Rough Groove

At the new Paseo Center, Banawa

My mother and me got curious with the new Rustan’s Supermarket at Banawa as she saw some adverts but wanted to know where while on my part, I heard about this new development in this part of the city that I know is somewhat laid back. With a Convergys call center, and a mall with Starbucks, this is really something. So last Thursday after having lunch at a dimsum diner in Ayala Center, we motored to Banawa. Having asked around, we came upon the Arcenas Estate, a high end subdivision boasting of a residential community with the only underground utility facilities in the province, a premier sports and country club, a retirement village as well as an IT park and call center complex.

I haven’t really gone around the estate as we just entered the grocery but from the looks of it, the mini mall, the rather small Rustan’s Supermarket is I think good to maintain the small village center atmosphere as well as enough to cater the call center employees.

Checkout also Leylander for additional photos.

2 Du houses in San Nicolas, Cebu City, 2

I ventured in the old district of San Nicolas and found two ancestral houses said to be owned by the Du Family. Click the link for Part 1.

Just a block away from the other Du house is another ancestral bahay na bato, left. Bigger than the previous, the upper part might have been renovated many decades ago as can be seen in the way the wooden portion is constructed. I’m not sure, though, if which is older. But looking closer, one cannot miss the stone foundation. Where the thin cement coating has deteriorated, the same coral blocks can be seen.

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2 Du houses in San Nicolas, Cebu City, 1

I was at San Nicolas early this morning to take photos of the church there for a future post in my Simbahan blog and while walking around, I saw two ancestral houses in the bahay na bato style within a block of each other and a stone’s throw from the church compound. I was told that these are owned by the Du family who now reside just beside the other house. As of now, these are rented out to Chinese businessmen.

The house, left, is said to be older than the original stone church in the area that was destroyed many decades ago. As the man that I talked to put it, it was where the men who constructed the church used to stay while erecting it. However, with no visible year of construction outside, and as I’ve not really asked the Du family about the history of the houses or read about this area, this has yet to be verified.

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A brief Flickr meet

It was only last year since I was able to join a series of Flickr Cebu-Sugbo photoshoots and meets so last Sunday night, to ward off boredom, I met with B2y and Wantet at around 2200H at Fuente. We planned to do some night shooting and we then headed for the M Fernan Bridge in Mactan. I’ve been there before during a previous shoot but it was still good to do some photography there. Of course, I got photos of the bridges but the surrounding houses at the water’s edge were also beautiful.

Another and bigger photo can be viewed at Binary Silver.

Cloudy and wet here

Skies are overcast most of the time and intermittent rain throughout the day though sometimes briefly as typhoon Bebeng is making its way out of the country but not overland. Good thing that the storm didn’t come nearer or my flight to Cebu yesterday might have been cancelled. But anyway, its good to be back home even if I might have to adjust my plans of traveling the southwestern side of the province to continue my church documentation until when the weather is sunny with blue skies. I don’t really like photographing the facade of a church with the background sky just cloudy and plainly white.

But at least, I still have the rest of the week up until the next to just laze around at home, go online most of the time, catch up on family news, eat, cable tv, and the occasional trip to the mall (Harry Potter today), and continue some personal photoprojects that I have started a few months ago.