St. Augustine Church, Paoay Ilocos Norte

It’s been almost a year since me and my Boss’ Luzon trip but I have never written about Paoay Church. Does writing about churches take as much time to build them? I used to be an altar boy, everybody has been at one point in their life. But it feels so distant now, just like one of those hazy memories of a lazy Sunday morning.

What I remember most about Paoay Church is its cleanliness. The big blocks of stone, which heard thousands of desperate prayers, and the confessionals which were silent ledgers of sins mortal and venial, come second to my recall.

The church of Paoay is in…guess which town? Paoay, Ilocos Norte. I’m not really sure whether churches are named after towns or if towns are named after churches. Surely it’s not as easy as figuring out whether sons are named after fathers or the other way around. I did not bother to find it out.

Paoay Church is a low-lying architecture, it’s as if it is genuflecting to its own architectural grandeur. But it is in fact built the way to withstand earthquakes and the earth-shaking sins of the faithful.

I’ve just confirmed that Paoay Church is actually named St. Augustine Church so I guess that answers my own question. I hope answering my own question is not as pathetic as talking to myself. Which I actually do whenever I blog. I blog to make it look like something but really, it’s just talking to oneself and letting others know about it.

The inside of Paoay Church is not as remarkable as its exterior but it’s still worth going to the place just to get an idea what heaven feels like after you die (in case you never make it). The grounds are just so clean. Also, there’s a tennis court right at the back of the church where high school students play. If I had a son and he cuts class to play tennis, I really would not mind.

I Feel So Close to You Right Now

I’m writing bec I want to file a complaint to humanity. Apparently, some of our members here are teaching our kids to run when they cross the street. While I was riding my bicycle yesterday, a boy nearly got hit by a motorbike because he ran to the other side of the street. I blame this on stupid adults. I’ve seen them tell kids to run when they cross.

Like in this school where my sister used to go to. There’s this guy who is supposed to be some sort of a traffic officer. When there are kids who would want to cross, he would tell them “Dagan dayun, dali” (Run, hurry up). Apparently, this guy is a genius who has came up with a mathematical formula for accident avoidance: time spent crossing the road is directly proportional to the probability of an accident. That is not how it works, smart guy.

Let’s teach our kids to just walk. Awareness of their surroundings is more important than trying to avoid getting hit. They will not have to try to avoid to get hit in the first place if they don’t cross when there’s an incoming vehicle. I know this is pretty common sense to some parents but for some, and even for those supposedly traffic enforcers, they find this a bit too difficult to understand. I made a safety acronym after my first name, BAL, to help our kids.
Be aware of vehicle speed – let drivers who drive like morons be morons. don’t get in their way, wait until it is all clear Anticipate – always think that there is incoming traffic, no matter how quiet it is Look – left and right, and walk across.

***

 I also want to complain about this song “Feel so Close” by Calving Harris. It runs for 3mins and 25secs and it has the same lyrics. And somehow, I’m so into it. I hear it in my head before I go to sleep, I wake up to it, I sing to it in front of my electric fan. The song itself is the force field. But the redundant lyrics is not so bad. I mean, nothing can get worse than “Ice, ice baby.”

A song with the same lyrics running for 4mins? I mean, the phrase itself does not make any sense. Should adding disco rhythm to it and repeating it for four long minutes lend it some special semantics? Here’s what makes it worse: “Ice, ice baby” is sang by Vanilla Ice. I know some of our folks here have partied to that song, no offense to them. But I just don’t get it so somebody explain it to me.

***

 In this part, I’m talking like it’s Thursday. I know it’s Saturday but the photos came in late so let’s pretend that I’m some time-travel guy who can do narrative-backdate. Exactly a week ago was my last day in Velez Hospital. I had pneumonia. I carried it for a week without knowing it. I thought it’s just cough. Then my voice became hoarse.

I went to see a doctor to complain about my throat. Turns it there’s something else going on. I was diagnosed with moderate-risk pneumonia and bronchial asthma. A couple of days after I was released, I went back to riding my mountain bike and a day later, I’m back to playing football. I’m just glad that my body is very responsive to the treatment I had.

I was spent four days at the hospital, lying down most of the time, watching TV shows with painstakingly long narratives about air crashes and some crime-solving for murders that happened decades ago. There’s also this show about a nurse who fell in love with an inmate and helped him escape. They caught again anyway. I would forever remember my hospital stay for cable television, interns who come in every hour to get my vitals, and my blood pressure which is always at 110/70 even if they took it all the time.

I am happy to be riding again and just this morning, I did a long trail ride again. I have not done this in two months. I love how the trail pumped adrenaline into my blood stream like it was an unregulated IV. I love how my breath is taken away, not by asthma, but by the dreamy landscape. I love how I no longer have to worry if the nurse is inserting the IV right. I already had the mosses under the tires to worry about.

Route: Taptap-Kamandagan-Kanirag-Dita

Ride type : Pedal-all-the-way

 

Thanks to Russ for letting me ride his Jamis Parker.

Inambakan Falls, Ginatilan, Cebu

You don’t always find yourself with the right people, but the most important thing is that you always find yourself. Find yourself, Google it if you have to. I’m rarely serious with blogging because I take it like a George Carlin stand-up: I know it means a lot but I can’t take it too seriously. But this is the one thing that I have felt so strongly lately. Just hang on to yourself and you’ll eventually find the right crowd.

On a completely irrelevant connotation of the word, crowd could mean anything. A crowd of people, a crowd of cars, a crowd of thoughts. A crowd of water, probably. No matter what kind of crowd it is, it’s always noisy. But the noise of a waterfall is something that lulls one to sleep. The randomness of meaningless noise and the fear of drowning that it creates…it’s when fear and beauty are difficult to distinguish. It’s like a train crash that perpetually recurs.

Inambakan Falls is the most beautiful in Cebu. It is located in Ginatilan, Cebu, a town that rests quietly 136 kilometers south of Cebu City. To get to the falls, one must right a habal-habal from the town center. Riding a habal-habal is both a prayer and a convenience, but there’s no other way to get from Ginatilan to Inambakan.

Unless of course you are willing to endure a 4-hour walk in a non-scenic barangay road. The fare was around 60, I’m not really sure. Somebody paid for me in exchange for taking them to that place. I guess this is something a lot of my readers don’t know yet. I get little perks for being a tour guide to places I’ve never been to. I’m that good at guessing, I guess.

Gloomy and Happy

I don’t want to do monthly posting. This isn’t a high-end glossy magazine. I want to update like at least once a week. But lately, I’ve been confined to my room. The only break I had recently was the Cebu-Argao bicycle ride I had and the beach outing I had at Alcoy with my workmates.

Whenever I go to the beach, I always have two worries: sunburn and drowning. I haven’t figured out yet which I worry more about, probably drowning because it can’t be prevented by sun block. But I forgot to include huge, sharp corals in my things-to-watch-out-for list. Here’s the scenario, if you do care.

We went to the Barangay Beach in Alcoy. And a little far off from the shore is a floating cottage, the way to which is a rigorous swim against the time or a breezy ride at the raft which you can be pulled back and forth (see photos if you lack imagination). It’s really fun to dive from the floating cottage. But before I dove, the cautious guy that I am, I made sure that it was deep enough. What I didn’t check out was if there were some corals jutting out in some places. I found a bit too late. I wouldn’t have stopped jumping off that floating cottage because it was so fun but my chest kept bleeding. Luckily it wasn’t my head. The pain is only skin-deep, but it stings.

It was rainy the following morning but the tide was so high it reached the highway. I’m kidding. But it was really so high that it’s like water world (without the fear of dehydration and not finding land). It was so beautiful. Imagine being in a world with nothing but water but it’s not entirely that because you can just walk back to your cottage and eat and drink and sleep. Paradise is just hell minus its consequences.

I’m chatting with my Facebook friends while making this entry so I’m kindah lost. I’m not paying attention. So, here’s just what I’d like you to know when you go there: on the other side of the cottage the sea suddenly becomes so deep. It’s somewhat like an underwater cliff down there. The water is good but don’t dare if you can’t swim because drowning is not poetic, fun, or heroic. You only have one death, choose wisely.