~manila, you're not that ugly

Been dreaming of wide open spaces and clean fresh air everyday for a good while, and now I get to smile in my heart and say it for real: it’s all happening.

Am moving on to literally “greener pastures” in Nuvali, Sta. Rosa, Laguna, and will no longer be a true blue manilarat.

Thank you for the visits through the years and most especially for the kind words. Will maintain this site as a tourism jump off point to keep fighting the good fight to #helpDOT, but do hope you also join me on my journey towards sustainable living in MyNuvaliHome.com:

I dream of a simple home, a home that keeps me home.
I dream of a home that’s pretty.
I dream of a home that makes me happy.
I dream of a home that would make retreats and vacations unneeded, because the clarity and deep joy that I find in them, I find at home, everyday.
I dream of a home that has both silence and laughter.
I dream of a home that has love.

My Nuvali Home: my first big adult commitment.

It’s not just a house; it’s a big YES to a lifestyle shift– to more quiet everydays, filled with meaning, in resonance with the quiet shift to a healthier, more conscious lifestyle that values and always upholds what truly matters: family, people, ordinary lives, joy in the everyday, helping others, helping who needs help now. It’s one that requires a lot of listening, and a lot of path-clearing… one that is awakened, awakening and awakens.

This is the sustainable life, this is what My Nuvali Home is about.

Was so happy to get finally get my copy yesterday!

First heard about this book from my friend Pompet, who says it’s his bible in building sustainable homes in Palawan.

The author, Johan van Lengen, founded the Bio-architecture and Intuitive Technology (TIBA) School in the Mata Atlantica (coastal jungle) of Brazil. The book is easy to follow, very practical but comprehensive, with sustainable design guides and zoning plans for communities (not just individual houses).

The reference page at the back has this Old Chinese saying:

When a king dies, his people say:  “He did this; he did that…”

But when a great king dies, they say: “We did everything ourselves.”

Wow.   Hope to use its ideas eventually as I bring to life my dream of an eco village, but also now, on a smaller scale, as I get started on building my first home! So exciting.

Other pegs for a green home from modresdes.com:

Special thanks to my good friend, Marns, for the book!

My plans of relocating to Palawan and getting involved in sustainable tourism have taken a backseat (for now), and am realizing that the work that I have and want to do is still in the mainstream.  If it is to push for a real sustainable lifestyle, I must first live it in order to be able to talk about it.  And so I’ve been exploring the farming alternative for when my lease expires in February, ideally somewhere near Manila, with Tagaytay as the best bet…

A few weeks ago, my brother gave me a grand idea: instead of moving to Tagaytay to be a farmer, why not just get a small house in Nuvali, and live the life I want, in a way that’s personally sustainable for me:  I can bike all I want everyday, have a small outdoor area for my art and permaculture, and make a living in real estate, selling the same lifestyle I’m building for myself– the sustainable Nuvali lifestyle with lots of wide open spaces and green green green everywhere.  Genius!!!

When Nuvali was launched in 2007 as Ayala’s big city project in Sta. Rosa, I was so in love with it.   It was the first time I heard of any concrete plans to build a sustainable community in scale, and I was so happy that such a vision was being supported and implemented by someone that meant business, with real funds and real energy from people who believed in it.  I was even happier that people my age–my peers–were excitedly buying in!

I’ve been living in a 50-sqm loft for almost a year now, and if only this had an outdoor space, I’d have no complaints, so a small house surrounded by a garden will be just perfect for me.

The main hesitation was the isolation from everyone else, but Sta.  Rosa is just a few minutes away from Alabang, and I’ll still have access to city conveniences (there’s National Bookstore in Nuvali, haha, priorities!).

Mom and Dad were also more supportive of this plan than the farming option, especially if they’ll just be in Tagaytay, and they went with me last week to check out the Avida site itself, where there are house and lot options for sale:

It was raining so we just drove around to get a feel of the community…

The houses are identical (there are three models to choose from), and they have the modern-minimalist feel of sleek clean lines, but I like that they used earthy tones to lend a sense of warmth to the place.  A purely white house makes for a too sanitary life think–yey to color in our everydays!

If I choose to buy now, I’ll be able to move in by next summer, and I’ll be living in my own house in a community that I feel safe in, but is still far from noise, pollution and traffic!   Sounds heavenly wahhhhhh!

This is one of the standard two-bedroom houses…

I’m interested in the most basic of them all, like the one below.. just 53 sqm floor area, and about 120sqm lot area…

I can build a fence around it, have a small lookout garden/patio and a carport… but most important of all, it’ll be my own house!  That’s one more thing off my 30-before-30 list, hehe!

Of course I would love love love to have my dear friends as my neighbors… If any of you are also considering a shift to a healthier lifestyle, this is it!! Xavier will start its first schoolyear 2012 for co-ed, right in front of Avida, so no need to worry for your kids or future kids’ schooling. There’s already St. Scholastica’s,  La Salle and Ateneo Graduate School in Sta. Rosa, plus plans for UST and Everest Academy.  There’s also a Waldorf school inside Georgia Club next door to Nuvali.  For work, there are a number of IT companies and call centers already operational, plus the almost 20 industrial parks in Canlubang.  There’s also Alabang for more options.  Teehee… tara!

Here’s something more about Nuvali, from my old post in April 2008, “Nuvali: where I want my friends to buy“:

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While many believe that Boracay is a lost cause, my love for the island will always push me hopeful.

So so very glad to read there’s now an ordinance to ban smoking on the beach.  Hope to see more positive actions like this from the newly launched Boracay Beach Management Program (BBMP), “a long-term project to address the island’s environmental concerns brought by the booming tourism industry” chaired by Boracay’s very mayor himself, John Yap.

The hardest thing about eating raw?  Not having options for meeting up with friends!  Having a “restrictive” diet restricts my social life, huhu!

Think about it– if you take food and drinks out of your activity options, what’s left?  Maybe a bit of sports, work, movies, and… well that’s mostly it.   But what are sports, work and movies without food?  Never realized that so much of what we do really revolves around food.   When someone visits you at home, you serve merienda and juice  or coffee at the very least.   You go watch a movie, there’s popcorn or shake.  You watch a game, there’s beer and pizza.  When you’re willingly choosing not to eat what maybe 90% of the population eats–coffee, rice, milk, meat, chips, beer– you are also making a stand not to participate in or to stay away from activities that involve any of these!  It’s hard to stay raw when everyone else around you is salivating over grilled baby back ribs, fried tawilis, or hot fudge chocolate!

The first time I got to try being 100% raw for a sustained period was last August when I visited my friend Pi in Bahay Kalipay, Palawan.   Six days on raw.   I posted pictures of that 6-day Raw food detox if you want to take a look.  Since then, I’ve been trying to infuse raw into my everydays as much as I can, with very encouraging results with the green smoothie…

…and not-so-encouraging ones from experiments like this pumpkin soup…

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Welcome to Bahay Kalipay, a house of healing in Palawan, where I found myself on a quiet inner journey for six days barely a month ago.

There’s something about going barefoot that invites opening up, a baring of sorts..

…and this daily habit of having to take off one’s shoes and walk with naked feet on the floor is simple but it does what it is meant to do… which is to disarm, interrupt, like a cymbal clanging in a church, or maybe more like a flute in a library. It is strange but not unpleasant, maybe even friendly…

Living in a communal setting also disarms– especially for someone who values private space and the comforts of familiar noise or absolute silence.

I went to Palawan to visit my old friend, Pompet, and still no day passes that I don’t go back to those six days and wonder what really happened there.

When you go to a place expecting to live simply and commune with nature, you prepare yourself by leaving behind your city habits…  As someone who has no attachment to TV, newspapers, radio and magazines, I didn’t expect to have to adjust much.

I went with a passive mindset–I was there to observe, I was just going to watch.

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Will finally be going on this 5-day boating expedition I’ve been dreaming about since July..woohoo!

(Image from Tao Philippines)

I came across Tao Expeditions while researching for a trip to El Nido, and raved to friends that it was exactly how I wanted to explore Palawan:

Open Expeditions take groups of independent travellers between El Nido and Coron through the Linapacan Group or vice versa. This is our playground of over 200 islands and covers a 150km journey through the most remote region in Palawan, connecting Coron and El Nido.

Was so downcast that I missed the voyage season by a hairline (boats don’t go out to sea during the rainy season of July to October), but all is fair to those who wait:  Am now good to go on my first ever island expedition in November, yahooo!

More about the boys behind Tao from their website, www.taophilippines.com:

Tao Philippines was founded in 2005 by Eddie Agamos Brock, a native from the Northern Province of Luzon. After 10 years of extensive exploration of the remote provinces of the Philippines, he finally chose to settle base in the Northern Palawan islands. His friend and cofounder Jack Foottit, a British architecture student,  designer of the business and build up the projects.  ‘We wanted to explore deep into the island culture of this vast archipelago, and experience real island living. This is one of the most beautiful regions in the Philippines. For us this province is a playground of hundreds of tropical islands, nobody comes up here, over the years of our expeditions we have never run into other travelers.’ (more…)

Don’t you think it’s so hard to find a meaningful toy to give kids these days?

It’s always been a problem for me–I don’t buy into plastic toys and the PS2 generation–and come kiddie birthdays or baptisms, I always get torn between giving something I’d rather not give or just giving nothing.

Was so glad, then, to have met Tes Sobeng, a Waldorf mom who makes wooden toys for children (and children-at-heart!). She had access to wood craftsmen in Paete, Laguna and took it upon herself to make toys that resonated with love and encouraged imagination.

Do you notice the mini palayok (clay pot) on the shelf? I have so many fond memories playing with clay pots as a child!

Tes has an assortment of toys, but mostly for kids of school age. Most adhere to the Waldorf ideals of age-appropriateness and imaginative play.

Here’s one toy I took home for myself, inspired by a tansan (bottlecap) spinning wheel usually played in the provinces:

Hayyyy, what joy in being a child!

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You can look at Tes’s toy catalog on her website, toys and stuff, or contact her through
0908-492-3953 / 912-4056 or tesmsobeng@yahoo.com

Let’s #helpDOT!

In February 2008, my friend Heidiklum decided to treat the girls to a weekend of sports, healthy eating, and qt with friends and family in Camarines Sur. We packed our bags and slept ourselves silly on Isarog Buslines’ Lazyboy Extreme, which had such comfortable seats! Not even an hour in Camsur and one of us was already saying: “I’m so excited to go home so I can sleep on the lazy boy again!”

5am Saturday, we arrived at Lagonoy, our homebase for the weekend, where we feasted on laing, homemade peanut butter, fishes, tapang usa, complete with sing-all-you-can videoke

Other stops:
Lagonoy Farm — carabao ride, buko fest, tree climbing, airsoft
Aguirangan Island – sunset bonfire with trusty Granma
Mt. Isarog – photo and wishing op on one of Bicol’s summits
and CWC, the trip highlight — for first time wakeboarding woohooo! pero booo, hanggang kneeboard lang kami! http://www.camsurwatersportscomplex.com/

farm life at lagonoy

aguirangan island

sun sets behind mt. isarog

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Let’s #helpDOT!

Where to go in Roxas, Capiz, Boracay, Iloilo, Guimaras, Bacolod, Dumaguete, Bohol, and Cebu in the Visayas region:

ROXAS Port, Mindoro

Ivisan, CAPIZ

JAWILI Falls (7 basins), Tangalan, Aklan

BAKHAWAN ECO PARK, Aklan

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