Gala Pinoy Redux

“It’s more fun in the Philippines.”

Wow. It has actually more wow than one of the previous taglines, Wow Philippines. We like it, well most Filipinos at least, but why does the new tagline of the Department of Tourism work?

Here are some of the my thoughts.

1. It’s simple. Fuckin’ grade A straightforward tagline. You get it immediately. The words are simple too. Well, granted you understand English. But it’s as simple as it gets without sounding dry.

2. You can interpret it in any way you can. Because the tagline’s simple, it can excite a prospective tourist’s imagination, especially the word ‘fun’. Each of us has our own idea of fun. Beaches? Climbing mountains? Seeing the Rice Terraces? Spanish/American colonial history? It doesn’t matter. When you visit the Philippines, expect to have fun. Which is a promise, which is the basic function of a tagline, which still needs to be fulfilled eventually. But more on that later.
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So Gala Pinoy Redux (or Gala Pinoy version 2, as I would prefer to call it) is officially two years old. Thousands of miles and Pesos later, I am now a changed man. Really. Well at least, I hope I would be a changed man in terms of travel in the next two years.

Unlike last year where I traveled without any care for time and money, I have to step back a bit this year, I think. Travel ate up most of my savings, and I’m work on getting more work again so that I can rebuild my savings AND travel. There are plans for traveling free too, and I hope I could do that as well. So goes a freelancer’s life. Some days you make so much money you end up not knowing what to do with it (especially if you’re single), other days, you are dirt poor, you’d be tempted to sell your kidney just to get your travel fix.
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It was without a doubt the dirtiest cab I’ve ever taken. In the passenger seat, just to my left leg was a thermos bottle. On the dash was a mish-mash of stuff that included a half-eaten piece of chicken leg, rice on a plastic container, and a visor.

These things didn’t bother me, however. I actually found the entire atmosphere in the cab pretty interesting. But these things weren’t even the most interesting part of the cab, nor the trip.
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I vaguely remember watching, “The Sound of Music” a couple of times as a kid. But as I got older, only two things about it were ever retained in my head: Julie Andrews who played Fraulein Maria and the catchy songs, the type of which never really goes away once you hear them (cue: “Doe a deer, a female deer. I’m pretty sure you know what comes next).

Beyond those things, however, I never really bothered watching the movie again. And then one day, I received an e-mail from my sister, addressed to everyone in the family, “want to watch the Sound of Music?” Apparently, Resorts World Manila (RWM) was running the musical at the Newport Performing Arts Theater. And the e-mail got ecstatic replies from my mother and my other sister.

Meanwhile, I, cynical as ever, simply said, okay, why watch a version of this, when I have perfect one (no matter how hazy) of it in my head?

But lo and behold, complimentary tickets almost literally fell on my lap, courtesy of a good friend who works at RWM. The entire family was of course happy and excited. We trooped to the theater, and in my head was still the question of whether it was worthy of the one popularized by Julie Andrews. I had to find out for myself.
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I’m not sure if you folks missed me and my updates. But I’m posting here anyway just to tell you I’m still alive though not necessarily kicking (I don’t want to strain my muscles too much). Been on a few trips the past few months which I hope to share with you soon. They’re worth about two months of posts. The only problem? Time. Sucks when your idea of work and having fun is the same thing, which is pretty much writing for me. I even rarely go out to shoot nowadays. And I badly need the sun. But you don’t care about that.

Anyhoo…

I just want to share with you folks that I also got featured on a blog somewhere on the interwebs. So I finally declare that I’m officially internet famous. If ever you’re bored and don’t have anything to read, I suggest you read the quick interview that Shane did about me on his blog at NationalRVParks.com. Check it out here: http://nationalrvparks.com/interview-with-cedric-solidon-of-galapinoy/

That’s it for now. I’ll get back to work and finish my pending tasks so I can finally focus on sharing more of my travel photos and stories with you again soon!