My taped Baguio episode "Gone for the Weekend" for Living Asia has been showing since Sunday, hehe.  It shows more than once a day on the Living Asia Channel until September 23, that's 99 on Sky Cable and 27 on Destiny Cable.  Here are the skeds of that show starting today:

Sept 18 - 2:00pm and 10:00pm

Sept 19 - 6:00am and 7:00pm

Sept 20: - 3:00am, 11:00am, and 4pm 

Sept 21 - 12:00am, 8:00am, 1:00pm, 9:00pm (magsawa kayo sakin on Friday hahaha!)

Sept 22 - 5:00am, 6:00pm

Sept 23 -2:00am

By the way we've revamped our website, check it out :)  Yey! They used my blue aliguay picture for the masthead :D http://www.livingasiachannel.net

 

That's pretty much what I've been seeing for the last few weeks.  I managed, with divine power and tenacity, to shotlist 60 mini-DV tapes of footage that hold the 10 day stretch of bikers and bicycles alike that was Padyak Pinoy, all for my script. 

At this point, I've also transcribed over 8 of probably what really will be10-15 interviews and I now continue to translate what is mostly indigenous speech into English for subtitles. 

I fondly reminisce the days of thousands of digital frames cleaned for Pinoy films. Thirty frames a second, that's what movies are made of.  Sixty DV tapes was grueling and honestly nothing compared to all that, but after the remaining drops of veneration I had for everything about cycling begin to turn toxic, I knew I was undoubtedly on the brink of saturation.

The script is sweetly coming along, but I can't wait till this ship is out to sea, allow me to break the Perignon.  Extra Diyos na talaga ang katapat nito.  After Padyak is out to edit, God will probably smile upon me "Now, you can do anything."

Here we are again!














We're swift to shoot, but this time we're not on the job.





















Living Asia hit Matabungkay for a quick timeout from work.

It’s funny how a team outing hardly differs from the actual job, but then work is still work.

This time is playtime. 

 Look Ma, no trampoline. Aha, I knew I had some volleyball jumps in me yet. No photoshop tricks, guys.  That jump means no more jumping for 2007 hahaha, naubos yung power.

Actually, not really, meron pa, even in the water :D
C'est Moi!!! Real photo ;)

But Nyx's siblings beat my jumps to a pulp, here goes Angela...and Mandy

kids are so energetic...

and so competitive for attention, tsk tsk...

















Some Living Asians brought their offspring much to our delight. 




ei Lucas!





Matabungkay Beach Resort & Hotel

provided adequate shelter,

and buoyant bamboo structures, called “balsas”, on the neighboring beach










made it possible to eat, drink, and be merry over the sea!


Hopia (?!!) Holy Tilapia.

Little twin stars struck me with the realization that the sea mirrors the sky in many ways,
in color and even with stars of its own.

hold on a minute, a little more to the left...

There you go, never can be too OC, especially if it's the sky.

"Here we are again!" As I say in the opening line. A short photo essay about our Living Asia team outing in Matabungkay last June 2-3, a personal blog with MORE photos and photo album included to be uploaded right here on my multiply site, watch out! :D

Well, edited the text a bit, but it's not that different from the blog I placed here on Multiply. Just finally got the pics to upload at our community blog :) Feel free to check it out.

This is actually for the LAC Pond community blog but having connection probs at the moment.  After yesterday’s last criterium bike race, thoughts on my 10-day Padyak Pinoy (May 17-27) shoot mined their way through as I diligently resized some photos.  Here I am, back in the city, sun-kissed and spent, as I reflect on numerous snapshots of Living Asians at work and play all over Luzon last week.

Padyak Pinoy 2007 was my first long shoot for LAC.  We were in QC, Cabanatuan, Pangasinan, Vigan, Laoag, La Union, Baguio, Pampanga, then Roxas Blvd in 10 days. Embarking on any trip as hectic as this one with colleagues in tow invites one to watch and learn as we end up

 

careening through roads less travelled,

searching on foot for the boat that just left,

   

getting carried away,

trading new flavors 

maybe sharing one,

clowning around off cam,  

and of course doing our jobs.  

                                                                                                           

                       
As the camaraderie deepens,  

 

we find untapped strength,   

and try bigger things.

 

“In-between” we still find fresh ways to recharge

and stay in touch.  

Amidst the blur of work’s fast pace,   

 

 

there’s always a way to slow down.   

We own the joy of beholding and presenting the great stuff about our country while having a blast at it

   

no matter where we are.

Serious work it is, but we needn’t be too serious.

So far, the show-and-tell of the sublime has been really fun.  Look, no stock photos allowed…

   

Among Living Asians, strange antics are prevalent,

in certain cases hereditary even.

and we simply can’t do without them.

Living Asians strive daily to air more tube content that rocks. Just watch.

   Now then, back to clattering keys and having more fun while I’m at it. :)

My friend Nyx writes about what we did today along with Padyak Pinoy and uses the pics that I took with mom's camera for her post on The Pond

Something I posted on our Living Asia blog, The Pond, about where I'm at right now :) Will post another link, written by my partner writer for this trip, Nyx :D

Also published on our LAC blog, The Pond

Rediscovering Durian - Julia Arenas

It was a hectic, hot visit to Bukidnon with my uncle during Holy Week. I was a bit weary on Tuesday when we arrived. I’d been cramming a script and rushing an edit the night before. Oops, a confession?

The heat that almost baked me was trapped between a metal roof and the concrete floor of a basketball gym. Around a thousand highschool graduates sweating in togas were herded into rows. If I had graduations my way that day, the guys would be in board shorts, the girls in swimsuits, and everyone would still have their hats. I imagined it that way instead. I’d begun shooting their guest speaker, then I suddenly blinked and realized I’d been shooting the podium with my eyes closed for around three minutes. The sun fiercely beat down on that roof. I began to have doubts that I’d get to enjoy any remaining part of that day. That was until my uncle had a photo op promoting a local fruit that was his favorite.

He presented the packaged and peeled durian fruit to me quite candidly and asked for an extra plastic spoon. I pursed my lips thinking. I had tasted durian years before and didn’t enjoy it, maybe because it was a different kind and wasn’t fresh. I was urged to try it again. I held onto the words my uncle said to convince my aunt who’d become a durian devotee, “It’s like custard.” I took a spoonful and paused. It was smelly, creamy, but yummy. I took another, he gladly left me the rest. The next morning, a number of resort guests shot irritated glances my way when I had it again for breakfast. I didn’t care. They didn’t know what they were missing, or smelling maybe. My uncle offered words of comfort “You will learn that it is a lonely man’s fruit.”

I sent an SMS message to two friends: “Smelly, creamy, yummy durian.” One replied “Eeewww.Yuck” and the other replied saying she was envious.

I remembered a line from a poem I wrote, which wasn’t about durian, but it did describe my new moment with the uncanny fruit quite well: “It would shut eyelids and widen the creases of our smiles.” And that it did.

Also published on The Pond Our Living Asia writer's blog.

Baptised in Baguio

Newbie Scriptwriter/Presenter Julia Arenas says…

Finally decided to get my feet wet and take a dip. Never knew exactly what to write about until after we documented the Panagbenga festival in Baguio last February 23-25. It was my first LAC trip. I do recall “da boss” saying after we got back that there was talk of my being “stupefied” during my first time on cam. Ow, the truth hurts! Haha. In my years as a digital artist I was either behind the camera and/or writing, animating over digitized material or editing. I’ve been asked on occasion to be a VO stand-in but never was at the mercy of a camera lens professionally. It takes some getting used to I suppose.

I gave myself a grace period to pray, relax, and ease through the first-time jitters of being shot, just a day. By noon, I told myself “You’ve got one day, Julia, then snap out of it.” Sir Dick, Efren, and Dickie made such good company and towards the end of the first day I was feeling better about what we were doing and what I had to get done. I noted that in future trips there’ll have to be less of the pensive tourist in me and more of the inquisitive storyteller, and it’s quite ok to mess up in fact sometimes it helps add charm to the piece. While Panagbenga was going on I was having a pep rally and parade of my own deep inside!

By sunset on the 2nd day, the tiny discoveries I made throughout the trip about almost everything, from being a first-time host, to knowing my LAC posse, and of course the sights and sounds of everything Baguio awakened in me the truth that I was exactly where I wanted to be and doing precisely what I set out to do: know my country, love it, and tell people about it in the best way possible.