How to spend a Christmas stay-cation in Manila

1. Ask Facebook

Type "Who's in Manila this Christmas break?" and see how many of your friends will be sticking around, then meet up with them! If you and your friends decide to meet at each other's homes, you could arrange for a Christmas-themed potluck! Have fun being creative (take a look at these brownies) and you could do a gift-exchange. To make it more interactive, try playing games like Mafia, Connect, Charades... and even App games which can involve everyone, eg. Heads Up, Psych!, Trivia Crack, etc. This is not necessarily celebrating Christmas - I mean, 'Tis the season to be jolly! so make it fun!

2. Watch Christmas light shows

• Ayala Triangle, Makati every night until January 7th (every 30 minutes from 6pm - 10pm) I featured this in the last part of my Christmas vlog last year:

• Policarpio street, Mandaluyong - a whole street of houses covered with LED lights!
• Cultural Center of the Philippines, Roxas Boulevard Manila - there's a giant Christmas tree there that's lit every night from 6 -11pm
• Mall of Asia Grand Festival of Lights - it's not just about the lights, but there are also mascots, music, fireworks every Saturday of December (plus Christmas day) at 5:30pm

*There's also something going on in Quezon City, Filinvest Alabang and Greenhills (just google it!)

A little bit out of Manila:

• Cainta Christmas Home - Filinvest Homes East, Marcos Highway, Cainta Rizal. The whole house is covered with lights, and surrounded with magical. Hundreds of visitors go everyday

Halloween-themed Devotional Gathering

Devotional gatherings are one of my favorite activities!
They can be so easy to prepare for, and yet very laborious.
But it's something that anyone, anywhere can organize. Devotional gatherings are one of the core activities in the Bahá'i Faith - there are no rituals, it's simply just a gathering open for everyone (of all religious, spiritual, cultural backgrounds) to read the Sacred Texts. There is no priest or clergy to preside over the gathering (no one is above the other) so each person reads and we all listen with our own ears, and know with our own knowledge.

"...all should gather, and, harmoniously attuned one to another, should engage in prayer; with the result that out of this coming together, unity and affection shall grow and flourish in the human heart." -Abdu'l-Bahá

Since I moved to the Philippines exactly one year ago, I've been attending the regular devotional gatherings on Sundays at the Bahá'i center... sometimes there's a specific topic, sometimes one or two friends bring readings they like to share, or we study a Message from the Universal House of Justive, then other times we just have a round of prayers. Recently I decided to organize holiday-themed devotional gatherings. On the last weekend of October, in the spirit of Halloween, I organized a devotional gathering on "life after death" where I put together readings from the Bahá'i Writings about the soul, the afterlife, and other concepts. That's the night mentioned in the previous blog when my friend Mona and I prepared some halloween-inspired snacks for dinner.

typo: life *after* death

Our program started with a round of prayers - most said prayers for the dead. Quite a number of guests who came that night had lost people very close to them - two of them their mother, and one her husband. I thought about this before putting together the readings, that I wanted it to be very uplifting and positive. To be honest, sometimes I feel so unsure how to sound when I talk about death. I grew up with this notion that "death is a messenger of joy". As far as I can remember, my Dad would always talk about "what I die.." this or that, like it was nothing. Of my four grand parents, I've only lost one so far - my grand father, but two years before died,  my Dad made me visit my grand parents in Iran. I didn't want to go but my Dad said "they're already old, this might be your last time to see them", and it was the last time I saw my grandfather. Somehow, my Dad always prepares me; he has always made me realize that people can go anytime. Whenever he meets people who have lost someone, he always tells them "be happy, they are in a much better place. they are comfortable now". I grew up with this mindset, but I know it's still sad for some people... so death has always been a topic I try to avoid. And for this devotional gathering, I tried to keep the spirits up.

Three days in Palawan

It all started in my kitchen nearly two months ago. Two of my friends and I were talking about traveling around, mainly because one of them is in the Philippines for his 3-months on the job training (and wants to take advantage of his weekends to explore). The other person said her next holiday is on Thanksgiving (fourth week of November) so we looked up plane tickets and found an amazing flight promotion with AirAsia - P1,500 from Manila to Puerto Princesa and P2,000 returning. 

The first and last time I visited Palawan was exactly ten years ago with my family. I have so many happy memories from that trip, so the thought of going back made me very excited. The night that my friends and I were together planning this trip, my Dad reached out to his old friend in Puerto Princesa who recently turned her restaurant/home into a bread and breakfast. And that's where we headed straight to from the airport - Dang Maria. 

located in Manalo ext. Bancao-Bancao. 

The host Jane Timbancaya-Urbanek is one of the sweetest, most spiritual women I've ever met. She has a very soft and gentle voice that whenever I listen to her, it's as if not just my ears but even my heart and soul open up to listen. She showed us around her beautiful place - inside the building and outside in the garden are tables and chairs because her restaurant is very popular; they were the first to introduce brick-oven baked pizza to the island. She showed us around the few rooms she recently renovated (each room is named after one of her grandchildren). My friends and I ordered cordon bleu for dinner and of course tried their famous pizza and I only had one word for our first meal "divine!" 

Day 1: Honda Bay Island Hopping tour

After a good night's rest, we woke up early and had our Filipino breakfast (this is included in the room charge) and at around 7:30 our tour guide picked us up. We picked up other tourists from their hotels (we were almost 20 in our group), then drove off to Honda Bay. Along the way, we stopped at a shop where we could rent snorkels, swimming shoes and flippers (P100 - P150). We then got on our boat and zoomed off to our first island - Star fish island.

A very common price you'll find online or through travel agents for the Honda Bay island hopping tour (inclusive of land transport to and from your accommodation, buffet lunch, a tour guide and environmental fee) is P1,500 per person. But a few days before our trip, I found a promotion on travelbook.ph's Facebook page of only P800 per person (great find!) so I quickly booked it for the three of us. The service provider was Mayson's Travel and Tours.

We stayed there for about an hour and very unfortunately we didn't get to see any starfish! We were told that at times they come near the shore and other times they shy away into the water. The swimming area was shallow, and full of corals...but the water wasn't very clear. I remember ten years ago I could see those corals very clearly without goggles, because the water was crystal blue and the corals even had more colors. Could this be the effect of climate change?

Next stop was Luli island. This was my favorite - there was a diving board at the deep side which I dove from a couple of times (this was my first time diving from such height) and a floating shed where we sat on and swam around most of the time. The sand on this island was very fine and white, and we also saw a lot of fish in the water. I almost didn't want to leave!

The last island was Cowrie island - we got to spend almost three hours there and have our buffet lunch. I was personally very disappointed with the lunch... If I had known, I would have gotten something grilled at Starfish island (there's fresh fish on Starfish Island and you can have the people there grill and pack it for you, to take to Cowrie island). We didn't swim much on this island; we mostly just relaxed together under a tree and played some music.

We got back to Puerto Princesa at around 4:30pm. Overall, we really enjoyed it, but it felt so rushed! I wish we either had more time at Luli Island or visited a 4th island! Here's a quick video I put together of our first day's adventure:

To end the night, we had dinner at a nearby restaurant, Captain Ribs. We absolutely recommend it! It has a very relaxing outdoor/garden sitting area. We loved the cheese sticks so much (we had two rounds) plus vegetable quesadillas, fish & chips and a burger and their dessert of the day - chocolate fondant with vanilla ice cream (Price range P150 - P400).

Day 2: Underground River (or not)

We went separate ways this day. The other two did the Underground River tour from 6:30 - 4pm. I chose not to go because of my embarrassingly serious fear of the dark! I went to the Underground River a decade back (when I was braver) and now the thought of going back in to the dark, with bats flying around (despite my obsessive love for Batman) just made me cringe. So my friends went ahead and they had a great time! Their tour package (with a different travel agent) cost P1,800 each - inclusive of pick up/drop off, environmental fee, buffet lunch and zip-lining at Ugong Rock! 

(photo from Sina)

I, on the other hand, went to the butterfly garden. Instead of hiring a tricycle to go all the way there (it's about an hour away from the city center - a tricycle ride would cost P150), I asked the locals for directions. I took a tricycle to the main road (Rizal avenue) then took the Sta Monica jeep which dropped me off exactly at the butterfly eco-garden. I paid the entrance fee of P50 which also included a few minutes at the tribal village just behind the garden! The tribal village was very interesting for me - I got to see native tribesmen who only spoke their dialect (very different from tagalog). They showed us some tools they created, they demonstrated their native hunting tools (spears and arrows), and even made fire with just one scratch of a stone. They also played three musical instruments (one guitar like, two flute-like) very unique to their tribe.

Photos from my Instagram stories

After that I went back to town and met my friend's Mom. Thereafter I went to a mall to buy groceries for our dinner/breakfast the next day. At around 5pm, my friends and I met up and headed to the bus terminal and got a ride going to Aborlan (It's an hour and a half drive away). That night we prepared dinner then had a devotional gathering with a family.

Day 3: D-I-Y

I woke up at 5 am to a text message from Air Asia saying our 7:55pm flight has been moved to 6:45am the next day! A few hours later I got up and prepared us a big breakfast (beacon, hotdogs, baked beans and french fries), then we headed back to Puerto Princesa. We went straight to the airport to check if there's an earlier flight, but there was none. The airline staff told us that they'll be putting us at a hotel this night, so that was good news (or else I was ready to fight for it). We were taken to Sunlight Hotel. It had a gorgeous view - not just outside (overlooking the sea) but also inside (the bathroom wall is made of glass!) We relaxed for a few hours, watched a movie and connected to wifi (the first time we had internet in more than 12 hours). 

Later that evening we went back to Dang Maria. The Soroptimist group held a fund-raising dinner for their cause (to help battered women). We had a very romantic dinner under a tree, got to spend more time with Jane and even hear her sing her famous Plooning! Watch:

*If our flight hadn't been postponed, our original plan was to do a city day tour. A tour package normally goes for P400-P600... the tricycle driver will take you around for 4 hours, to the butterfly garden, crocodile farm, Mitra's ranch, Baker's Hill, Cathedral, plaza ... And then have lunch at Dang Maria's before catching our evening flight. The delayed flight gave us time to unwind...so we didn't return to Manila tired.

According to Rappler, Palawan is named the world's best island. There's more to Palawan than Puerto Princesa <Palawan is made up of 1,700+ islands> Coron and El Nido, for example, are far more popular with the tourists. I personally enjoyed Puerto Princesa - I loved the water, the sun, the food, the locals! I hope you find this blog post helpful, next time you plan a trip to Palawan. If you have any questions, feel free to write to me through the message box on the left side of the page.

Halloween-inspired Dinner

It's my favorite time of the year! Halloween! 

For me, Halloween has always just been a time to be creative. It's not so much about scary and creepy, but... it is more fun when it's scary and creepy! Last year I prepared three halloween-themed desserts using gummy worms, so this year I'm going to share with you a few more ideas of quick and easy-to-make halloween-themed food/snacks. Someone helped me with this - it took us about 5-6 hours to prepare the following for our "life after death" devotional gathering:

Appetizer: Deviled Eggs

Boil some eggs (for around 8 minutes) then peel the shells off and cut in half. Scoop out the yolk and put in a bowl. Add some mayonnaise, chopped chives, some salt and pepper and mix until it's almost paste-like, then place it all in a piping bag. Press the mixture into the egg whites. The spider is basically just black olives! 

I know all my spiders are missing a pair of legs...so this isn't technically a spider anymore. 

For aesthetic purposes, I also placed some dried squid (a Thai snack) around the eggs. 

 Main: Bloddy Spaghetti & Meatball eyes

with Bone Sticks

X made the meatballs - your typical ingredients (ground pork, onions, garlic, flour, egg, bread crumbs) shaped in a ball then fried. For the sauce, I sautéd some onions and garlic and used one can of corned beef. We didn't blend tomatoes; we used the ready-made Del Monte Spaghetti sauce (a large Italian style, and a small "sweet" style). After mixing the sauce and the pasta and placing the meatballs on the spaghetti, we turned them into eye balls with a thin slice of cheese and a thin olive ring! 

The bone sticks are basically white bread shaped like bones, and toasted! The excess part of the bread was used for the meatballs (instead of buying bread crumbs). 

Main 2: Finger in a bun

This was probably the creepiest looking on the table! "Halloween hotdogs" came up when X and I googled for halloween food ideas. It's so easy to make - just get some chicken hotdogs, then slice a little part of the top (to look like a nail-less finger) then a few lines in the middle (to give more details to the finger) and boil! Smear some ketchup inside the bun before placing the hotdogs inside, and also add a little more ketchup in the lines/knuckles. Sick!!

Dessert: Slimy worms

The base of this is gulaman (gelatine). It's a mix of green and black. The gelatine is flavorless, so I just added sugar to make it a bit sweet. Then I made another gulaman mix that's color red (instead of adding sugar, I added strawberry juice powder), then I diced it all up to look messy and poured it on top of the first layer of jelly. I poked a few holes around and inserted gummy worms. In the dark, it looks bloody and muddy...and the texture of the diced jelly on top made it look like the gummy worms were moving around. 

Dessert 2: Cupcakes 

X was in her comfort zone when she started to bake. The smell coming out of the oven was absolutely heavenly! Here's her recipe:

Cake batter:
(2) 1/2 cups sifted flour
(1) 1/2 cup white sugar
2 tbs baking powder
1 stick melted butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup water or milk
1 tbs vanilla extract
3 eggs
1/2 cup melted chocolate
1/4 cup instant coffee (mixed with water)

Frosting:
2 cups unsalted butter
2 cups granulated sugar
(1) 1/2 tbs vanilla extract

These ingredients made us 30 cupcakes!

For the topping, we had bought some chocolate oreos which we wanted to crush and pour over the icing, to look like soil. But a few hours after we got home, we couldn't find the oreos. Turns out my brother stole them from the shopping bag! Good thing we bought some gummy eyes, so we just used those instead.

Drinks

I wanted to make Chapman (a popular Nigerian drink/my childhood favorite) but I completely forgot to get grenadine syrup (non-alcoholic). So this is just Fanta and Coke mixed together. Then more candies! Gummy worms on the jug and gummy vampire teeth on the glasses!

Our table set up

Those decorations on the wall were all hand made. I just searched on youtube
"how to make halloween lanterns" and "paper spiders"
Learn something new every day :) 

Celebrating 200 Glorious Years

Last October 20th to 22nd (from sunset to sunset), millions of Bahá'is and their friends all around the world celebrated the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Bahá'u'lláh, the Founder of the Bahá'i Faith. Many communities have been planning and preparing for this since a year ago...because the bicentennial anniversary is more than just a get-together or a single event. It's beyond that. It's about inviting our friends, our family, strangers to 

"seize the opportunity to find out who Bahá'u'lláh was and what He represents".

www.bahai.org

In Manila and Makati, we celebrated almost the same way as last year, but with a few more activities example we held a photos and books exhibition at the Regional Bahá'i Center. For a whole month, leading up to the celebration weekend, my role revolved around coordinating the documentation of the celebrations all around the Philippines. That meant reaching out to Bahá'is in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao to learn about their plans, to share photo guidelines with them, and find ways to receive their photos immediately after their celebrations not only to share on our official Facebook page Bahá'i Faith in the Philippines but also to share a select few on the newly launched bicentenary website of the World Center www.bicentenary.bahai.org 

Playing that middle-role, of receiving then sharing, was a very unique experience.

Music in honour of the Bicentenary Birth of Bahá'u'lláh

A friend of mine in San Jose Occidental Mindoro (Jeff Lomat) composed a very beautiful song in honour of the upcoming Bicentenary Birth Anniversary of Bahá'u'lláh. It's a song about how knowing Bahá'u'lláh and serving His Cause has inspired him and changed his life. 

"When I was younger, I always busied myself with worldly things. In 2011, at the beginning of the previous 5-year plan, I was invited to attend a conference, and from there I was given the opportunity to serve as a mobile tutor. I felt so blessed that despite my shortcomings, I was given the bounty to serve. A month into serving, my view of life changed! I realized that my persona life becomes better when I think of the well-being of others and when I participate in activities that contribute to community-building process. I would like to share a particular quotation that really touched my heart "Let each morn be better than its eve and each 'morrow richer than its yesterday". For me, this change happened when I knew Bahá'u'lláh, and I wanted to offer my life in the path of service for Him." - Jeff.

This morning, Jeff posted on Facebook that he had composed a song for the Bicentenary celebrations, and if we wish to hear it, we should send him our e-mail address so that he could send the file, and so I asked for a copy. 10 seconds into the song, I was already in love with it! 

The melody... and then his voice (his voice is really really good! flawless)

 I'm not fluent in Tagalog, therefore I didn't get the lyrics right away, so I thought to myself why don't I get the lyrics and make a video? That way, he can share his music...

Foroozan: the OG

It's been two years since my dear grand father (my Dad's father) passed away in Iran. During these two years, I've always wanted to pay tribute to him, by writing a little piece. But every time I plan to start, I never know where to begin. So I've decided to write with the words that have already been put together. I'll be sharing four of my favorite stories that friends/family have told me about my grand father, Ahmad. I've met him so many times in my life and we've made a lot of wonderful and happy memories as a family, but somehow my favorite stories of him are the ones told by others. 

Fun Fact: my grand father was not born Foroozan.
His family name was something completely different/but very long too.
When he became a Baha'i, he changed his last name to "Foroozan" which
in farsi means "shining". So I'm just a third generation Foroozan 

1. A second cousin of mine once told me that ever since she was very young, she was always fond of my grand father. Even though all their relatives were against him, and said all sort of nasty things just because he is a Bahá'i, she stayed close to him because she thought he was "different" and she was always curious to understand why. She said that once upon a time in the village they used to live in, there was a lady who was known around to be sort of a "prostitute". One day this lady became pregnant and gave birth to a boy, but the man who made her pregnant kept denying that he is the father. Everyone in the village of course knew he was the father, but he never admitted. The law in Iran (back then, perhaps even now?) is that illegitimate children won't be granted a birth certificate. Knowing that this boy, born out of wedlock, would face such difficulties (not just that he won't get a birth certificate, but he'll also grow up not having or knowing a father), my grand father intervened in their private lives and kept insisting to the man that they bring this case to court, until he finally admits he's the father. My cousin does not remember anymore what the result was, but she just remembers how no one in the village cared, but my grand father did. He'd always fight for justice, for his rights and the rights of others, even when it was none of his business. 

2. There's an old man who I always see at our home every time we travel to Iran. I've been seeing him for so many years - he goes out with my grand father, he helps my aunt with house work... Last year I finally decided to ask someone what's our relation with him. She said that this man and Ahmad have known each other for so many decades; they used to live in the same village (before moving to the city).  This man and some of his friends were once on a mission to kill Ahmad (yes, that was very common back then - fanatics would kill Bahá'is because they were told it's their way to heaven).

Behind the scenes: Bicentenary Trailers

I still remember the exact day, the exact moment when felt like a huge lightbulb flicker over my head. This was the idea to make a video/trailer for the bicentenary celebrations. I was walking back from work one night and I suddenly remembered that a friend had told me that the Bahá'is of the UK made a nice animation/video with some sort of "coming soon" at the end. She said she'd send me the link, but a few days later I remembered it and realized I hadn't yet seen the video. I started to imagine what the video might look like, then new ideas started coming to mind. What if I make a "coming soon" trailer? I started picturing an invitation card, the National Bahá'i Center sign, a guitar... When I got home, I rushed to my room, took out a little notebook and jotted down all random thoughts, and after a few moments on my chair, bam! I jumped over to my Mom's room and "announced" this idea which probably made no sense to her! That same night, I wrote in our Manila Bahá'is group chat that I'd like everyone present on Sunday because I wanted to shoot a video.  

Eventually, I re-wrote my notes and even typed out some sort of script, to guide myself just so that I don't forget anything, because my ideas were all over the place! When Sunday came, I walked up to the friends one by one and asked "do you want to be in my video?" Everyone was absolutely willing to join. The first scene was a little challenging because I was just getting used to taking a video with my DLSR. I usually use my camera for photos, and my phone for videos - so this was my first time using my camera for videos. But after the first scene, I got a hang of the camera and everything went smoothly. We shot the different scenes - some in just one take, and the others in just two takes! 

This was also my first time directing a video. Before this, I had only made vlogs where it was all about "me" but this time I had to work with people. It was really really fun; I really enjoyed working with my friends, shooting and editing. Of all my videos so far, this continues to be the one I am happiest for! 

Trailer 1: Save The Date

*as of October 2017, this video has 22,000+ views and 500+ shares on facebook!

I wasn't really planning to make another video after that. But exactly two months later, a new idea hit me.

Mother & Child collection

Last weekend, while visiting some old family friends, we discovered that one of them turned part of her house into a museum! It's filled with over 1,000 pieces of art work (paintings, sculptures, textiles, dolls etc) depicting a mother and a child. She calls it her Mother & Child Collection. 

Some items were bought by herself wherever she travelled to, and some were given to her as gifts. Every space in the house was filled with art (from gigantic wooden sculptures to figurines on the shelves) - in the the kitchen, the bathroom, on the window sills, and at the corners! Some art works were funny, some were thought-provoking, some were really sweet, but everything was just beautiful. Of course I did not get to see every single item (you'll need to spend hours in that house if you want to see everything) - but I took photos of some that I really admired. This will also show you the diversity of the collection:

Recipe: Kimchi

My family's relationship with Kimchi goes waaaayyy back to even before I was born! In our early years in Port Harcourt, Nigeria my Dad used to work at a Korean company, so we'd always join the Korean families whenever they had get-togethers/picnics. And my parents are the kind of people who always love to learn how something is made (which is why my Mom makes ah-mazing home-made hummus, tabouli, and my Dad makes incredible egusi soup!) So early on, they learnt the art of Kimchi, and it has stayed in the family for more than two decades now. Until recently, it was always my Mom making it - not just for home consumption, but also for sale. Now I've been forced to learn (thanks to my Dad's cravings and his broken hand.) 

In the last two months, I've made Kimchi three times - the first two under my Dad's supervision, and today I made it 90% on my own! Here's how:

1. Chinese cabbage

Depending on how much Kimchi you want to make, get some Chinese cabbage. Last night I got three big ones, sliced them all in half and soaked them in salted water overnight. When I say salted water, I mean 20 full spoons of salt mixed with water. Salty water helps soften the cabbage. You don't need to soak overnight; a few hours is fine. After that, you take the cabbage out of the water and rinse thoroughly (to take out the salt). Then slice the cabbage - it's up to you how big or how small, but I went with 4 slices per cabbage. Squeeze and place them all in a strainer to take out all the water. Keep aside.