Adventist University of the Philippines

     It's that big, geometric arch on your left on the Tagaytay-Sta. Rosa road.  You will find vegetarian food stores along the way, as members of the Seventh-Day Adventist church are vegetarians. I have been wanting to shop for cooked meals to take home, but do not know their schedule.  

     If you find yourself heading south on a Saturday, expect this area to be closed for the Sabbath.

     I've just learned that Music is a cornerstone of Adventist education and worship.  They do use music to teach.  Coincidentally, after my first time to enter this place, I found, on my radio, a very pleasant station.  I turned it on at around midnight, and the instrumental selections relaxed me. I did not know what station this was. The next morning, I tuned in again to hear the Adventist University Chorale--which won a prestigious competition in Wales in 2011. (I should surf their site to check exactly which competition that was, but I believe it is the same one the UST Choir won before).  There was also a morning of children's voices singing praise and worship, and songs of praise we Roman Catholics also sing.    I don't know if I get the station because of proximity. I only get it upstairs on the 2nd floor though, and cannot get it through a mobile phone radio.  Try it out as you drive by---SHINE Radio 87.1 (is it 1, I'm not sure). AUP Campus radio.

 Are you from there or do you know more? Please share with me or correct what I've posted. Thank you.

      Inside the campus, one is reminded of University of the Philippines Diliman (until the '80s at least. I haven't been there in ages)

There are dormitory buildings with names like Narra and Narra trees lining that side. There are rows of Mahogany too.

A Lonely Road

     Let's mosey on over (MOSEY? who talks like that anymore? here?) to another border.  We've already posted about the Silang-Sta. Rosa border.  The same road on my title photo above, bears the sign "Welcome to Binan, Laguna" on the opposite side of the road. That's where we are headed on this post.  Well, not quite to the main area of Binan, but to Barangay Binan, where a phase of San Jose Village is located (if I'm not mistaken there are 6 phases. The last one is a very quite location full of trees).

 

 

 



 



    This way leads to another gate of Ayala Westgrove and the Laguna Technopark Inc. annex.  At the corner is the Metrobank, and a phase of San Jose Village.  Under construction are Avida Shophouses.  With plans for a 7-11 in one of those, I'm assuming this area is going to be a busy place, and this road not very lonely for long.

 

 

    At the moment it gives my father the heebie-jeebies (okay, first mosey now this...)  After all, it is bordered by nothing but cogon for a stretch. It's the kind of road which in the Southern Philippines screams "ambush! ambush!" to a soldier.  Yes he was a soldier (an officer), that is why such an empty road frightens him.   (And with this pardon my detour as I pay my respects to those who were massacred in Maguindanao this month three years ago. Clearly, the roads were paved, the hills verdant, more beautiful than this...but the incident horrific). It sure looks and feels like the boondocks, but I assure him, it's still a part of Ayala Land and the technopark.

   I'm sure at night it can be scary.

   But following my mantra, I mean to enjoy this loneliness, these bare fields, while I can.  A brief stop at the grocery in the shopping area with its Sunday crowd and artificial lights afterwards jarred my head again. I need the fields, plains and green mountains to relax me.  Oh, the sound of birds, and the sight of them here! 

    The weather was mild too.  Very sunny, yet cool. And this is Binan, Laguna, not even Tagaytay.

  
    Visible from this spot (facing the other way, down to the city), is the De La Salle Science and Technology complex. I still am wondering why it used to be called De La Salle Canlubang, when the borders I see around belong to Sta. Rosa, Silang, and Binan...I enjoy looking at maps and would like to know why.  Can somebody enlighten me please?