at least until we got tired of them, until we are called upon to wash up our muddy limbs.  Until the lure is called on by Nana,  an invitation for a bowl of hot steaming Royco, the chicken noodle soup we so loved as kids.  Food or frog? So easy a choice,  with that we leave the frogs be to their croaking.

UP NEXT:  What to Eat and Buy in Ilocos

Brunch at Baguio's Most Loved Restaurant

A last minute decision to make a side trip to Baguio on our way home to Manila from Ilocos found us  in Baguio's most loved restaurant for brunch. It's been years since we went up to Baguio, and despite the new restaurants popping up in the City of Pines, I wanted something familiar and comforting, like how Baguio is to me even after years of not visiting.

First we tried to find Star Cafe which to my memory was the best Chinese eatery in Baguio only to find out that it has closed.  Thankfully, my other favorite Baguio eatery, what many consider as Baguio's most loved restaurant,  is still standing tall. Like a serene and regal beacon  amidst the crazy commercial buzz that has overcome the once genteel Session Road.

Cafe By The Ruins is still as beautiful as ever.

                                 That bamboo canopy  at the al fresco dining area

Happy New Life 2015 Item 1: Driving for Dummies

Hello! I hope you had a blast celebrating the New Year!  I hope the holidays have energized each of us for the challenges ahead.

Of course we don't forget 2014 entirely,   that we might take stock of what was good, what made us sad and what we could do to make things better from this point onward.

While most people are back to their normal routines, to their jobs and joys of daily living,  I am still on vacation  in our tropical paradise.

                               The road to my hometown in Ilocos Norte

                                Ilocos Pride: Paoay Church, Ilocos Norte

Sweet Treats: Why You Should Try Nestle UK's Caramac Caramel Bar

One reason:  It tastes pretty close to Nestle's Alpine White Bar

                                                                            The much missed  Alpine White Bar

The Alpine White Bar is a  discontinued but much loved white bar of deliciousness.  It was my, and I suspect most of my generation's  first and most pleasant encounter with what is now known as white chocolate.

My love for Alpine White is deep as it represented my childhood summers.
  I, a city child,  would go to Ilocos every summer to spend two months with my grandparents.  And often, my parents would send me off on my summer adventures  with a six-pack of my beloved Alpine White bars.  Thus these white bars wrapped in shiny silver paper marked the start of my carefree summer days,  away from school, away from the city,  nestled happily within the indulgent love of my grandparents.

Sadly,  Nestle discontinued the Alpine White Bars in the 90s.

                                The Caramac Bar

Simple UK´s Mint Shower Gel is a Freshness Bomb

2009, Manila. My friend Di raved and raved about this amazing mint body wash she got from the UK.  It´s so refreshing, it leaves you tingly!  And so being the great friend that she is, she transferred a not inconsequential amount of her prized stash into a 100 ml container and gave it to me to try.

My friend Di´s fave: Original Source Mint and Tea Tree Shower Gel

               

It.was.so.icy.cold.on.the.skin.  In a good way. Actually, that´s an understatement. It was  more like, holy cow, this is amazing! Mint in a shower gel! This is perfect for the Philippines! We loved it so much we even hatched a plan of distributing these products in the Philippines.  But then, as most plans go, we got waylaid to other things, and I went back to Korea.

2014, Madrid.  I was out on a girl talk session with A, a friend who, before meeting her in Madrid, was a client of TLC Shop way back in 2009.   We were talking about travel, online shopping and such, and she mentioned in passing how she loves Simple, a UK skincare line which she orders from the UK.

So two ordinary  events years apart. Nothing to it, except I remember them now, silvery threads of happenstance leading to this post. Which is essentially about Simple and mint. Or to be blunt, this is a rave about a new product I bought a week ago from the Madrid branch of Dealz.

Sweet Treats: Screw KitKat, I´ll Take Tunnock´s Anytime

Dear Kitkat lovers, 
This a biased  opinion. I do not hate Kitkat.  In fact I do enjoy a Kitkat moment once in a while.  Milk Chocolate, wafers, chocolate creme? Who wouldn´t enjoy that?  But  it´s like this.  Sometimes you get a glimpse, a taste of something better and you know that´s it, you´re ruined for anything else.  You can never go back.  That´s how it was for me.  Kitkat was good, comforting, delicious in a boy-next-door kind of way.  But then I discovered Tunnock´s Caramel Wafers.  And by God this was the bombshell, the ingenue of chocolate wafers! Like the goddess of all chocolate wafer bars.  And so now, although I wouldn never say no to an offer of Kitkats,  it is Tunnock´s Caramel Wafers that has captured my idea of a blissful break.

Shopping High: Finally! UK Treats On The Cheap in Madrid!

I woke up to an aubergine sky, perpetually wet streets and this mist-filled air. Hello, dreary saturday! You remind me so much of  London´s bed weather.

I was tempted to stay under the covers all day, catch up on Homeland, my current  series obsession, order greasy Chinese food and be the sloth that I am.  But N, my cheery and very reliable Pinay friend who comes to my flat twice a month to  clean, reorganize and straighten my stuff messaged me that she was arriving at half past two, so I had to move my lazy ass off the bed and get out of the flat while she did her cleaning magic.

I walked the cold, drizzling streets with a few tasks in mind.  First, get a replacement sim card for my phone, next, window shop for a  pair of winter boots.  I wasn´t in the mood to ride buses or the Metro so I  just walked to the nearest mobile phone shop. Closed.  Hmmm, okay, I suppose I have to go to the mobile phone shop´s bigger branch at the city center tomorrow.  And sige, I´ll do the window shopping for boots tomorrow na lang din.  Didn´t I tell you I am the laziest sloth ever? 

Instead of going off to accomplish the tasks above, I decided to just walk ahead and find  a coffee shop where I can have a hot cup of tea and a soft couch to laze on while I pass the time. So walk I did and that was how I stumbled upon a shop called Dealz.

Dealz? with a Z? Isn´t it a bit lame  for a shop name? In Filipino lingo, it is ohmygawd jologs!  But then I saw something that made me stop.  Dealz, Part of the Poundland Family. Huh? Poundland UK? And my memory turned to that delightful Poundland discount shop in Hounslow, London which I visited without fail every weekend in search of great deals.  I recall buying a lot of Neutrogena items, Toffifee, shortbread biscuits, and other sweets there on the cheap! I peeked inside  Dealz and saw a lot of people shopping, so of  course, my bargain hunter Amazonian self went in and attacked!

The first thing that´ll make anyone happy at Dealz  is the price.  All items are just 1.5€ each! The pricing makes sense since one British pound is roughly 1.3€ and in the UK, the shops are named Poundland.  Sure, there´s a bit of a price adjustment but 1.5€ is still cheap since it´s less than 100 Philippine Pesos!

                                        Tempting Sweets at Dealz  Image from economica.es

Guerlain Cosmetics: Indulgent, Pricey and Oh So Precious!

                                Guerlain´s candy colored Meteorites

Ah Guerlain, you, the queen of  ultra-expensive french luxury beauty brands, you have been on my must-try-at-least-once-in-my-life list for some time now.  But for years I have felt that you were really out of my league.  I´d like to think that I have always tried to be a practical person, and so  in a sea of  affordable and pretty Korean beauty products,  it seemed blasphemous and too pa-sosyal to try you out at uber-pricey Seoul prices.

To be honest, I was scared too, what if I tried your products and became hooked? How sad would that be knowing that at  your prices in Seoul, I would be reaching way beyond my budget.  Because you see,  in Seoul a precious pan of your Meteorites costs 80000 KRW which is roughly 59€ or PHP 3,500.  How can I, in all my practicality, pay for a highlighter that expensive when I can buy a highlighter of the same shimmery effect from Skinfood for only 5000 KRW(PHP 250.00) ?

     Guerlain Meteorites Blossom Price in Korea

But here I am now in Europe, where somehow, it feels okay to finally splurge with your products.
 It also helps that Guerlain products here are almost 40% cheaper than in Asia. And what excuse do I have not to buy you and satisfy this secret longing when even my Pinay hairstylist at my favorite salon in Madrid brandishes her Meteorites Blossom Pearls and gushes about them like a secret love?

So one day, while I was particularly feeling blah,  I walked and walked and walked until  I found myself at my neighborhood Bodybell shop.  And what do you know, there was an additional 10% off all Guerlain products ! The Goddesses of All Things Kikay have conspired! A sign, a gentle push, a whisper:  Go, bumili ka na ng magtigil ka na sa obsession mong yan!

Istanbul, Turkey: Kibbles, Kebabs and All Things Delish!

At the time I booked the flat for our  Istanbul trip, the only considerations  were that it was relatively cheap and should be near a Metro station.  I found one in Beyoglu, just a five minute walk from Taksim Square.  It turned out that Beyoglu is not only the city center of modern Istanbul,  it is also considered as the culinary center of the city with the most concentration of restaurants, bakeshops, cafes and bars.  Were we happy with our stay in Beyoglu? Suffice to say that we never went hungry in Istanbul!

Simit for Breakfast

                                Image from Simit Sarayi