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Mark Villanueva - Mark Villanueva

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.
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Joined on: September 20th 2008
Last Login: December 10th 2008

Blog Entries: 9
Photos: 23
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Blogs & Travel Journals

by Mark Villanueva, order by Date newest first.


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 [View Full Entry]

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151 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 7 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: September 28th 2008 | 106 Views | [diary=328105]

Beach
party@Puerto
trip

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 [View Full Entry]

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Published: September 28th 2008 | 36 Views | [diary=328149]


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 [View Full Entry]

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Published: September 28th 2008 | 39 Views | [diary=328170]


By Mark Villanueva
September 27th 2008
Sunnyhills Asia » Philippines » Visayas
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 [View Full Entry]

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Published: September 28th 2008 | 8 Views | [diary=328171]


By Mark Villanueva
September 26th 2008
Pictures Asia » Philippines
I'm saving these pictures for future stories. [View Full Entry]

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8 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 5 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: September 28th 2008 | 27 Views | [diary=327830]

Plantation Bay
Bulitas Cave
Boracay

By Mark Villanueva
September 25th 2008
Vignette Asia » Philippines » Surigao » Bucas Grande
“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 [View Full Entry]

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258 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 1 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: September 28th 2008 | 41 Views | [diary=327575]


By Mark Villanueva
September 25th 2008
Quality Time Asia » Philippines » Surigao » Bucas Grande
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 [View Full Entry]

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668 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 2 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: September 28th 2008 | 33 Views | [diary=327578]

Barbra

By Mark Villanueva
September 25th 2008
Cebu City Asia » Philippines » Visayas
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. [View Full Entry]

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87 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 3 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: September 28th 2008 | 32 Views | [diary=327581]

Ayala
Vista Mar

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 [View Full Entry]

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1326 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 3 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
Published: September 28th 2008 | 59 Views | [diary=325959]

Roro
Jelly