Luca's Cucina Italiana & Lodge

I’m fully aware I’m one of the last to know of this Italian-owned resort at the edge of Puerto Galera known for its good food and hospitality. I heard about it in 2007 but didn’t get to visit until 2013. It’s fairly easy to get there: drive to or board a bus to Batangas Port, take a ferry to Talipanan then walk to the resort or take a ferry to Puerto Galera proper (Sabang) or White Beach then take a multi-cab or tricycle to Talipanan. It all depends on the schedule of the ferry and its destination. The boats are very frequent.

Just like most of the resorts in Puerto Galera, Luca’s is very rustic with wooden or bamboo furniture inside and the bedsheet is often the floral type coming in spring or ice cream colors. The rooms though are far from basic. Each has cable TV, refrigerator, en suite shower with hot water, and air condition that we actually kept on during the entire duration of our stay even if there were windows to let the sea breeze in. During our first visit, our room had about 4 double beds but during the recent visit, we had a double and a single one inside the room. While we always had a beachfront room, rooms at the end of the hall are also available.

With logistics out of the way, what appeals to me about Luca’s is the fact that it is a seclude place to chill. My two visits were in November, on a long weekend, but it was not crowded at all. It’s at the edge of a cove so there are no passersby and it’s quiet. The beach is very clean and there are chairs to lounge at  and also enough space to just lay out your mat and bake under the sun. If you’re into water activities, resort staff can always arrange snorkeling or paragliding. As for me, I was there to relax instead of be active.

Why Paris isn't always a good idea

 

I should have started reporting to Paris today, use my new index number (they disregarded the one in Geneva) and be part of the “international” system. But I refused the offer.

 

Since September last year, it has always been Paris. I don’t know why opportunities seem to spring up from there. But I never liked Paris.

 

I was there for the first time with my mom and I didn’t see the romance most claimed it to have. We cruised the Seine, dined at cafes owned by the Costes brothers, and whiled away hours al fresco watching people go by. My recent visit was with my partner and despite all the museums, history and architecture, that we enjoyed, we concluded it’s not a great place to raise a family.

 

We concluded Geneva is a great place for family. Actually, I think Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands are great for families. Prague, on the other hand, is perfect for singletons. I can only say this because my desire for “international” work and status has brought me to such places.

 

5 Advantages of a DAAD Scholarship

Once you're actually convinced to have an advanced degree from Europe but need help in financing your studies, the German Academic Exchange Service or DAAD would be most helpful. It's easy to get tempted to get support from other seemingly more mobile (guaranteed three countries) and more generous (rumor is stipend can be as high as 2,000 EUR a month) but here's 5 reasons why DAAD is better. 

1. A DAAD scholarship is comprehensive. 

When I mean comprehensive, aside from the monthly stipend, it covers return airfare from your home country to Germany, global travel and health insurance, and at least online basic German language training. In my case, I also had classroom language training upon arrival  in Germany. 

I had to go home after the 3rd month for a family emergency and DAAD covered the airfare based on a certain ceiling amount. My program also required field work for our graduate thesis and although it did not have to be the Philippines, we were highly encouraged to go home and study development issues in our countries. That meant I was able to go home every year with DAAD funding. 

The insurance coverage of DAAD is also very comprehensive. Although it explicitly says no dental treatments, the fine print practically covers every health need. Emphasis on need. During the course of my scholarship, all my health needs in the Philippines, Switzerland, and Germany were covered by the insurance. 

2. A DAAD scholarship is generous not just financially but in terms of opportunities. 

Ok, I'd be honest, the monthly stipend is not as high as other scholarship providers but it is more than enough for living expenses in Germany. The only contribution a student pays is a small fee (about 265EUR per year) to the university that also includes a semester ticket that can be used to travel the entire "state/province" where the university is located. 

My course, MA in Development Management, was a DAAD-funded program so all my other classmates who were not DAAD scholars (we were only 10 scholars in a class of almost 30) were also funded during the events DAAD covered. We all had compulsory summer courses in Berlin (twice!) and Cape Town, and other seminars so DAAD also paid for the transport and accommodation then. Our course also required an internship (not all DAAD courses do) and upon our request, we also had transport support to move to another German city and return to our university town because everybody knows how expensive rail travel is.   

But as scholars, we were also required to attend DAAD-only events. During my time, I attended meetings in Bonn for Millennium Express, in Heidelberg for the Change Agents - The Faces of Change conference, and in Dortmund for the annual geographical meeting for scholars. 

3. DAAD has an extensive alumni network. 

I can't really say DAAD's network is better than other programs but having started in 1925 and having supported close to 51,000 foreigners, that says a lot. For more information on DAAD's support, read this tracer study. 

Beyond the classmates, I met so many students and young professionals from all those meetings and courses. My DAAD scholarship allowed me to take a course at University of Duisburg-Essen with  a lecturer from the German Development Institute so we have fostered relationships there too. Our course is also part of a consortium of postgraduate courses on Economics so we also  have a network with students from Berlin's HTU and Uni Leipzig. I can go on and on. Abroad, our bond with our twin program in Cape Town is as strong as ever. Here in the Philippines, I constantly meet former DAAD scholars, have very cordial relations with the DAAD team, and have been received well by development professionals in the German community. 

4. DAAD courses are mobile.

Some scholarship and courses are promoted and sought because of mobility. While DAAD programs and funding, I believe, are sought mostly for academic and technical reasons, it is a bit of a surprise that it actually provides a lot of mobility. In the course of more than two years, I think I moved more than 11 times. For sure I moved cities every 3 months or so. I lived in three continents (Europe, Africa, Asia) during my studies. In Europe, I lived in Bochum, Hamburg, and Geneva, then add the countless meetings and seminars, which meant we slept on a different bed for at least a night or more. 

5. DAAD can provide opportunities even after graduation. 

I'm not referring to jobs you can get by merely being a DAAD scholar or through its network or a graduate of a German university. I do not have anecdotes for that. But DAAD administers the Carlo Schmid Program (CSP) - internship placements originally intended just for Germans but now offered to non-German DAAD scholars like me under Line C. Thanks to CSP, I was assigned to the UN Joint Inspection Unit in Geneva, Switzerland for 6 months. 

So you can just imagine how full my DAAD scholarship was for more than 2 years. Of the five, I didn't even expound on the academic gains from studying in Germany but that deserves an entirely different post. I do hope this informs your scholarship selection process as this information if often vague or omitted in standard public data. 

Locks at Pont de l'Archevêché in Paris

The Archbishop's bridge or Pont de l'Archevêché is one of the bridges that tourists have latched love locks onto in Paris for years.  Of recent times, moves to prohibit love-locking on Parisian bridges on grounds that they might collapse and are harming the environment from the rust that goes to the wire mesh and the keys thrown into the Seine have become louder. 

Luckily, on our trip to Paris last year, we were able to do our own cliche gesture at the Pont de l'Archevêché. It's more picturesque for me with the Notre Dame behind and a few blocks away, we were already perusing books at Shakespeare and Company. I'm not proud to be a possible pollutant or to be as common as a typical tourist but hey, it's not common to be in Paris with your partner too. 

Comfortably single or coupled or even undecided, I hope you're spending this Valentine's weekend just the way you want. In my case, I will be happy not to be stuck in traffic! 

Nanette's Snack Haus, Maginhawa Street

Long before Maginhawa Street became a haven of foodies and casual intentional dining, there was Nanette's at # 84 selling burritos behind bars.

It wasn't part of my childhood nor my teens but my partner brought me there in 2013 as it brought him back to countless college memories. We were there when Maginhawa Street was being widened and the drainage was being fixed. It wasn't as comfortable as the streetside haunts so hip in the Poblacion area of Makati these days but hey, we were eating outdoors under the pleasant afternoon sun surrounded by trees. 

And our food was made to order.

Solitude in San Sebastian, Spain

It was a time in my life where I was always in Spain and enjoyed promoting Spanish tourism. A long, complicated and arduous project concluded that week and I was in dire need of a holiday. I thought why not go to Madrid and hang out with my friend Olivia? Visit Seville and see the hometown of my spiritual adviser. It would be a good idea to meet the family of our business partners in Salamanca too. But for me? Truly, the trip for myself was visiting the Basque country, specifically San Sebastian and Bilbao. 

Then and now, I still have a split personality of being torn between food and development (I thought it was called government and politics when I was younger). Pais Vasco appealed to me on two fronts. First, my curiosity about its autonomous government and concerns about ETA - an armed nationalist separatist organization that then sought independence from Spain aside from its earlier function of just promoting Basque culture. Second, related to culture, is the food. There's tapas and then there's pintxos - the cornerstone of northern Spain's culture - differentiated from tapas because everything is held together on a spike with the bread opposed to just small plates as it is with tapas. 

So there I was after Prague, Madrid, Seville, and Salamanca, on a train by myself to Donostia-San Sebastian. It was a trip without plans except to rest and enjoy. I only had a hotel booked and didn't even arrange for transfers. Travelling solo was not novelty or cool to me. It was simply no big deal. I used to believe that if I wait for a companion to do something, I'll never get around to doing it. 

To get our geographical bearings in order, San Sebastian is a coastal city in the Basque country of Spain, about 12 miles to the French border around the Atlantic ocean. In several occasions, it took turns with Gipuzkoa as the capital.  Its iconic landmark is La Concha bay (shaped like a shell) and my hotel was right before you reached Igueldo, which was a great place to see the rest of the bay. 

I was aware San Sebastian is one of the cities with the highest concentration of Michelin stars per capita but I didn't make reservations for any. After my walking and bus tours, I just moved from one bar to another, having a pintxo or two, leaving trails of table napkins and toothpicks on the floor as it is done in Spain. Unlike Madrid, I also saw a lot of shops and bars selling bacalao (dried cod) in so many ways too. Such a pity I couldn't bring home slabs of bacalao that my mom could cook so well!

VVG Bistro in Taipei

Right across VVG Something is VVG Bistro which Grace Wang opened much earlier. Despite confessing that she's got no restaurant experience prior to opening the bistro, she has certainly succeeded in creating an inviting space that meld the outdoors in. 

Upon entry, you'll see the mixed furniture inside the sunroom surrounded by plants. Inside, you'll discover that you can choose from couches, long wooden tables for groups, and smaller round tables. VVG Bistro is much bigger than the bookstore and more bright and airy. It easily is a space to hang out with friends over a meal or dessert or just get lost in solitude reading a book. The interiors give a rustic shabby chic vibe in the French countryside. (Apparently Grace Wang was inspired by French Laundry's Thomas Keller too.) 

VVG Something in Taipei

I like to read and write but definitely not as much as my friends K and J. I went to Taipei on holiday for the food but not for the bookstores. But my friends were keen to feed both the belly and the mind. And so it wasn't enough just to visit Eslite (the 24 hour bookstore)  and have truffle fries with a view of Taipei 101. We also went to VVG Something. 

Located at the area of Zhongxiao Dunhua MRT station, it's easy to get lost on the way to VVG Something. The entire neighborhood is surrounded by other little shops and residences that make you so curious you'd make a sudden turn to an alley and you're lost. But it was also how we realized that the people of Taipei are truly kind. While asking for directions, one immediately took out his smart phone, got the website and called the shop and walked us right to where we needed to be. 

Owned by Grace Wang, VVG simply means very, very good.  Her philosophy is to find what is good in life and find products that embody it. Once you get over the colorful plants and flowers outside and the pretty red doors, it's easy to feel helplessly drawn in and way harder to get out. 

At the center of the shop, which really just looks like a medium-sized L-shaped room is a massive table full of books. On sale are books on art, travel, design, and culinary that would make anyone go crazy with the hard-to-find English titles. Seeing the spread forces you to immediately wonder if you can afford it and if you still have enough weight allowance to bring it all home. Thinking back, they remind me of shops in Berlin and Hamburg too.

Learning from an Expert: An Integrator

Last week, I attended a "write shop" on international coastal management (ICM). A regional expert, Dr. Chua, lead the discussion on existing ways to address the issue and how it can be improved. In the process, he said that part of the solution is having the right people aside from other aspects of an enabling environment. 

Any endeavor needs the right person - the best possible fit available. 

But there are fields that require a mixed set of skills and mindset. And in a world changing towards a direction where a broader view and understanding is required to give specific solutions, integrators come to fore. Devex published an article on the rising need for integrators in development last year. So it's not about knowing just a little of everything for a big picture but being able to stitch the different pieces together to create a whole. 

Complimenting my fondness on the usefulness of an integrator in international development, Dr. Chua mentioned one thing that struck me: to provide solutions to ICM, the persons involved must:

1. Be technical like a scientist so he understands the systematic nature of the problem and solution.

2. Work like a manager because he will coordinate with a lot of agencies and deliver solutions.

3. Speak like a diplomat because let's face it: you have to work even with your enemies (e.g. a mining company) to get the solutions that you need. 

As I sat there, I realized Dr. Chua's requirement was more than just being a mere integrator because not everyone can possess all three. I dare to say very few - that's why experts are hired! But such tall order for an even more daunting task - to save the world via coastal management.

Sala Bistro in Greenbelt, Makati

Every time we have a seasoned traveler balikbayan (returning Filipino) who wants to catch up over a meal, the suggested dining venue requested is often always Sala Bistro in Greenbelt. Makati alone boasts a lot of restaurants in varying categories and cuisines with impeccable service and guaranteed to keep you coming back but when you've just had enough Filipino food and want that white linen service, then it has to be Sala Bistro. 

On a recent lunch of three, we split three mains and had our own desserts. I used to always have the salmon with risotto but since I arrived late, the pasta and steak were already ordered. For something light, I requested an additional order of the seafood and fish stew. It was confusing as it seemed more like soup than stew to me. The broth was very tasty and the done-ness of the seafood was alright. Just the right firmness without being overcooked. It would have been so good with bread. 

Except by then, I already enjoyed the casarecce with porcini, guanciale, and truffle cream. It was my first time to eat anything with guanciale and when I was told it was smoked pork cheeks, I was thrilled! Posh sisig is that you? This dish falls under the yummy comfort food category except having hints of truffle is always a bit of a luxury. Party in your belly! While I will not return to Sala Bistro for the steak (it made me crave for other steaks), the casarecce I want to eat again. 

Later on, we had tea with some cakes. I had a generous spoon of my aunt's chocolate cake and it was divine! But I had to leave room for my lemon meringue which reminded me of another dessert I miss in Manila - meringue with double Gruyere cream with fruits. At first bite of the meringue, I immediately thought of the lemon squares my aunt of Kuya's and Jed and Julian's (my cousins) fame - hers was better. Hers had the right balance of citrus and sweet. Thankfully, the tea tempered the could have been better aftertaste of Sala Bistro's dessert. 

But overall, I like the dining experience at Sala Bistro. You can leisurely enjoy your meal without being rushed at all while listening to ambient music. That time, we were there for more than three hours with some bossa nova in the background. It was a sunny day and its high windows certainly let the sunlight in but its chilly air-conditioning tone down the rays. 

I admit, I have to try the plenty new restaurants in Manila but if you're not a fad-follower like me, Sala Bistro is worth returning to for the classics. 

Site: Sala Bistro