Bucal, Calamba

View from main entrance of Sol y Viento resort

IMHO only, a waste of mountain, space & spring water pool opportunity; design?! while awesome in size, position and certainly unique, the man-made waterfall is...well...too man-made for my liking I guess

Well, couldn't this town have been much more...quaint

Okay...adequate showers & they look alright imho; but do swimmers use them pre-plunge?
at least they, the guests, weren't in cotton t-shirts and shorts unlike in most resorts here

along the national highway

Oops why is this photo here...Tom Yum Goong made by Indonesian neighbor; two weeks ago, surprise Kimbap made by Korean neighbor. I don't ask! They give :-)  All masarap 

Pho Hanoi restaurant along the way to Los Banos

simple, clean, straightforward, so you know focus is on the food, which must be good; note palochina furniture of which there are many along the road. The pho and some other dishes we ordered were delicious, fresh, in a home-cooked Vietnamese way; but we were slightly put off after realizing the special Pho Hanoi did not contain the ingredients as pictured...and we were only told after we asked about it (and after we had eaten it all, in hunger) that it was all beef, and with added beef as the other ingredients were out of stock. Sadly, the cold dessert (Three Colors--bean, gelatin, with shaved ice and milk) was not available as the gelatin imported from Vietnam was out of stock. Oh prices are alright too. Reasonable.

My Provincial Life

   ...really ísn't very "provincial" anymore.  It's just that "parang probinsiya" is what we, family and friends used to sigh when we first started out here a mere two years ago.  Recalling how we spent the first six years of our married lives with the black soot of Makati near EDSA daily blanketing our things, furniture, skin, and "immunizing" our lungs makes me envy my friends who have been living here for 10-12 years average.  Their secret is out though, and things are becoming less ''probinsiya" like lately.  Come to think of it, I haven't heard any roosters at dawn, the various birds we used to see in the garden have been absent, and I haven't seen any fireflies since mid-2009. (This is getting depressing).   When the Nuvali road was built where a cogon field once was, huge snakes slithered out to the villages and birds lost their habitat.  There really is more cost than we can imagine.
  
   My husband now works in Quezon City, and comes home weekends to what he feels is a 'resort'. Note we are not even in a resort-like home, just a simple small one. The air alone is enough to recharge him. We are wondering if the air isn't the variable keeping him sniffle-free despite lack of sleep and fatigue amongst sick colleagues and family members (in the QC house) rather than just his daily intake of orange juice.



Mt. Makiling view outside two Santa Rosa Estates villages. I dread it being blocked a few years from now.

    I also quote "My provincial life" from my toddler, who had an earlier obssession with Belle of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, who sang "I want much more than this provincial life", referring to her provencal life in a leetel veelage om France.  She has aptly sung this while running across Nuvali fields, or even on the grass in the village park.  She has also happily declared "This is not my provincial life!" on her rare visits to Alabang where she stares in awe at buildings that are not even too high-rise.  This and her "probinsiyana" make up are to be blogged about in my other "mothering" site as soon as I get over raving about living in Sta. Rosa, technopark side.


Bench Depot on the left. Inside, Charles&Keith, Lyn and Pedro shoes on discount

   For now, forgive me for not getting over it. I will not get over the air over here, for as long as the views remain the same.  I can tell you it will not be long. Paseo the shopping center is shaping up to be an Alabang Town Center in design.  The grassy strips we used to run through over there, are no more. To be sure, it is a pleasant area where families frolic. While pleasantly strolling though, I feel dread, with 24 hour construction of new shops still ongoing.  So there's a Charles & Keith and Lyn's shoes discount store in the Bench Depot, but I will have to give up the view of Mt. Makiling.

Avida Estates banners, side road by Kingbee

   For now, I will remain simple and silly, laughing at my "Avida" life.  Years before we even considered moving here, possibly around 2006,  my husband and I giggled watching the "Avida" tv commercial in the cinema. It was our first time to see it, a long, computer animated ad, capturing exactly what Avida was meant to be.  A man was driving home from the office, entered his Avida village, waved at neighbors who were outside their home standing by a grill! This image just seemed funny to us at the time--so contrived, so unreal it seemed, so Stepford (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stepford_Wives). Here we are now, sharing food with neighbors, waving at friends on the street...living in an Avida tv ad!
 
   That's part of what the "probinsiya" life is like. I am sure I've mentioned this in a past post...but it's not completely a Pilipino probinsiya life, but semi-probinsiya. And it's just as good.