Living Paintings

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

June 7, 2019

Maids and mothers working at home, nature in action or inaction, food and flowers on the table. Whatever the scene, tableaux vivants and still life paintings were the photographs of 17th-century Dutch life. The Dutch Realism style of “living pictures” were static and silent, yet all evoked movement and texture, sound and smell. A visit to Rijksmuseum, particularly the Gallery of Honor, provided a sneak peek into a time in history we would otherwise only see with our mind’s eye.

Rijksmuseum @ Amsterdam

The Way of the Cross

Jerusalem, Israel / Palestine

October 5, 2019

The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

Mark 15:16-20

Despite the scant biblical description, Via Dolorosa stretched to about a kilometer through Old Jerusalem marked by nine of the 14 Stations of the Cross. The main reason for a trip a la sainte terre – to walk where Jesus walked – took a literal meaning on this cobbled path that may or may not be the one Jesus trod as he carried the cross to Calvary. Like most sacred sites in the Holy Land, geographic accuracy took a backseat to the event commemorated. Traditionally, the Friday procession route had been taken by Christian pilgrims for centuries.

The Bread of Life @ Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem

Enter the Dragon, Exit the Tiger

Kaohsiung, Taiwan

December 26, 2019

Entering a dragon’s throat and coming out of a tiger’s mouth symbolizes turning bad luck into good fortune.

The Dragon and Tiger Pagodas at the southern shore of man-made Lotus Lake in Kaohsiung came with that written instruction. It was simple enough yet so fierce: Enter the Dragon and exit just below the Eye of the Tiger. I carbon-dated myself with those retro references, but I couldn’t help it. As products of their time, the pair of pagodas evoked the technicolor 1970s when they were built.

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  TTT @ Dragon and Tiger Pagodas, Kaohsiung

Petra-fied

Wadi Musa, Ma’an Governorate, Jordan

October 9, 2019

At first I was amazed, I was Petra-fied. The ancient city carved out of rose-red sandstone was both a marvel of nature and architecture. A deep and winding fissure that cut through the rocky desert landscape was awesome in itself. That it led to the cliff-sculpted classical façade of an ancient tomb put the wonder in wonderful. Petra had been voted – rightfully so – as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.

Who will bring me to the fortified city?
    Who will lead me to Edom?

Psalm 108:10

TTT @ Bab as-Siq (Outer Siq) and Obelisk Tomb, Petra

Manila in the Claws of Light 2

Manila, the Philippines

November 30, 2020

No pandemic could put a damper on the development of our capital city. The good mayor of Manila, Yorme Isko, had kick-started his revitalization initiatives at the area around Manila City Hall before the world ground to a halt in the first quarter of 2020. While I spent months at home on self-imposed lockdown, public works in the city hardly paused.

Ki @ Lagusnilad Underpass, Manila

O Come Ye to Bethlehem

Bethlehem and Beit Sahour, Israel / Palestine

October 3 – 4, 2019

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

A non-believer once argued with me, “How can you believe that Jesus is God? Man cannot be God!”

I countered, “Yes, man cannot be God. But God can be man.”

That was how I distilled the foundation of the Christian faith in 140 characters or less, a communicative length that millennials understood. The young man conceded with a seemingly enlightened smile. A couple of years later, I would walk the town where the divine was made flesh. The words I had sung in countless Christmas cantatas took on a geographic context. 

Dome of Light

Kaohsiung, Taiwan

December 24 – 28, 2019

Was it an art museum? A grand cathedral? An alien starship? Ki and I collected our jaws off the floor when we emerged from the subway platform. A dome of stained glass backlit to dramatic effect encompassed the lobby of Formosa Boulevard Station. Kaohsiung supposedly had nothing going for it if I were to go by my former students’ opinion of their hometown, but the city went all out to impress us in our first hour upon arrival. And we had yet to step out of the train station.

Formosa Boulevard Station @ Kaohsiung

See Cebu

Cebu City, the Philippines

October 18 – 21, 2019

Only when I threw plans and itineraries to the wind did I make our real-time discoveries. It paid that Ki, an honorary Cebuano by virtue of his affinity to the city, led the way around Cebu. We spent three days urban trekking in both old and new sides of town.

TTT @ SM Seaside City Cebu

Good Things Come in Trees

Marrakesh (Marrakech), Morocco

June 25 – 27, 2019

Marrakech lent itself well to urban trekking. Ki and I explored this walking city exclusively on foot. Wide sidewalks shaded by trees, tall and short, were irresistibly welcoming. But a stretch of Avenue Mohammed V along gentrified Gueliz had a surprise up its sleeve: a row of tree sculptures. It was a genre of public art that we were not familiar with.

TTT with Tree Sculpture by Moulayhafid Taqouraite @ Avenue Mohammed V, Marrakesh

Quarantine in the Wilderness

Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

October 1 – 3, 2019

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt ready for battle.

Exodus 13:17-18

Thus began the most arduous detour in the history of travel. Avoiding the busier, breezier Via Maris along the coastline, Moses led two million Israelites on a protracted, inter-generational journey through Sinai Peninsula, a tiny wedge of land between Africa and Asia on the map but an endless, barren desert on the road, much more on foot. It was a circuitous exodus to the Promised Land that took 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Myth, history, or a bit of both, this tale of freedom from slavery and covenant with Yahweh defined the faith and identity of the Jewish people.

Vale of Hell

Les Baux-de-Provence, France

June 13, 2019

Halfway up, the Alpilles in Les Baux served up stunning views of Provence. The valley was a green canvas on which shingle-roofed towns and winding roads were drawn. All these were framed by pale towering rocks misshapen by wind and water through the eons. I thought it was heaven until I read the overlook marker:

Standing at one end of the Les Baux valley, the Val d’Enfer, or Vale of Hell, exhibits its white sandstone cliffs sculpted by the elements. It gets its name from Dante’s description of “Hell” in his “Divine Comedy,” which was inspired by this very place. The gaping holes of the quarries, which have worked from ancient times to this day, amplify the strangely tormented appearance of this mineral landscape, carved into so many fantastic shapes.

The Rocky Spur of Les Baux @ Chateau des Baux

The Jewel in the Palace

Manila, the Philippines

April 25, 2019

In my 50 years as a Filipino citizen, I never set foot in Malacañang Palace, the seat of power in the Philippines. As the office and official residence of presidents since a century ago, it never piqued my curiosity even as a historical site. A palace implied royalty; last time I checked, our form of government was never a monarchy. The opportunity came in the form of an invite from a colleague and docent-in-training. Her connections in the Presidential Museum secured our group a spot in their weekday guided tours.

TTT with Mesdames X, Y, Z, and a Secret Agent @ Malacañang Palace, Manila

Kyrie Eleison

Cairo, Egypt

September 30, 2019

…Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.

Matthew 17:20

Mokattam Mountain in Cairo had been moved by mustard seed faith. Jesus may have meant His statement metaphorically – He spoke in parables after all – but the Copts took it literally. This mountain’s solid rock face had been heavily quarried, either for practical reasons or mystical qualities, to become building blocks of pyramids and temples. That said, the miraculous geologic movement was not its only astounding aspect. Mokattam stood over a city of trash. Coming from a developing country, our group was familiar with landfill slums, but we had not expected to find ourselves in the middle of one in Cairo.

TTT @ Saint Samaan the Tanner Monastery, Cairo

Kaleidoscopic Kengkou

Kengkou Village, Taoyuan, Taiwan

January 1, 2020

Superstition had it that whatever you did on New Year’s Day predicted how the next 364 days would go. Nothing could be farther than the truth. The first day of 2020 was our last day in Taiwan and, as it turned out, on the road. Unbeknownst to us, a new coronavirus strain was starting to make the rounds in Wuhan, China. In just a couple of months, global travel would completely be paralyzed and then altered by the new normal.

Kengkou Community Painted Village @ Kengkou, Taoyuan

Tales from the Train

Casablanca / Tangier / Fes / Marrakesh, Morocco

June 19 / 22 / 24, 2019

She had WTF written all over her face. Then a suppressed smile lit her eyes. I could see her in my peripheral vision as she was observing Ki pressing his phone on the glass window to take videos of passing landscapes. The observed noticed the observer. She grinned at having been found out. This scene played out in all but one of our train rides around Morocco. Local commuters blind to their daily view were incredulous at a tourist’s child-like amazement. Travel writer Robert Louis Stevenson put it best: “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.”

TTT and Ki @ ONCF Al Boraq High-Speed Train