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macanese cuisine! the national museum had a whole table displaying mockup local dishes. awesome way to learn more about macao’s food and origins.

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one of macao’s famous tourist attractions, the ruins of st. paul. around the area are more stalls of street food and specialty shops.

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near the streets where the ruins of st paul is located, various shops sell this macanese/portuguese egg tart. egg custard on a pastry shell, these sell at MOP 9 to 10 a piece.

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tourists with their selfie stick.

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lots of bakeries in macau. another wonderful thing is that most locals follow traffic rules like pedestrian stop signs, and the fact that drivers will give right of way for pedestrians. and because the sidewalks are well made and maintained, macau is a great walkable city. frustrating forย those coming from the philippines where cars are given priority on and off the road. pedestrians and cyclists have no rights in manila. inez.

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i found my reflection in a well at an exhibit building. it says hello. on the other side.

musings, travel

macau in 6 pictures, part 4

click on the link below ๐Ÿ˜‰

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was able to travel to macau recently because we got nominated at the 10th Asian Film Awards for our design work in Heneral Luna. they covered airfare and hotel accommodations so of course we had to go! but more on that later. we decided to stay 2 extra days in macau just to go around. we were there between march 13 and 18. here are some photos.

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peeked through the glass window of this barber shop. the folks in macau generally dont mind getting their photos taken without permission. they just stare at you then go back to whatever they were doing. i obviously would not want to intrude so there areย very few people photos in my collection

 

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fascinated by the layout of their corridors and streets. it was between 14 to 19 degrees celcius when we visited and everybody wore their parkas and heavy jackets. im not sure if it were warmer weather there would be more locals out in the street, like how it is in the Philippines.

 

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macau is clean. coming from manila, i would say macau is spotless. so it was a hootย finding this spot where the pavement hasnt been swept. while in the Philippines this dirty look would be normal, in macau this would be the exception.

 

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i took a lot more photos of macau’s mid rise buildingsย when i was there. so awesome. loving the simple commercial stores on the ground floor and that the remaining 2 to 7 storeys were residential (i think, i havent really asked but i assumed haha). a blogger commented the streets of macau looked the same in lisbon or wherever in europe.

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evening lit shop with carlo as an unwitting model. as we were near the tourist district a lot of the shops were marketed for tourists. it’s awesome that there were more food stores for tourists than there were tshirt and ref magnets stores. egg tarts, beef jerky, and pastries are the go-to pasalubong stores here.

 

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gorgeously laid out street and decked with lanterns. why is it so clean??? im jealous. we noticed the locals, when eating out in public spaces, they automatically cleaned up after themselves and threw their trash in properly spaced out waste bins all over the city. drivers respectfully letting sidewalk pedestrians cross first. no overspeeding except on major highways. taxi drivers giving exact change.

musings, travel

macau in 6 photos, part 1

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travel

wherein we raided more temples in siem reap

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i havent finished posting photos and blogging about our cambodia trip in february actually. ย the summer’s almost done! ย haha i have a few more and then im done ๐Ÿ˜‰

the day tour for cambodia temple tours continued to the bigger angkor thom area in siem reap. there were really a lot more temples but we got there around lunchtime and that means we’re down to half the day to explore. we asked the tuktuk driver to just bring us to the bigger temples including ta phrom, bayon and angkor thom itself.

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found myself a niche ๐Ÿ˜‰

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my mom at the temples with all the tree roots eating at it

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photobombed!

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food trip, interior design, travel

the yoghurt house

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one of the charming places we’ve gone to in sagada is the yoghurt house. famous for the quaint interiors and their home-made yoghurt, this resto is included in trip advisory’s roster of go-to places in the area. the banana strawberry jam and granola yoghurt is a winner but their pasta selections were also worth the trip. they do use ordinary cheese instead of parmesan, something that is very hard to have in the area so generally it’s forgivable. also try the beef dishes and their open-faced sandwiches.

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the room temp yoghurt with their ginger and lemongrass pandan teas make an interesting combination

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the mushroom and cheese pasta ๐Ÿ˜‰ awesome!

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the interiors on the ground floor. you can see nanay on the lower left making yoghurt early that morning.

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the interiors at the 2nd floor at night

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a lot of foreign tourists were dining and drinking at yoghurt on the few times we were there. definitely one of our favorites in sagada. and the dogs there are gorgeous ๐Ÿ˜‰

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mapforsaturday

this is A MAP FOR SATURDAY, a 2007 documentary written and directed by Brook Silva-Braga, about backpacking solo around the world and living an unending weekend for 365 days. unlike most of us who would only dream of doing such things,ย Braga decides to quit his day job and go see the world. this movie comes at a critical time in my life when i just came from a trip in siem reap, cambodia and am already itching to pack my bags again and travel.

this is feeding on my current state of unrest (and a bit of insomnia) and further aggravating my need to fly away. this, despite im actually on my way back to baguio and sagada this month and climbing mt pulag all for a film shoot. after this “work project”, im already dreaming and planning a trip to boracay with co-workers in may, and a pre-scheduled trip to cagayan de oro and camiguin in june. ive currently semi-recruited two other people to join Carlo and me to backpack to batanes towards the 2nd half of the year. next year, we’re hoping to be trekking down southeast asia again. or maybe paris, who knows? these ideas are keeping me awake longer, you know?

i need to sleep already.