Mitsuru

#RapSnacks -- there’s a surprising variety in the junk food and snacks that gas stations carry — I started getting these out of curiosity after rekindling my lottery habit a few weeks ago. Romeo Miller’s variety is apparently one of the oldest in the product line, which had humble beginnings in the 90s and started becoming more widespread after a partnership with Migos a few years ago.

One of the more vivid recollections of my childhood was that of a Toyota Coaster, a mini bus servicing the big hotels in Legaspi— Mayon Imperial Hotel, La Trinidad Hotel and Albay Hotel—stopping by daily in front of our house, always bringing a bevy of multinational tourists led by a distinctly loud tour guide who descended the concrete steps towards the house, where artworks and products made of abaca and other native materials were mounted on a wall display in the sala. My grandparents were known proponents of the local handicraft and cottage industries in Tiwi since the 1950s and were featured at the height of their business in the Philippines Herald, one of the leading newspapers at that time, in a section titled Little People Making Big. per said article- “they stopped the exodus of women from Bicolandia” which I will also write about in a future post. Looking back? It was always fascinating as a child to watch the awestruck faces of those tourists as they examined the framed artw...

👁  07242020  🎬  2020 *coincidentally, while watching this film, i noticed that today was also the 5th anniversary of the tragic death of Joey, the 12-year-old son of the main subject of the documentary— single father of two sons, wounded Afghan War Veteran SFC Brian Eisch, US Army.

...conked out, so I picked up a $5.99 JVC Gumy headphones from a grocery stall and it turned out perfectly serviceable.

...some cool things that caught my eye at South Korea’s ultra-modern Incheon International Airport, one of the best airports in the world in almost every metric (including free mega fast wifi) in my book.

I normally don’t dig salt & vinegar flavor for junk foods, but since the local Asian store ran out of my go-to Lapid chicharons, i picked up Tito Al’s Choice chicharrones strips for lack of better options. Turns out it tasted better than i expected.

last week I finally unboxed the Ninja that had been lying around in a corner since a few months back and immediately put the machine to use — Air Roasting and Air Frying a few slabs of pork ribs.

At a sale price of $14.99 a pop, these beautiful 1/18 American muscle cars and European Supercars by Maisto at Sam’s Club were very tempting, but i managed to look away. For a die-cast car collector and enthusiast since childhood it was a hard pass indeed.

fun fact: when i was a kid, i hated Bob Dylan’s voice to death. i have since better appreciated his songs and have listened to more than half of his catalogue. but i still don’t own any of his albums. the local library takes care of those for me though. nowadays, Dylan always elicits a chuckle the moment i hear him singing on my car’s radio.  😉 👁   07102020   🎬   2019

*Perry Mason HBO | Chapter 2 | 06282020

for years, I’ve heard the song Chasing Cars a lot on FM radio on my regular drives back and forth from work but I never bothered to look up more about the band behind it. Then a couple years ago, Josh Groban and Sarah McLachlan did a beautiful rendition of their song entitled Run at a concert at Pine Knob, which prompted me to finally look them up online. Then on May 1st while scrolling through Netflix in the wee hours I stumbled upon this 2018 documentary featuring the aforementioned Irish-Scottish band. Now, even if only for their two hit songs mentioned previously, I now consider myself a fan. 

a fairly short presentation about one of the most legendary ancestors of modern music, and his incredibly mysterious backstory...

The limited edition RUNWELL turntable by SHINOLA on display at the Westin Book Cadillac in Detroit.  What a beauty!

i used to play  this a lot  back in the days  growing up in  Tiwi  when  the Beatles  ruled the Radiowealth turntable  at home . listening  to a 45 Parlophone record  me and my friends  would sing-along-   "Obladi-Oblada, life goes on bra..." 👁   seeing as we were only 7 or 8 years old, we found the “mention” of a bra in a song quite hilarious *Memories of Childhood in Tiwi #1970sTiwi #TheBeatles

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In 1880, Gobernadorcillo* Higino Templado conceptualized and constructed Tiwi's first town plaza in order to provide the community with a wholesome place for people to gather on Sundays and holidays to relax and watch the Comedia or local plays. Municipal President* Mateo Clidoro (1926-1931) initiated the naming of the town plaza to Plaza Templado in honor of Higino Templado during his incumbency. His successor, Mayor Lino Clutario (1931-1934), with monetary donations from the townspeople, was instrumental in erecting a bust of the late mayor Higino Templado at the center of the plaza, where it remained until it was relocated to give way to the building of the "Kiosko" during the term of Mayor Eleodoro Cortezano (1948-1951). Mayor Cristito Cirujales (1952-1955) contributed a water fountain in front of the kiosk, while Mayor Jose C. Templado (1956-1959) in turn built a concrete fence surrounding Plaza Templado in the mid-1950's. Some of these contributions can be ...

Tomorrow will be the inauguration of the Tiwi Town Plaza, which will be officially named Plaza Templado. The Sangguniang Bayan of Tiwi recently passed an ordinance re-affirming the name as it has been historically known (based on oral history and documented evidence) since the time of municipal mayor Mateo Clidoro (1925-1931). Plaza Templado was named after Higino Templado, the sixty-sixth Gobernadorcillo (mayor) of Tiwi. Who is Mayor Higino Templado? Here's a short biography of the man: Sr. Don Higino Templado, the sixty-sixth gobernadorcillo (1879-1884) of Tiwi, Albay was not only a leader, but a builder. Among his notable accomplishments were the founding of barangay Cararayan, the renaming of Cagintilan to Mayong, the propagation of the Abaca industry, the Cararayan-Cale road, the Nagas River Control Project, and one of the earlier versions of the municipal building called the Tribunal, among many others. He was also instrumental in the planning and laying out of ...

"Plaza Templado" was mentioned in this book by esteemed historian Danilo Madrid Gerona (also the author of "Ferdinand Magellan, The Armada de Maluco and the European Discovery of the Philippines”), which was commissioned by the Province of Albay under Gov. Joey Salceda and published in 2013 during the term of mayor Ami Villanueva.

This is a picture that I grabbed from the LGUTiwi FB page of the ongoing redesign and enhancement of the Plaza in front of the municipal building. What caught my attention amid the chaos of construction and what have you was the concrete base of the flagpole. I can still vividly remember the story behind said structure. One day in the late 70s or early 80s, while supervising the construction of the koi (Japanese carp) ponds & water fountains in front of the old 'municipio', my father, Aki Shimizu, was asked by mayor Oriel Clutario if he could improve the old flagpole in the plaza. He immediately asked his workers to gather the materials needed for the simple design that he sketched on a paper bond in haste: bricks made at the Tiwi Ceramic Plant and corals that were brought from Corangon earlier; they finished the job by late afternoon of the same day. Of course, as with many of his public landscape projects and works in Tiwi, my father did it for free. The koi ...