27 May 2007

Vatican City

A trip to the Vatican City forged my sentiment about Michelangelo being one of the greatest, if not the best, visual artist of all time. I personally feel his frescoes at the Sistine Chapel, which took him 4 years to finish, encompass his genius as a painter. Here is a self-portrait within “The Last Judgment” which he said depicts exactly how he felt after he finished, which was “very exhausted, like creeping out of (his) own skin.” When our tour guide explained this unusual self-portrait, I couldn’t help thinking how he could prefer to immortalise himself in such a “negative” way. It was only when I actually saw the Sistine Chapel for myself, which was stagerring to say the least considering it was work “he accepted reluctantly, because his only real love, then as in all his life, was not painting but sculpture,” that I began to understand why he felt so “spent.”

Later on, readings consistently revealed the same “reluctant” if not almost “resentful” feelings he had about this famous fresco. “This was due not only to the sheer size of the surface that he had to cover with frescoes (some 500 square meters) and the complex design of the whole work, but also to the extremely uncomfortable position in which he had to work, and the poor lighting, which made the task even more difficult. During all these years Michelangelo had gradually become more unsociable, bad-tempered and irascible…he was, as we put it today, a ‘difficult’ person, but in fact he was only giving vent to the nervous tension inside him.”

Unfortunately I don’t have photos to share of the Sistine Chapel or other paintings for that matter. Either I was scared of our tour guide who admitted she felt “defiled or slapped whenever tourists flash their cameras” or I genuinely felt I needed to give my proper respect by refraining to do so. It’s probably in between both.

I don't know if it's because I don't ‘respect’ sculptures as much as paintings --- in my mind, sculptures are probably less sensitive to light as paintings. I could be wrong --- but there I was amongst throngs of people who clicked away (still mindful of my tour guide's sentiments who didn't seem to mind). So here are a few things I took. I have so many other stories behind each piece but I don’t want to bore you with the details. So I’ll just hide behind the statement, “pictures speak a thousand words."



Milano – Italian Cuisine and Coffee 101


In contrast to my disappointment at not being able to explore more of the city, I found that the most tastefully satisfying meal I had during this trip was in Milan. An Italian colleague brought us to this slick ristorante where I had my dose of seafood pasta and my first formal instruction (later to be consistently stressed, reminded and added on by dozens of other after him) on the DO’s and DON’Ts of Italian cuisine:

  1. DO follow the order of when you should be having your anti-pasti, pasta, secondi, etc. DON’T have things mixed up like having your main dish served with your salad, very much unlike us Asians (consistent across countries) who like everything all in the ‘middle.’ This explains the discrimination, I mean, the dagger looks we sometimes got from waitresses in the earlier cities we visited. They must have thought, “What barbarians!”
  2. DO have coffee after dolce (desert), pure and unadulterated (espresso as we foreigners call it) unlike the kind you find in Starbucks --- that coffee Italians call “Americano.”
  3. DO finish every platter of food you’re served. It is an insult to the chef (usually also the ristorante owner) if you DON’T. Again, unlike this Asian trait where we often leave a piece of every dish (served in the ‘middle’) --- aka in Filipino as the hiya (shy) piece --- and bashfully ask the others if no one is taking it before finally consuming.
  4. DO take coffee (espresso) at the right time which is after 10 am. DO take capuccino during breakfast before 10am because you still have the rest of the day to digest it since it’s relatively heavy (with cream) compared to the typical coffee
  5. DO have the option to take coffee with milk --- this they call macchiatto.
  6. DO enjoy your meal slowly. Every delectable piece (and they are delectable) is prepared very carefully by the chef or the cook (who would oftentimes be their mother, wife if not themselves). That’s why, as practically every Italian I talked to professes, McDonald’s or Starbucks DON’T and will not work in Italy (ok, might work for the really unfortunate masses, they say) because fastfood, to them, is simply anti-culture.

Taray!


19 May 2007

Venice & Rome - Another blast from the past

These I quickly jot down just so I don’t forget. I’m beginning to discover that this whole blogging phenomenon has much to do with not wanting to forget. While I can just grab a pen and write a journal, coming to this space has become a more preferred channel to release whatever it is that’s clogging my mind. Yes, I am “declogging.” It’s like I can’t move on until I write it. I know it’s bizarre but it’s there anyway. Maybe because I know if I were in Manila I would have somehow told you about it (even if you didn’t want me to) and shown you all the snaps I took with pasalubong (souvenir) to go with them. And so I go back to this.

It’s been almost a month since Italy but just to seal off all the anecdotes on this trip, I’ll swiftly run you through some of the highlights on Venezia and Roma. Again, the charm of these cities, best discovered walking, is in their ability to intantly transport you to a different era altogether. Whether its in a 70's James Bond film or a masquerade ball in the 1600's, it still made for much time travel.

Venezia
  • Labyrinthine passages to get to Piazza San Marco - where you find its basilica and square (piazza) as beautiful as anyone else has attested. Locals said it should take us less than an hour to get from Piazza San Roma (where we could just take a boat) to this must-see cathedral. It took us 3 hours to find San Marco inspite of all the supposed directional signs. Venice is one massive maze you can easily get lost in (had been forewarned in Lonely Planet earlier on). Yet this seeming deliberate attempt to ‘lose’ you is “forgivable” because you just want to savour the beauty of this uniquely captivating maritime city. You know instinctively that you won’t find anything like it in the world.
  • Art: Venetian masks and costumes, Murano glass, Burano lace
  • Boat rides on the Grand Canal to and from Piazza San Roma to Piazza San Marco that Noi and I quietly burst into song (discovered we could sing some songs in harmony)!

Roma

  • The late evening instant tour of ancient ruins and tourist sites (Palatino or Roman Forum, Mouth of Truth, Colloseu, Fontina de Trevi) by the hotel driver upon our pick up from the airport
  • 3-hour afternoon walk around the city with office colleagues (activity part of work) which included visits to the Fontina de Trevi, Piazza Venezia (Capitol), Piazza Navona, The Pantheon, Piazza de Spagna (Spanish Steps)
  • Orange tree-lined streets. The first time I've seen orange trees in my life!
  • Discovering the Palatino (Roman Forum) and Colloseu on foot with Noy – even saw a newly-wed bride and groom walking by the arch beside the Colloseu



  • The Vatican City – the tears just started to fall. I couldn’t explain it. I’ve been to other ancient sites, temples and museums which all showcase the richness of their respective cultures and faith. But the Vatican City, I was telling my mom, is a living monument of how truly our God rocks. It’s a gigantic storybook narrating the fall of man and his redemption. And best of all, a loving God who reaches out to fallen man. Christianity, it’s been said, is the only religion that has its God reaching out to its puny creation. I was so overwhelmed at all the things seen and heard at the Vatican. My jaw-dropping moments at the Uffizi or Accademia (Florence) are incomparable.

18 May 2007

"Chillax" in Koh Samed


Pause muna from all the Italy talk.

I finally hit the beach --- sorry, I hardly count Hua Hin because it feels to me more like a seaside resort like Punta Fuego or Puerto Azul than a 'real' beach like Bora or Palawan--- after 18 months pining for one! Last weekend, with work issues coming out of our ears, a couple of us just decided to drop everything and go to Koh Samed (pronounced koh' sa-met'). Ok, in typical loserly fashion, I carried along my security blanket (aka my laptop) with the hopes of finding inspiration to go through my unread mails but we all know that didn't happen, right?! I know, I never seem to learn...

Anyhow, if you miss Boracay (or your favourite white sand beach party place), Koh Samed is a good place to start since it's only a 2.5 nerve-racking drive away from Bangkok plus another 15 minute nerve-racking speed boat ride to get into the island. It felt like what Bora might have been like 20 or so years ago. Some firsts for me in Koh Samed: First beach bumming outside my country and first henna tatoo! I have a sun design on the small of my back!

Unlike previous trips to the beach, this was my most unplanned and relaxed one. I finally understood and embraced the true meaning of "chillax!" I remember a hard-nosed advertising account director once tell me "masarap pala tumunganga sa beach" (it's apparently enjoyable to blankly stare at the beach). I didn't really make-tunganga much but I spent a good deal just vegitating, getting unprofessionally-massaged (at a good price) and people-watching. I especially enjoy watching chubby, stray dogs --- Thailand has the chubbiest stray dogs...I find it very odd...I think it has much to do with its benign, non-violent, animal-loving religion/culture --- fetch frisbees, soccer balls and unabashedly rush against waves. Now that's one sight that frequently made me tunganga.

Jolina, Whit and Carlo introducing me to the concept of “chillax"




10 May 2007

Firenze - Blast from the Past

The first Italian city I set foot on was Firenze (Florence). What began as a journey towards the cradle of the Renaissance movement fascinatingly became a surreal trip down memory lane: readings, lectures and exams in school as well as late-night conversations over barako coffee and some bibingka (native dessert) with my Mom and Tita Luchi (a bonafide artist) on related topics. I couldn’t help acquiring a newfound appreciation for my teachers in art, literature, history, even music and Christian Life (religion)...more distinctly Miss Windor’s almost nagging reference to the “grandeur of Rome!" Back then, my classmates and I annoyingly thought, "what the fuss was all about!" It was only years after did I actually wholeheartedly agree with my high school English teacher on this count, as I walked through Firenze and watched storybooks, encyclopedia and still slide shows from a distant past come alive!

The Uffizi Gallery had my mouth gaping from start to finish. From Byzantine paintings of Madonnas an
d Children to influential works of Filippo Lippi (siya pala si Fra Lippo Lippi…all this time I thought that was just the name of an 80’s band!) to the ‘greater’ (or more famous…amongst trying-to-be-art-enthusiasts like yours truly) masterpieces of Botticelli, El Greco, Da Vinci, Raphael and, of course, Michaelangelo! Several of my companions and I had become instant fans of Michaelangelo after seeing his major works in Florence and Rome.

I was fortunate enough to have prebooked a guided tour of The Uffizi which allowed me to bypass queues that took hours to get into the museum. When we reached the Botticelli room, curiously there were long benches in the middle of the room. I suddenly understood why when I stood in front of “The Birth of Venus” and later on La Primavera My knees turned into jello when I saw these great pieces that I literally sank into a bench as I quietly admired the paintings. They had the same effect on my other tour groupmates. Our tour guide said, “Oh, don’t worry. We get that a lot. I think that’s why they have these benches. Take your time.”

My next and greater heart-stopping episode was at the Galleria dell'Accademia. By this time, I had rejoined Tran
g, Noy and Noi. Just when we thought we were getting the hang of and have had enough of Florentine artworks, we enter this room that had us screeching to a full stop. As in we halted for probably a good 5-10 minutes, 50 meters away from the legendary Michaelangelo sculpture of “David!” It’s not like we agreed “Ok let’s stop right here.” No, its perfectly imperfect beauty (David’s head and hands are disproportionately bigger than the rest of his body) simply demanded for a respectful, speechless pause. As we slowly approached this amazing piece of marble, we saw a number of “draft Davids” on both sides of the corridor.

I kept asking my friends, “How long will it take you to create something like that (the ‘final’ David) from a single slab of marble?!?” Initially, none of them would answer. Eventually, Trang exasperatedly said, “Forever!!!”

Me? Never. And Michaelangelo? Well, it only took him 2 years to sculpt David into perfection.

(Also check out Trang's blog on the same, entitled "David")



06 May 2007

Breathless

I was describing to an Italian colleague how I felt my heart stop so many times mostly in absolute wonder of his country's glorious beauty, frequently having left me (and my Southeast Asian girl friends Trang, Noi and Noy) totally breathless.

It's only now that I realise the flight from Bangkok to Frankfurt (connecting flight) provided an ominous sign of what was up ahead. How often does it happen that ones' plane suddenly stops by, dead of night, at a place like Delhi, India to entrust a passenger suffering a heart attack to medics?! It happened with mine.

#1 Our whole trip had been dotted with anxious moments running after trains, boats, shuttles and tours, sometimes with heavy baggages in tow. The most excruciating dash was the walk from Piazza San Roma (Venice) to the train station which included 3 bridges (cummulatively worth as many steps as those of the "Spanish Steps" in Rome) to catch the train from Venice to Milan for me and Noi (to Rome for Noy and Trang). That's experiencing back-packing first-hand, with laptops to boot!

#2 Authentic Italian food and the concept of Slow food vs. Fastfood

#3 Coffee and the proper time for capuccino or espresso (as the rest of the world calls it), otherwise Italians just call it coffee

#4 Gelato

#5 Beautiful cities. Firenze (Florence), Venezia (Venice), Milano (Milan) and Roma (Rome)

#6 Beautiful, fashionable men (ages 12 to 92) who seem to have a strong appreciation for Asian ladies. Check out a hilarious account on this topic at Noi's blog (entitled "The Barbaric Invasion")!

Details on food and cities to follow. Ciao!