Curbside Stories

The mansion of the Marcos family in Batac, Ilocos Norte. We are now heading south and it's our time to visit historical landmarks of Ilocos. Our first stop is the Marcos Museum and Mausoleum in Batac, Ilocos Norte. Inside are the family's memorabilia during the Spanish, Japanese and American regime. You have to pay a minimal fee of 30 pesos to get inside. Other displays are about the love affair of Ferdinand Marcos and Imelda Romualdez. The photo above is a replica of the slippers Imelda wore when she first met Ferdinand. You will have a clear sense at how rich and influential the Marcos family is. Downstairs is where the mausoleum of Ferdinand Marcos is located. Visitors are not allowed to take photos or use any electronic device for that matter. The guards which also served as tour guides explained that frequencies and light emitted by electronic devices affects the integrity of the corpse. He also said the once a year, an Egyptian embalmer checks the co...

The white beach of Bangui Bay in Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte. Click on the photo  for a larger view. Summertime has officially begun in the Philippines and of course a vacation is not complete if you will not spend a day or two in one of the island nation's famous beaches. I was lucky to have the opportunity to take a day off from work and fulfill one task in my bucket list--visit the Ilocos Region. The Ilocos Region is composed of Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union, and Pangasinan provinces situated in the northwestern part of Luzon and is bordered by the South China Sea in the west and Cordillera Administrative Region in the east. This is the beach that greeted us on our first day. The first destination of our Ilocos Tour is Pagudpud, it is 562 kilometers away from Metro Manila or more or less 9 hours non-stop drive but it was all worth it. We left the house at 8 in the evening and arrived at 5 in the morning the next day. We did not have prior hotel reservations but we ...

I had a quick nap this afternoon. I have been frequently sleepy these past few days because of my late night vice of watching videos in YouTube... or was it probably because of the cocktail drink in a pouch (yes, in a pouch like a juice) that I bought from a convenience store out of curiosity? Nevertheless, I bet it was not enough to cause me to have such an unusual dream. The sequence of my dream is already mixed up in my head but I vividly remember one man, my lover, who was with me and we were swimming with friends in a river. Funny how I remember he was an engineer, older than me by 5 years, and he bears a very familiar surname. He's tall, around 5 feet and ten inches, with black straight hair. His scruffy round face did not hide his good looks. Yes, I was attracted to him--he was my lover in my dream. A few swims and I noticed that the river had dried up. Another scene was in the exact same room where I took a nap. He entered the room and laid down beside me, hugging ...