The Masquerade Ball

January 18, 2007. My Grandmother's 85th Birthday Party. Theme: Le Grande Masquerade. Let me tell you a bit about my Mother's Mother. Soccoro Robillo (Nanay) is the mother of eleven, grandmother of thirty-six, and great grandmother to a still-growing number. She speaks several languages, three of which (Japanese, French, and I think German) she learned by herself. She used to run Maguindanao Hotel, and now she runs Maguindanao Centennial Credit Corporation. She is a member of an Ikebana Club and the Soroptimist Club, and she goes ballroom dancing twice a week. And she's eighty five.

Friday started out busy for me. I spent the whole morning laying-out standees for Sagay, Tsuru and Hanoi. I planned to go to Casa Leticia to talk to my cousin, Christian, about plans for the three restaurants for the year, but I didn't have time. Before I knew it, it was time to leave for my Talecraft demonstration at Davao Central High School.

It went smoothly. There were about ten teachers present. They seem to be interested. But, like in my Ateneo de Davao demonstration, they were clamoring for a Filipino Talecraft deck, too.

I was back at the Big House, Nanay's house, by five. But, too late! Her hairdresser had already left. No choice. I had to fix my hair myself (which actually meant not doing anything to my hair). I loved my dress for the evening! I wore a billowing white skirt made of tool, and a leather corset. Very Gothic Lolita. Plus Maita made me an ice mask. I liked it a whole lot.

While I was putting on make-up, my mother arrived from the parlor. Wow. She suddenly had long hair! It made her look a lot younger. And, well, she felt beautiful and that was what was important. She had been feeling ugly and haggard lately because Daddy was sick and she had to take care of him, and the fatigue and worry were burning her out.

We rented Summit in Mandaya Hotel for the event. With a clan that's currently composed of around eighty people (including children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and outlaws... ehe! I mean in-laws), we really needed a big place to have a party. A lot of my cousins, aunts and uncles from abroad came home just for Nanay's birthday. The ones who couldn't sent video greetings (ah, the power of the internet). There were friends at the party, too. Dom was there (Nanay thought I should invite him since he had helped me so much with my event). And I'm glad he came. I wanted my family to meet the friend who'd been helping me with Talecraft. I hope he didn't get too bored.

So, the total number of attendees was around 120 people.

Since it was Nanay's birthday, there was dancing. I gave up and went home around 11:30pm. But Nanay apparently stayed until around one in the morning. My other cousins were out all night going to clubs after the party.

Then the morning after that, January 19 (which was Nanay's actual birthday), we were awoken by a Manyanita for Nanay. Her former employees from Hotel Maguindanao came at six in the morning to render a Harana, a song, for her. Isn't that sweet?

Taj Minar (Davao Food Trip, Christmas 2007)

The second establishment I've been to under the Davao Food Trip was Taj Minar. It's an Indian Restaurant in Damosa. The food is good. You know they're not scrimping on the ingredients. And the quality of said ingredients is also not bad. It's not that spicy for an Indian restaurant, but if one is trying to reach a wider audience, I think the spiciness of their food is just fine: not too hot but still unmistakably Indian. The ambiance is also very good, but the best thing about it is our friendly host. The owner of Taj Minar, Mr. Zafar, I believe, was a really accommodating host. He explained to us the various herbs used and how the different dishes were prepared.

We had this spicy crunchy unleavened bread for appetizers, and seafood curry for our main course. Oh, and we had chicken curry, too. Very good. Interesting thing about the seafood curry is they put cinnamon sticks and cardamom in it, which gave the dish a hint of something exotic and different about it. We had a really sinful dessert, which was very misleading. You'd think it was an ordinary fudge bar with pumpkin seeds and cherries, but no, it was actually a really rich pudding-like dessert with cardamom and other spices. We topped the meal off with a cup of Chai. My only complaint is the iced tea. It tasted like ice pop.

Fwendz

Kuya Bloggie invited me and my sister, Maita, to hang out at a place in Metro Avenue called Fwendz. Nice place. Small and cozy, and there's a lot of IT students hanging around there. He introduced me to some of them. I was promoting Talecraft and the Story-Creation Contest in January. One of the guys there said that a lot of the IT people present were willing to do digital art for free! They needed an outlet, he said.

It's really too bad that we don't have enough good jobs for digital artists here in the Philippines. And we have such good people! Too bad they end up taking a job that is either not related to Digital Arts, or is related but pays peanuts. Most of them studied on their own. There's no Digital Arts school here in Davao yet. Hmm... I think one is overdue.

Another thing crossed my mind when I was at Fwendz. Either I hang out with a really different crowd in Manila, or real estate here in Davao is just really a lot cheaper, but a lot of young people here seem to own their own establishments. The owner of Fwendz was quite young. And I remember another guy I met in Zakoya who said he was studying Medical Transcription, but he owned a food establishment in Damosa! Yeah, and the friend of another friend used to own Spro's Coffee Shop. Well, that one closed down. But still, the point was, it was put up. I'm not saying these kids know how to or don't know how to run business establishments. Some of them seem to be doing well while others think they can just put one up and leave it to make money for them (Not going to work.), while others tried but failed because they didn't see the big picture. But they were able to put them up. It makes me think that kids from Manila seem to be more "baby" than the ones in Davao. Just my thought.

Zakoya (Davao Food Trip, Christmas 2007)

One of the things I like about my hometown is how the young people are more adventurous when it comes to food. If in Manila eating out means going to McDonalds, Tokyo Tokyo, or some other commercialized fast food place, in Davao, going out usually means the finer forms of dining.

When I arrived Davao on January 19, my cousin, Kuya Bloggie, invited me to Zakoya, a nice Japanese restaurant on F. Torres Street. Good food. I've been to Japan so, I know Japanese food. Though there are some dishes there that are not really Japanese (like their Kimchi dish), their Japanese food is really as authentic as it gets (considering the ingredients that we can get here). Very cozy ambience, too. There were also some interesting things on the menu like grilled garlic. We were also debating on what the sugar-free ice cream tasted like. The chocolate didn't quite taste like chocolate, my companions said. The mango ice cream, though it had mango bits, kind of tasted like cheese ice cream. And the strawberry ice cream tasted like watermelon.

All in all, I enjoyed the experience.