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Mark Villanueva
I've always thought of myself to be a very private person. I don't react well under the limelight but prefer to stay home with my family, which is all I have and all I ever care having, and spending the rest of the afternoon training hard at the gym- where I don't mix trainers, or, reading a great book from selected heavyweight authors. I like to travel regularly to new places where I get this feeling like I'm just starting over with my life all over again. Any place may be good enough for that matter where nobody limits my peace; Away from pretensions, farther away from relatives (save for a few) to whom I've found out all these years the easiest yet the most unsafe to trust.Mark Villanueva
Travel Blog Posts
September 27th 2008
For a considerably short span of time, we used to stay in a place rightfully called Sunny Hills. Looking back, in the eighties, the mansion was very modern and highly American. It was fortified on a hill that rose from the pavement, landscaped to appear like lush, green terraces. We were so high up on that lump of a hill that it felt like living all alone among ourselves. On the verandah, just outside the bedroom where we played chess on a concrete table, we saw houses below us spread out on the plain and down the slopes. Some were on top smaller hills. We overlooked narrow, vacant streets crossing and encompassing the entire section of the village. Once, I came chasing after my basketball from the mid-section of the house through the car park and ... read more
Four Bottles of Beer On The Wall
Published: September 28th 2008Asia » Philippines » Mindanao » Misamis Oriental
September 27th 2008
Time has not been an easy foe and I haven't had some real sleep for days. And when I finally thought I got one going well I got broken off it for some reason and realized I had been weeping in a dream I vaguely remember. I sat up and thought how I hated it when it gets to me. Sometimes it hits you hard enough that it stays through the day and sneaks up in your sleep. Some days you just never sleep at all. It was getting late but I was out of a drink and I haven't got a good book for leverage, so I went down to this restaurant close to the beach. It was a few meters behind the sea wall and with the open-air you could hear the waves coming ... read more
September 27th 2008
Back in the days when politics had not yet beset the city of Butuan living there was very simple, and that same simplicity made life beautiful. If you walked down the old cathedral alley you would hear Maya birds chirp somewhere in the trees and nests hidden high up on deep corners of the church. Once inside the chamber, a different silence would take over, and the shade someway, somehow gave you solace. Going out the huge main doorway, the sunlight struck you first and then the colorful view of the park flowed in from across the street, and in a strange way it makes you miss your dad, if he was so good to you, on Sunday mornings after mass- The popcorns, cotton candies and ice creams. They still sell corn on carts at the ... read more
September 27th 2008
If Puerto Gallera had not been overcrowded by tourists when I went there last summer and if bars and shops didn't ruin the view by congesting the areas close to the coastline it would have been a good enough place to visit considering that it's not far from Manila. But they all messed up the beach especially during afternoons when the sun was right and and best to walk leisurely along the shore. It was terrible finding your way through intersections, patches and narrow walk-ways even just to get back to the hotel, and nighttime only made this worse. But the beer was relatively cheap and the food was okay although I didn't get to order the popular Shark Steak. I stayed in the island for three days but went back home feeling like I had ... read more
September 25th 2008
My wife and I visit Cebu at least once a year in celebration of our wedding anniversary, but this time around we traveled to be at my sister-in-law's wedding. The first photo was taken the night before the big event in a bar along Mango Avenue. The second was just hours before our flight back to Manila in Ayala, Cebu Business Park while the last one was taken at an earlier date (our honeymoon actually) at The Vista Mar in Mactan, thanks to Aunt Liza Aznar.... read more
September 25th 2008
I was thinking of that remote islet where we plan to go fishing this year. A quarter moon shaped islet thirty minutes by pump-boat from the Soccoro docks, floating idly, apart from a long series of other islets one passed along the way. I fancy going back deep unto the middle of the concave where the rickety cottage sits peacefully facing outward, admiring the sea calmly like they have become very good friends after years and years of companionship that they had learned to speak in silence, in deep gazes, and still enjoy each other’s presence; observing pensively with its four thin legs impaled into the deep underwater, standing old and shaky, I imagine the shanty leaning its back on the side of the islet when no one sees; addressing the view comfortably. It would be ... read more
September 25th 2008
“It was getting a little dark and the sky was orange in the twilight. In the islet’s guard house we sat on the edge of the wooden floor, facing the sea. We let our legs hang loosely, tracing the water underneath with our feet going in circles, immersed up to the ankles; feeling the tide coming in, heaving, the water slowly getting cold. Then, later on, we heard something approach fast from the forest. From the right side of the post we saw the rain come towards us, grazing the hills, creating millions of miniscule ripples on the surface of the saltwater lake below it with a cool, racing sound. It pitter-pattered at first contact, then it rushed at once and the islet in front of us became hazy, so we couldn’t really tell if the ... read more
September 21st 2008
Out in the boondocks of Bukas Grande, in an old cabin, we sat by a makeshift dining table facing the lake, watching the day gradually slip away in the twilight. There was a slight shift in the breeze and the undercurrent of the deep inland water surrounding us flowed smoothly outward through a small gap between the green hillocks, which led to the ocean, and there the distant sound of the open sea coolly oozed right in. Otherwise, the silence deep within the cluster of isles where our cabin was would have been deafening.The sounds from the forest died down as nighttime started to set in and across the sky rare birds were flitting with the sunset. Row started to play the ukulele and the nocturnal divers, who sat on their heels on a wooden bench ... read more
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