China (town)

  1. Auckland doesn’t really have a Chinatown section per se; this was just a humungous aircraft-hangar sized mall-type structure with a food-court, a maze of shops, some restaurants, a supermarket and fish and meat shops. To complete the vibe, nobody really speaks English.

  2. ‘A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!'. No, we weren’t desperate like King Richard III, we just loved how it looked and the fact that every time we asked for the prices of other stuff in his shop, the old Chinese guy kept lowering his price for the horse. When we were paying for it, our eyes were glued on the EFTPOS machine to make sure the amount didn’t have extra zeroes in it. Plus, it’s the year of the horse!

  3. Haggle, haggle, haggle! Or not.

  4. Looking for dumplings that have actual broth inside them? You can find them here.

  5. I wanted to buy some skate wings so bad, but I was intimidated by how big these were. I wish I photographed my hand with them for reference; a piece was bigger than an A4 sized paper.

Art or food (it's somewhat the same) ?

A long time ago, we had eggs Benedict at a cafe in Takaanini every Sunday without fail for over two years.

It was basic, but it was the best. When the cafe closed, we couldn’t quite find the same kind of eggs benedict ever again that didn’t use fancy, hard-as-rocks toasted to an inch of its life ciabatta or sordough (they used traditional English muffins), unnecessary wilted greens, watery hollandaise and horrors, potato rosti. We had a bowl of hot chips on the side to mop up the generous sauce.

My GP once told me that my ‘healthiest’ period was, ironically, during this time that I had a steady diet of basically liquefied butter and trans fats (also snacked on chips and ice-cream on the non-work nights of Friday and Saturday and stayed up til 2am playing PlayStation).

But never again. You have to be smart to know that you can get away with shit only once.

Today, it’s either coffee at home, or (really good) coffee at the petrol station, or a rare pie.

We had both, but only after dropping by to see the new exhibits at The Arts House Trust, located in the historic Pah Homestead, within Hillsborough's Monte Cecilia Park.

  1. Yvonne Todd had a food-themed exhibition, and she captured exactly how we were feeling; the act of eating becomes emptied of pleasure and transformed into a performance of restraint, an obligation rather than a desire.

  2. I wanted to touch it so bad because we couldn’t tell what Heidi Brickell’s sinuous, organic sculptures were made of; leather? Bronze? Turns out, they’re made of New Zealand Bull kelp (rimurapa in Maori), or brown seaweed.

Essence by Freya Burnett; her work places viewers within an immersive projection-mapped environment that operates as a loosely defined interior. The projected surfaces build a reflective atmosphere, nesting textures together; Jewel tones, carbonated liquids, speckled light and mirror-like imagery that build on Burnett’s existing visual language (Plomacy).

Wild weather week

It had been raining on and off for weeks since Christmas and it honestly feels like June in the Philippines (my favourite month growing up because it’s back to school, love the smell of new notebooks and love the cold, grey, moody weather). It’s not the same as typhoons, and we’re happy with that!

Auckland has escaped the worst of it which is ironic given how many people seem to loathe living here.

Mondays

Not well enough to go to work, but not sick enough to spend the day in bed.

So I worked (I was actually on sick leave), but wasn’t compelled to stay on my desk. I did laundry. I made arroz caldo for dinner using chicken drumsticks. I made pork ribs pinapaitan-sampalok for the next night’s dinner.

I did some bench presses in the garage. I did dishes. I finalised what I needed to make for Sam’s birthday. I shaved my head with the new replacement head-shaver (and still marveling how you can get a replacement without any questions asked, by simply returning the item and them finding the receipt in the system). I kept the receipt of this new one in a safe place and took a photo of it for good measure.

I thought I was feeling funny at around 3pm so I went to bed, but ended up watching Tron:Ares on Disney Plus (how can I get Jared Leto’s taut, poreless face??).

It started raining at 5pm and I didn’t bother taking the socks and the houseclothes in from the line.

The Weekend

  1. How do you eat a King Crab?

  2. We didn’t buy the special edition Lays for the Chinese New Year, but are mulling whether to buy a horse sculpture for the deck.

  3. Finally, Cillian Murphy makes an appearance in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. But how did the character become an erudite, Oxford Professor type?? But the more important question is, does humanity’s list of stupidities matter in the face of a zombie apocalypse?

  4. Did you know that if you cut up aubergines really thinly and used them like say, in pinapaitan or some soupy dish with meaty chunks of meat, you’d be fooled in thinking you were eating the buttery ribbons of fat you’re not supposed to eat?

True or False?

  1. It’s worth reconnecting with SOME people in your past.

  2. The flooding in Pangasinan is an act of God.

  3. Voters are to blame.

  4. The first step towards creating a genuine equitable society is getting rid of political dynasties. For real and for good.

  5. Having this much food is a distraction (from the actual issues) as well as a health risk (especially when the health care system you have is neither equitable nor free).

Done

  1. Not being able to find an ideal place to walk, to jog (not fucking jogging on the highway).

  2. Eating three meals a day

  3. Waiting for the garbage to be picked up

  4. Listening to the drone of the television blasting cheerful programming the whole day

  5. Listening to the rooster crowing the whole day

  6. Being approached by people asking me for shit

Bye!

Things I'll Do If I Was Rich (1)

One day, all the rats as big as housecats had mysteriously disappeared. Turns out, a family of unrelated cats had started hanging out in the backyard. My sister-in-law’s mum, bless her heart, had taken to feeding one of them (Mr. Moustache) and he stuck around. Pretty soon, several more white, slinky-bodied strangers followed soon after. I’d met them all last June and this year, I got acquainted with a young ginger kitten who was too young to resist me picking her up. How she came to be with the adult cats I’ll never know.

In less than a week, she would come running at the sound of my voice (well, I always had food for her so..). Feeding her special tidbits, I’d make sure to fend off the other cats from trying to steal what she was eating. In less than a week, she’d gained a bit more weight and some sass to get some food for herself when they would all be fed from a single trough.

If I was rich, I would definitely bring her back with me to New Zealand. Though the process is quite straightforward, it would be quite expensive.

Little ginger would have to take her chances in Naguilayan. I pray to the spirits of nature to protect and nurture her until we meet again.

Scanned for life

Every time I visit, I go through a never-ending pile of photos which I bring home and scan. Some are so damaged that it’s a painstaking effort to clean them up and fix them; AI can only do so much. I should seriously start to think about how what happens next, otherwise, they’ll end up joining 40,000 other digital images in my cloud account.

High school reunion! (sort of)

My cousin told me that my old high school was holding a Grand Alumni Homecoming but 1) it was too late to go; 2) I didn’t bring anything to wear; 3) I didn’t really want to go.

My cousin was able to reconnect me with an old high school friend, however and it’s funny how you just pick up where you’ve left off. B and I became fast friends only after high school and it was cemented one Christmas day when instead of going to hear mass, I cycled to her house for our usual long chats and got involved in an accident on the way home. ‘That’s what you get for skipping mass on Jesus’ birthday, ’ my mother screamed at me through hysterical tears. I only got a few scrapes and bruises, but my bicycle was totalled.

We ended up at a coffee shop (of course), and a few of our batch mates dropped by. Turns out, there wasn’t really much of a crowd this year and B and I were honest in admitting that our social batteries could only handle interactions with people from our class (snooty much?). We figured that look, we’re old, we’re a skip and a hop away from retirement, death or disease, so we might as well do what we actually feel like doing and say what needed to be said.

And of course we all did, which for me was far more productive and satisfying than wearing a one-size-fits-all all alumni shirt and hanging around the school the whole day trying to figure out who that person is claiming you were best friends back in the day.

Life is too short for pointless nostalgia and weak tea, though we’ve reluctantly resurrected an age-old question that has been making the rounds since we left school (and still no answers).

WHERE THE HELL IS SWEET HAZEL VARGAS???

Coffee with friends and family who matter

Ten years ago, inviting someone for coffee would have been foreign. But things have changed, and here are the facts from Google’s AI overview.

  • Over 16,870: A 2022 report from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed this number of registered local coffee shops and related businesses.

  • Growing Culture: Coffee is a top beverage, with Filipinos consuming around 2.5 cups daily, making it the second-largest consumer in Asia after Japan, according to a 2024 Inquirer article.

  • Major Chains: Starbucks alone has over 460 stores in the country, with other chains like Figaro and Bo's Coffee adding to the count.

  • Urban Density: Major cities like Makati and Cebu show high concentrations, with roughly one coffee shop for every 4,000-5,000 residents in those areas. 

Christmas 2025

I started this post with, ‘after the gifts have been opened and the food eaten..’ but then stopped myself. Don’t overthink it. The question is very simple- did you have a great Christmas? And if the answer is yes, then that’s all there is to it.

For better or worse, through thick and thin, you should be spending your life with only those who truly matter.

5 Days Before Christmas

  1. The food train continues. But did you know that aside from its cholesterol content, fried chicken is not a bad food item if you’re watching your carbs?? This is what makes KFC special- because you only have it once a year.

  2. As I’m writing this - off to the airport in about two hours- I’m running a mental check of what I may have forgotten to pack. Mental note next time to ask for an additional checked bag. Another mental note to pare down (yes, two shoes will suffice if you’re just running around Binmaley lol).

  3. We had a pre-Christmas gift-opening just so we could have that satisfying feeling of being pleased at what a no-children lifestyle can allow you to afford lol. One of my friends who is an accountant (which says a lot about her pragmatism), complained about her kids’ Christmas wish-list. “Asking for so much, when I get really low returns,’ she said and I totally get it. Growing up, my mother always pointed out the effort and expense spent on our upbringing and it’s years later, as an adult, did I realise what that really meant. For me, it means an obligation to myself and to my parents to do better. Because when that works out well, it’s a win-win right?