Abu Dhabi p.2

Times for regretting to not have a decent camera and the skills to wield one properly: countless

No, we did not get a chance to visit Ferrari World. We pined continually to regret that fact much later. We passed it, though, as we fled. Much of the Abu Dhabi we had seen were from behind windows. Here, we had ached to ask the driver to bring us instead to the beach with its caramel sand and emerald waters.

Abu Dhabi p. 1

At the Souk Central Market, everything smells like all your best and deepest daydreams

Buscalan Night-life

Mr. Happy, and the latest form of sound system technology to reach Buscalan--the little radio car
photo c/o Ponyo

Because when one goes places, one will almost usually be asked: "How's the nightlife over there?" regardless of said place's proximity to what 'nightlife' usually entails. I don't know where this fascination comes from, perhaps a very human desire to live well into the night, an acquired victory over a time previously spent in darkness and fear. Also a very human need to party and get punch-ass drunk.

How Most Pictures I Have of Sagada Are of People's Backs

Drummer and Hunter walking ahead in Sagada

Sagada had been an accident, in that I had not expected to be there. It had always been that place that former co-workers would bring up enthusiastically and rent vans to whenever they tired of Baguio. "Sagada has great Lemon Pies," they would say, and so Sagada was to me up until that point, That Place with the Great Lemon Pies. And so, having inherited the partiality for lemons and all things sour--having a citrus for a name also somewhat at fault for this need, i think--I put it in my mind that one day I would go to Sagada for their lemon pies.

Until, one day in November, while in Bontoc waiting for a bus back to Manila, Hunter casually grinned and said, "Let's go to Sagada." I shrugged. I trusted him with my life, and I shrugged. One should take note that even the most lighthearted things that people who have lived here their whole lives say, have roots in conviction. It is only best that you--tourist, visitor, transient, passersby--just go along. These mountains are greater than doubt, or fear.