Nuvali via Silangan Exit

    Past the now famous Eton/Asia Brewery toll exit, shortly after the Cabuyao exit, is "Silangan".  To get to Nuvali from here, you will have to enter the Carmelray Industrial Park or Carmeltown.  That road is a wide avenue bordered by many big old trees.  Beautiful trees.

   In the middle of nowhere, surrounded by cogon,  surprise! A branch of San Sebastian College stands, its architecture gothic to mimic the original basilica in Manila.  Wow, San Sebastian here, who knew?

     Then you arrive in Nuvali, and if you have one of the appropriate car stickers, you take either the left or right side of the road. The right turn leads you alongside Avida Settings, and directly across Treveia and Xavier school.  The left one leads to this mass housing development, Avida Parkway I believe, or another Avida.  It is also next to the Venare development, which, if I remember right, is an "Alveo" development.  

    Heck, Nuvali's just too big and has too many villages within it, too many names keep cropping up!

     I can rant and rave about the loss of grassland (sugarland) "till the cows come home" (sorry!had to!), but there's no stopping "development", is there.

       Will they really still have a "home" in a few years...

     My seven year old asked..."are they free-range cows!"  I don't know if she realized how loaded this question actually was...because really, their "range" was just the other side of the road, where many houses stand.

     After the Republic Wake Park, straight on leads to Miriam College, while to the right is the main Nuvali blvd. Montecito is on the left, and straight on to the end is the Sta. Rosa-Tagaytay road.  And, sigh, the Ayala Mall.

     Ah...Canlubang.  So different now.

   *If you do not go through Carmeltown (and pass its Morningfields village, The Mills Country Club, you will go through busy streets through which there is Ceres village, a PNP camp, a Puregold, Jollibee...  and end up at the Canlubang rotunda, the one between two gates of Nuvali...on the pot-holed street where Camella Homes Dos Rios, and Wyeth, Universal Robina, are located.  This rotunda is NOT really under Nuvali's jurisdiction, but there is cooperation in securing it.

     I proved this once when I saw two men with what looked like homemade cannons climbing into the grassy hill along the rotunda.  I told the gate guard who said they will send the roving team, and they did.  

      The other street leads to the Canlubang Golf and Country Club, AND a route, albeit rough, up to Tagaytay, where the People's Park/Palace in the Sky and Tagaytay Highlands are.  Along the way is also an old Marcos mansion...it still stands, in ruins.  There is also a "Japanese tunnel", which I think I mentioned some years ago...and which was a destination among students looking for thrills (I believe there is a pool of water they swim in?
I would not feel too safe going through this road in the evenings though. It's quite isolated.

November

SKY OVER SANTA ROSA, LAGUNA

ACACIA

INCHWORM

INCHWORM

RAINBOW OVER PASEO DE SANTA ROSA-SOLENAD NUVALI

Ryuma's Takoyaki

    If you can find it, outside the Ramen section, on a corner facing the Laguna blvd, hidden past all the kitsch and quirkiness of the main Ryuma...is their Takoyaki stall.  

     Ryuma's fare has improved greatly since it first opened.  The menu is extensive, very reasonably priced, with food portions quite satisfying.  Of course the place is decorated in a surreal, gaudy way...and their weekend dance performances quite...unique...but all this can be fun and entertaining. The mariachi is good by the way.

  You'll forgive them anything because the most important thing is, the food is very good.

     Sometime ago I enjoyed this blog post by gabmesina.blogspot.com, which best captured my impression of Ryuma restaurant.  I like how she blogger said it all, through her words and her photos!  

    http://gabmesina.blogspot.com/2013/04/happy-birthday-mum.html

     I've grown to seek their Takoyaki---tastes so much better than those from kiosks in other places here.  Also, an order is Php 20.00 for 4 balls.  At 5 pesos per authentic ball, this is worth the walk (from where another Takoyaki kiosk is located).   I spied students and employees grabbing some to snack on (to lunch on, even).

Save the Philippine Eagle

It hurt to hear about Pamana and the Philippine Eagles.

This echoed in my head. Go to 16:22. Joey Ayala's Haring Ibon.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LvR2h2yZPnY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvR2h2yZPnY

Ayala Mall Solenad

I hate to be such a whiner about their having "paved paradise" again.  I will rant about the shrinking habitat again...(really, where are the birds now)...
and I know it is hypocritical of me because, well, I do patronize the shops.

What to do. It is a long weekend, and so if you got here, it's probably because you ran a search. Well, here it is. I know, if I sound unexcited, it's because I am.  The kid is excited...a big mall, like in the city, she says. It is now a city, she says.  Sure, lots of open spaces, as promised.  But really, the birds are going, going...gone.

My glum mood is aggravated by the killing of the Philippine eagle Pamana the other day.  It was an awful surprise to learn that 90% of Philippine eagles released end up shot.  

So anyway...still there are those wing-like roofs that were destroyed by that windy typhoon last year. Roofs where rain will simply flood toward a central locked in area of the roof, and damage gutters, pipes.  As a foreign neighbor once sighed about much of the weather-inappropriate architecture and engineering here..."...and this is a monsoon country.."

TAKEN ON AUGUST 1ST

These were taken on August 15, when it seems the entire neighborhood plus those from Carmona, up to Alabang, came to dine.

So, everything will be here. There is something I notice---the "gentrification" of the city. I don't know why I chose that word..it just seems so apt.  You see, in the first few posts I wrote about how in 2009 shop girls around here would address customers as "Ate" and vise versa.  They were always very nice and accommodating.  Well, I have noticed that since around 2012, the "type" of "sales associates" has changed. Now they seem more like the Makati retailers...  now more of them welcome you in English. More of them seem like college graduates, more of them undergo special training specific to their brands.

Now, in Krispy Kreme, I am "Miss". It can get annoying how many times the "miss" is repeated. But I can ignore it.

Sadly,many customers are not "gentrified", to be frank.  These days, the mall parking lot is littered with rubbish. People seem to be tossing their paper cups, tetra paks, soiled baby diapers, food wrappers, right outside their parked cars.  

Outside the All Home store when it was brand new, I glared at two young men who threw their cigarette butts down a drain on the street.  I had earlier looked down into the drain to see trash in it.  These two guys then parked their car, got off, and tossed their butts down.

Is Sta. Rosa getting dirty quickly? It used to be so clean here.

Another scourge is the increasing number of abusive drivers.  Especially within Nuvali.  But I'm too tired to say more now.

Fruit Trees and Neighbors

Avocados from a friend's tree down the street...

Rambutan from next door neighbor's tree...

  A mango tree I planted five years ago bore its first fruits; a ten year old pomelo tree I brought along in a drum finally has fruit growing; a guyabano also hanging from the tree; finally tasted the atis before the bats beat me to them (they're sweet!); and a papaya tree is bearing lots of red lady papayas.

  Cooked Thai Tom Kha Gai for the first time with the galangal and lemongrass from my garden. Galangal/lengkwas/langkawas/kha which came from my Indonesian neighbor's garden, and originally from her tutor's Bicol hometown. 

   It doesn't take much, really, the soil here keeps us happy.

   On a sad note, I am mourning, I am delayed in mourning the loss of a lady I befriended three years ago. She who sold me my poinsettia three Christmases ago; from whom I purchased pots of Gynura Precumbens (they call it Ashitaba though that's different) to give as Christmas presents.  She was a cancer survivor, and she was not only a retailer of herbs and plants, but also an advocate of natural food, raw diet.  She not only sold the plants, she made friends with her customers and was sincere in her efforts.  She and her sister sold plants at Solenad, as a test for the future area of the mall. She was looking forward to the opening of the "Market" area of Solenad, where they were offered space.  Now, that space is open, and I looked for her but she was not there.  I was happy to have had a good conversation with her sister. But allowed myself a moment to remember her.

   

Paseo

     So this is what they've done to that first, original row of buildings in what is now Paseo de Santa Rosa...

     I had wrongly assumed another building would rise in this spot, after its tenants were moved to other parts of the center.  Instead, I found grass, sky...and a good playground set.

    Perhaps management realized people were skipping this area for Nuvali?

    I got a little bit sentimental. On this spot stood the original strip with the Safari car rental office, Japanese restaurants, and a few offices. I really wish I had photos of the place almost twenty years ago.

    This was where we would stop for breakfast, brunch or lunch, on the way to Tagaytay. This was back when--and I am sure I have said this before--we would take this route up, but not down if it was too late in the evening.  The Japanese restaurants served the Japanese men from the surrounding Japanese companies. They still are around--Umenoya and Ippon Yari, but in other locations.  Pancake House is still there, in the building pictured on the right.

     By the time we moved here, the center of this strip was occupied by bars...it was pretty seedy actually, especially when they opened by twilight and on Wednesday and Friday and Saturday evenings.  It was actually a relief that they knocked this down.    

    Frankly, I find that this commercial area is confused, confusing, and really, not maximized. Well, I don't know about their profits, but from a customers' standpoint...it could be better.  It is too late in the evening for me to expound on this. I'll just leave it at that.