Arts...Travels...Writing

Tagaytay is probably one of the easiest escapes from the heat and traffic of Metro Manila. Just two hours away, its higher altitude offers literally a different world with greener surroundings and more laid-back atmosphere.  Tagaytay is known for its retreat houses, spas, as well as parks and other recreations. It is also a culinary paradise with unique cafes and world-class restaurants dotting the ridge. Most importantly, one can savour all these in cooler weather, and with a great vista - the scenic Taal Lake and Volcano! One of my favourite places there is Sonya's Secret Garden - a bed and breakfast, with a restaurant, a spa, as well as a wedding venue. Despite its moniker, Sonya's Secret Garden is not a secret anymore, having been around for more than a decade now. But I am pleased to find out that it has retained its charms after all these years. The restaurant remains as it was ten years ago (my last visit before this trip). They still serve almost the same b...

Some cities are more equal than others. And even among the more equal, I would say Tokyo is probably unparalleled. It is not surprising then that this unique and bustling city has inspired many creative endeavours, be it in fashion, culinary arts, or film. My favourite movie about the place is of course Lost in Translation, and at some point I wanted to build our itinerary around this movie's locations. In the end though, we did not exactly follow the itinerary and instead we just let our moods guide us. By going this way though, we managed to see some of the talked-about locations plus a few others that were pleasant surprises. Overview before touching down at Haneda airport. From the plane, one could see many of the tower/power grids dotting the city. But for a highly industrialised one, it is surprising to see such deep-blue bodies of water around the city.  After checking into our hotel, we went out to the nearest place we could put our fingers on...Shibuya. Before r...

Last May, I went with a group of photographers on a travel photography trip to Bhutan, one of the most scenic places I've ever been to. The place is such that it has inspired our team to come up with a travel photography coffee table book that will benefit one of the village schools we have visited. Collectively, we have hundreds and possibly thousands of beautiful photos. Unfortunately we cannot include all these in the book, and so we have invited a panel of photography experts to do the selection objectively - the photos were pooled together by theme, and without any identifying mark to keep the selection process unbiased. We are now close to launching the book, targeted in early October. More details of this coming soon... One of my favourite photos from the trip, below, is selected for the book :-) Stairway To Zen And here are a few more photos from that wonderful trip: The snow capped Tibetan peaks on touchdown A bridge in Paro Tasiccho Dzong in T...