[smartads] Zamboanga City – Asia’s Latin City. Unfortunately this is one of those cities that I will probably never visit. It is just too far south in the Philippines and that usually means excessive guerrilla activity. It’s to bad too because some of the places in the pictures I would like to see. Maybe some day there will be peace in the entire Philippines and I will get to go. I’m not holding my breath, but I can always hope for a miracle. In this post I have inserted plenty of links to websites about Zamboanga City. There are 10 of them, including one 4:42 minute video. If you are curious, please use them. It could reveal some interesting facts to you.
Zamboanga City is in the Mindanao region of the Philippines. Known as the City of Flowers (the etymology of Zamboanga comes from the malay word jambangan means garden of flowers-by faiza paredes), it is now one of the most important and busiest port cities in the Philippines.
The Chavacano Language (popularly known as Zamboangueño Chavacano, which is based on 80% Spanish words, and 20% Italian, Portuguese, Quechua, Taino, Mexican-Indian, Nauhtl, Tagalog,Ilongo, Bisaya and other Philippine languages) made Zamboanga as “Asia’s Latin City.”
This is also because of the same traditions with Spain, particularly the patroness Our Lady of the Pilar (which is also the Patroness of Spain).
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/zamboanga
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamboanga_City
Useless Knowledge: The female pigeon cannot lay eggs if she is alone. In order for her ovaries to function, she must be able to see another pigeon. If no other pigeon is available, her own reflection in a mirror will suffice. Very narcissistic! (she’s not narcissistic, she just doesn’t know it’s her and she’s one of the ones that like for others to watch)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upFRXqqtM58
22 May – Hits @ 0001 = 429964. There is not too much happening today. It’s Sunday so there is no Vicky, no Sally and it’s been relatively quiet all day. We did get a little bit of rain today. There’s a tropical storm (Chedeng) heading this way so we are expecting a lot more rain (and wind).
I guess about the biggest thing that has happen so far today is I needed some bread..okay I wanted some bread…so I walked down to the little store where we normally buy it, but it was closed. I know they close for an hour at lunch time, either 11-12 or 12-1, I forget, but I really didn’t want to wait, but it looked like I didn’t have a choice and I wasn’t even sure they were open today. Well Emey decided to get on J’s bike and find me some bread. He figured that there would be another store a little further down that would be open and selling bread. As it turns out, there wasn’t. He ended up riding that bicycle all the way downtown (1 mile) to buy me a loaf of bread. I didn’t ask him to do that, he volunteered and went above and beyond the call of lunch.
Lita just told me that I’ve been spelling Emey name wrong. It’s suppose to be Emen. I’m going to try to start using the Emen until I hear something different. I’ll try to remember to ask him tomorrow. If I forget to ask and I start using both names for awhile, then don’t be confused.
Two of the articles that I posted are getting a lot of unexpected attention. The Samar Provincial Hospital and the Almira Garden Hotel have been looked at by more people recently than just about any other post, except the latest news things like the typhoons, executions and volcanoes. If anyone has been to either the hospital or the hotel please let me know what you thought about it/them. I’d like to insert your comments in the blog for other people to become knowledgeable of it/them. I know the hotel looks decent, but I just visited, I never stayed in the rooms over night. Heck I’m not even sure if they have a restaurant at the hotel.
Useless Knowledge: Plains zebras establish harmonious harems. Harem masters have exclusive mating rights with up to 6 mares. Zebra harems are so stable that the mares remain associated with each other for life. Their foals have additional protection from the family stallion’s readiness to defend his mates and offspring against all threats to their survival. (oh..I’d want to be the Harem master bad enough to kick all their striped asses).
23 May – Hits @ 0045 = 433165. It is now 0236 and I’m getting ready for bed. Someone down the street is still blaring their music. That is not uncommon here. I don’t think they have any laws covering quiet hours here. If they do, they are not enforced. It won’t bother me though, I’ll fall asleep and sleep right through until morning, not a problem.
I decided to drag myself out of bed at 0748 this morning. I forget why I got up, but I guess I got tired of laying there. I slept for a little less than 5 hours, but I felt good enough to get up. Maybe it was because I took a nap Sunday afternoon. I’ll probably end up taking a nap this afternoon also. I can do that, you know. Just about anytime I want to.
http://www.zamboanga.net/index.html
I had to make some stew today. It’s been quite a few days since I’ve made any. I don’t know exactly what I did, but the stew today was extra delicious. I used the last of Lita’s special seasoning though, so I don’t know if I can duplicate it. All that ingredients she had mixed together, we can’t get here, so I’ll have to wait until next year when we visit Texas so she can make some more. We’ll just send it in a balikbayan box with some other stuff. I’ll bet we end up sending at least a half dozen boxes.
The tropical storm is still on the way. As of today it is projected to make landfall in Eastern Samar, but I doubt it will affect us much here. Probably just some rain and more wind. There is a chance that it will swerve northward towards Luzon before it makes landfall (it did swerve north towards Isabella, check out my latest post on that).
http://www.zamboanga.com/html/area_map.htm
I noticed that my Spam has slowed down recently. I had been getting a lot of it especially from one particular place. I just delete it as soon as I see it and they never actually get approved to be seen on the blog, so I still don’t understand why they do it. The only real problem I have with it is that sometimes I get so much of it, I don’t even bother looking to see if maybe someone got sent to the Spam folder by mistake, I just delete them all without looking at any of them. It gets so tiresome looking at the same 30 line spam message on there, and it’s on there at least a dozen times, sometimes more. I hope it stays down. I know that eventually someone else will start sending crap too. I’ll just do the same thing, delete it as soon as I see it. That seems to work after awhile.
Tonight at 11:43pm we broke the record for the most users on the blog at one time. It actually broke the record by a lot. The previous record was back on February 13th (I believe) and it was 24. The new record now sits at 42. So that is an increase of 18 users at one time. I didn’t check, but it’s probably because of the incoming storm, but I hope it’s because people are discovering what a fantastic site that I have.
http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/Philippines/Zamboanga_City/TravelGuide-Zamboanga_City.html
http://wikitravel.org/en/Zamboanga_City
Well that’s it for this post. I’m almost caught up now. The next post will be for 24 and 25 May (and I have a lot of information for 25 May). Hope you enjoyed the post today. After all this typhoon stuff is over I’ll take the camera and head back towards downtown to get new and updated pictures of things. I’m not even going to make an attempt to say that I should be going to Tacloban next month, because I probably won’t be. We’ve already got my next check spent already. Beginning in August we will be already heading towards paying off a couple of bills. I think they’ll be paid by the end of the year. After that thing around here will start looking up. We should leave for Texas in March, but when we return we should have all the finances complete, except the Nissan and not including the utilities, which we can’t get away from. The Nissan should be paid off in June 2013, so I’m looking forward to that day also.
Useless Knowledge: The character of the Professor on Gilligan’s Island was named Roy Hinkley. The Skipper was named Jonas Grumby. Both names were used only once in the entire series, on the first episode. (I knew the Skipper’s name, but this is the first time I heard about the Professor…Jonas Grumby and Roy Hinkley…good trivia questions)
http://www.pueblophilippines.com/
Salamat, Palaam
Today in Philippine History
22 MAY
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| Julio Nakpil y Garcia, patriot Photo art: JB |
1867 – Julio Nakpil y Garcia, Filipino patriot, future revolutionary, musician, and composer who will become the second husband of Gregoria de Jesus, wife of Supremo Andres Bonifacio of the secret society-turned-revolutionary government, Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan, is born in Quiapo, Manila during the Spanish colonial period; Nakpil, who will be a member of patriot and polymath Jose Rizal’s La Liga Filipina and, subsequently, become Katipunan’s Minister of National Development (fomento), will compose patriotic musical pieces, including Pasig Pantaynin (1897) and Kabanatuan (1903) in honor of Gen. Antonio Luna who would be assassinated based on what he will later write as orders of Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo; perhaps, Nakpil’s work that would command most patriotic reverence is the national anthem Bonifacio would ask him to make, the “Marangal na Dalit ng Katagalugan,” which unfortunately would not be used after the Supremo’s assassination-by-execution in May 1897 on orders of Aguinaldo.
Raw photo credit: http://julionakpil.blogspot.com/
23 MAY
1979 – Muslim Tausug leader Princess Tarhata Kiram, a strong-willed and liberal-minded early Filipina feminist, dies of heart failure at age 75 at the Veterans Memorial Hospital in Quezon City, Metro Manila; a heir of the original rulers of the island of Sabah (now part of Malaysia because the British failed to return the leased island), Tarhata became known in local politics for finding ways to plug the laws disadvantageous to the Muslims; as the first woman pensionado (educated in the University of Illinois in the imperialist United States mainland) during the American colonial period her early show of feminist will–seeking education thousands of miles away from home–is remarkable during a time when, and in a culture wherein, women were expected to be mere homemakers; she is also noted for helping avert greater bloodshed during her people’s revolt in Jolo (led by her husband Datu Tahil , veteran of the 1913 Philippne-American War battle of Bud Bagsak) when she set out to talk with imperialist Governor-General Leonard Wood in January 1927 to try to ask for a Moro governor for their province of Sulu.
Photo credit: http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/466854.html
