The Dolldalera's Blog

Tag Archives: Negros Oriental

Photo: Docked at Sea

Posted on Posted in Dumaguete, Photoblog .

It’s one thing to get used to living by the sea and everything that comes with it, such as constantly seeing boats, watching the sea shift from high tide to low tide and vice versa, feeling the smell of the sea, or even hearing the horn from boats at all times of the day. It’s another to take personal notice of big ships that dock off port for days at a time. Such was the case last month when I first noticed a few large ships docked at sea, very early in the morning. I was on my way to school when I caught sight of these ships, which looked strangely large against a background of sea and sky. Coming back from school, the ships were still there. They were actually docked at sea for about a week (maybe a little more or less), each carrying some surprise array of items in their hold.

The sight was something I hadn’t really seen, or maybe hadn’t simply noticed before. It was an interesting side-project to head on over to the boulevard to take photos of how it all looked like, especially since Rizal Boulevard was practically empty at the time that I went, since it was close to noon and the sun was at its highest and brightest.

As always, Rizal Boulevard is one of my favorite places to take panoramic photos within the city.

Photo: Dumaguete at Sunset

Posted on Posted in Dumaguete, Photoblog .

One of the benefits of living in a small city by the sea, is the proximity to the water. It’s fairly easy to drive to the beach or seaside, such as Dumaguete’s iconic Rizal Boulevard; but also because being in a smaller city unlike busy ports like Manila or Cebu, means that there aren’t as many ships coming in to block these kinds of views.

The city of Dumaguete faces the east, so it’s more of a sunrise place than a sunset one. But even so, it doesn’t diminish this kind of serene view, made even more beautiful by a wonderfully clear sky dotted with the pinkish tinge of the setting sun.

Took this photo on a lazy Sunday afternoon in December 2016.

Food Review: 2Story Kitchen (Dumaguete)

Posted on Posted in Food and Dining, Philippines .

Whenever I’m in Dumaguete City, I’m no longer a tourist but I’m nothing like a local either. After more than 20 years of coming-and-going, I am somewhere in the middle. In the last couple of years, every time I go to Dumaguete, I like trying new or newly-discovered cafes and restaurants.

A month ago, when my sister was there a week earlier than I, she discovered this new cafe/restaurant in the vicinity of our old house, serving Korean food (her favorite). So, when it was my turn to be in Dumaguete for my granddad’s annual birthday celebration, I decided to try the cafe/restaurant out for myself. My cousin who lives in Dumaguete had been to this place earlier, so when I mentioned that I had wanted to go to 2Story Kitchen to try it out, we decided this would be the place where we could catch up on things.

So, welcome to 2Story Kitchen…a restaurant and cafe that’s great for dates, gimmicks, studying, lounging about. Located near the Rizal Boulevard, this place is accessible by car, on foot, or via trikes. The location is great because it’s only a few minutes away from Lee Plaza, Mcdonalds, SansRival, and Rizal Boulevard, and is walking distance from the Quezon Park, Dumaguete Cathedral, and Silliman University. If you have a hard time finding this place, just ask for directions to Matiao Marketing (2Story is located across from it), or Uymatiao Jr. Construction Company (2Story is located two buildings from it).

Entrance

Signboard

The outside appearance of 2Story Kitchen makes it look quaint and small, but the atmosphere inside is really warm and relaxing, and welcoming. It’s not the usual restaurant-design that you see here in the Philippines, it has a flair of Korean/Taiwanese/Japanese design mixed into it.

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Helping Dumaguete: Typhoon Sendong chapter

Posted on Posted in Life, Insights and Reality .

Banica River. Picture above taken by my aunt. December 17, 2011. Around 11am.

Just a few minutes ago, I spotted Dumaguete (where I’m presently living) on the news. Why? We, together with places like Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, were hit by a typhoon last Saturday. Massive rains and floods swept through certain areas of the city and the neighboring municipalities. I am quite lucky because the only discomfort I felt was the rains and being without electricity for about half a day. But for a lot of other people in Dumaguete, Tanjay, Valencia and other places, they weren’t as lucky. Even until now, they have problems like lack of drinking water, destroyed homes, and the like.

But as I’m not in those areas and only in Dumaguete, this is some of the information that I’ve been able to put together.

Things needed:

  • Bottled Water
  • Clothes (Underwear, T-shirts, Shorts, Pants, Bras)
  • Canned Goods
  • Noodles
  • Blankets
  • Toiletries (Toothbrush, toothpaste, toilet paper, etc.)

Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) – Rizal Boulevard, Dumaguete

Address: Department of Social Welfare and Development Office, Rizal Boulevard, Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, Philippines 6200

Tel: (035) 225-0637

For donations of goods, groceries and money, you can send your donations to: Mrs. Bernadita Bangay. Kindly address it to the DSWD office along Rizal Boulevard.

For donations of money, you can send your donations through Western Union, with Mrs. Marina C. Mendoza (CT Social Welfare and Development officer) as the claimant. Directions for above transaction is as follows: After sending the money, kindly call the DSWD office (number listed above) to confirm the receipt of the money by informing them of your control number.

To directly contact Task Force Dumaguete: Local (Within Negros Oriental) – dial 348. For those outside, I’m not yet sure but you may try adding the local area code to the number – 035348.

If you’re looking for relatives or friends within the Dumaguete area, you may call the DSWD to inquire. Please be advised that including the barangay where said person/people live/s will bear more fruitful results as the DSWD has direct contact to the barangay heads.

As of my phone call to the DSWD office awhile ago, the office told me that within Dumaguete, 19 barangays have been affected. The office didn’t give me a list of evacuation centers, but told me that if you’re looking for someone, the likeliest places they will be in are the closest barangay halls, nearest schools and nearest churches.

For more information that is not listed here, you may directly call the DSWD Office at (035) 225-0637.

Information available above was taken from my phone call with the DSWD Dumaguete Office on December 19, 2011.

Mary Immaculate Parish Dumaguete
San Jose Street, Dumaguete City (across from Lee Plaza Supermarket entrance)

In solidarity with our brothers and sisters affected by the recent typhoon Sendong and in this season of joy and giving, we appeal to your generous and kind hearts. We are asking if you could give clothing, bottled water, and food items like canned goods, rice, noodles, and others. Please drop by your items at the Parish office. Thank you so much. May the good Lord, the reason why we celebrate Christmas, bless your generosity a hundredfold..    -As taken from their facebook page

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Found another site where more information is posted, though not sure how reliable these are:

Evacuation centers in Dumaguete City where you can drop off care packages/relief goods: West City Elem. School, Cadawinonan Elem. School, Camanjac Elem. and National High School, and Junob Elem. School. You can also drop off donations at the ONe RESCUE-EMS base, Dumaguete Disaster Risk Reduction and Management base, DSWD-Dumaguete Office, Dumaguete City Health Office, Ground Floor of the Pastoral Center, Dumaguete Cathedral Compound.

Google Crisis Response shares the location of the evacuation centers, donation centers and updates from NDMRC. Please click here to view the information. If you are looking for missing people or know a missing person, please click the link at the said page “Person Finder.”

Evacuation Centers in Dumaguete City courtesy of Google Philippines and Google Crisis Management. Click here.

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I’ll try to update this once I have more information.

For more information on how to donate to other places that were affected by the typhoon and floods, whether you’re in the Philippines or abroad, kindly click on Jane Uymatiao.com to be redirected to another entry with more information, or Bayanihan Online’s entry.

Dumaguete Sandurot Festival 2011

Posted on Posted in Philippines, Travel .

Because I’m more or less ignorant to the local happenings here in Dumaguete, and I’m not really familiar with fiesta days and the like, I had to hear the sound of the parade and my aunt insisting that I go out and take pictures and watch the parade.

So last November 19, Dumaguete celebrated the Sandurot Festival. So what is the Sandurot Festival all about, and what does it actually celebrate? Because I didn’t fully understand the explanation given to me when I asked, and because the internet has more information on it than I could possibly hope for, I just decided to google it and found something. According to this blog site called Philippine Landmarks,  Sandurot is derived from the Visayan word “Pakig-sandurot” which means fellowship and reaching out, which is basically the characteristic of being hospitable – a common Filipino trait. Dumaguete City is actually called the “City of Gentle People”, so being hospitable and welcoming is in the nature of Dumagueteños.


Nowadays you can see many foreigners who both live and visit Dumaguete, but even in the past, a lot of people from other countries would often come and live in various places around the Philippines. Dumaguete City, in more recent times, has been popular because it is a university city. Dumaguete is most known for Silliman University – the first Protestant university and first American private university in Asia. Recently, I’ve noticed a lot of Koreans in the city. It’s amazing how Beijing is full of them, so is Manila, and Cebu, and even here. Makes you wonder if any of them are left in S. Korea. But seriously, it just goes to show how cheap education and a low standard of living can attract foreigners to flock here. Of course, the kind personalities of Filipinos in general is also one thing to take into account.

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Dumaguete: Home away from Home

Posted on Posted in Journal, Philippines .

Hello, from the wonderful city of Dumaguete, my home away from home. I don’t really have much to say as most of what I’m doing on a daily basis is working….so I don’t have a lot of time to take photos and travel around the city. I have a post on something for the (hopefully) near future. But for now, I’m just going to share a few photos from life here….just random stuff that I’d like to share. Hope you like ’em.

My work/leisure table. I have this urge to just fill that cabinet with stuff =))

Photos to remind me of Manila. I miss my family, friends, and my dog. Other things to note in this photo…a pack of Nestea iced tea and a bag of Kornets. Also have my Monopoly Deal deck with me (upper right) and a few boxes of film for my Instax Mini…just in case.

One of the things that remind me of our place, and how old-new it is, is the next picture. I was around 7 when my uncles and aunt showed me to this place where we were building our new house (our old one being this old Spanish styled house with its entrance on the 3rd floor, not good for old people) which is now around 15 years old. Back to the story, one summer a couple years ago…my grandaunt tried to teach me how to crochet. By that time, I was already knowledgeable with cross-stitching, so my grandaunt decided to take it up a notch. She taught me how to crochet, starting with the chain stitch and the other kinds later on. Little did I know that all those days and weeks of practicing on the basics would help me when I went back to school, because apparently for that year…we had to learn how to crochet. Haha.

Anyway, my grandaunt had this phase where she would spend all day doing her crochet work. Even until now, my grandaunt is fond of baking and painting, but those few years ago….she would order dolls from the US that were meant for crochet-ing. They would come with instructions on dresses for the dolls, dresses that would require crochet work and later on, some added lacework and such. On display, my grandaunt has about 8-10 dolls, I even have one at home which I made that summer I learned how to crochet. Mine aren’t as intricately designed as the ones you can see below, but they’re memorable reminders of my childhood that was..

The next photos are from my farm-like house. We’ve got a bunch of animals just walking everywhere at all times of the day. We have the normal cats and dogs, heck we’ve even got chickens and horses (sounds like Harvest Moon!)

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Food Review: MEL’s Cafe

Posted on Posted in Food and Dining .

On my recent trip home to Dumaguete, I decided to try out this new cafe that my cousins’ opened that they’ve been raving about on my Facebook. The location is in a quiet area of the city, though not far away from the busy places as it’s near what you would call the downtown area of the city. It’s about a street away from the Rizal Boulevard, a popular location for both locals and tourists alike. Another thing my cousin mentioned about their cafe is that it serves healthy food, which is a good place to visit for those health-enthusiasts in Dumaguete City. A gym is coincidentally located in the same building.

The cafe is small, quaint, and doesn’t look like it can accommodate a lot of people,  not that I mind since it’s still new, and I prefer there to be less people so you know that the waiters can serve you quicker. Me and my aunt arrived there for lunch so they had more or less just newly opened. We arrived with no one there, and I was able to greet my cousin who proceeded to show us the health food available.

Below are pictures of the menu, though sadly, not so well taken. I apologize.

Me and my aunt decided to half all the meals so we can each try a lot more things. We ordered a Cheesy Burger (Php65), Spring Mandarin Salad (Php50) and Mojos (Php50) then we each ordered a drink, me ordering a Black Forest Ice Cold Shake and my aunt ordering the Banana Ice Cold Shake (Php55 each). Coming from the city where most meals are more-or-less expensive, with healthier meals tending to cost a higher price, I’d honestly say that these meals are worth the price.

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