In 2021, the Philippines will commemorate 500 years of Hispanic colonial “legacy” in the archipelago. The most celebrated Hispanic legacy in the islands is Catholicism. Hence, in 2021, the Philippines will also commemorate 500 years of Catholicism in East Asia. Up north in the Ilocos region, Spain’s legacy remained intact through the preservation of…
Tag: World Heritage Site
Jaipur City, finally a UNESCO World Heritage Site
This week is the 43rd annual convention of UNESCO World Heritage Committee. Baku, the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan is this year’s host city. For over 10 years, I have been following and documenting the proceedings – as if a participant or a delegate representing the Philippines in this important convention about cultural preservation…
The Photogenic City that is Bruges!
Fall 2017, I represented my University at the Frankfurt International Book Fair. The trip was official but I made sure to have time to explore the city plus Cologne, the closest heritage city to Frankfurt. Back then, the only city I wanted to see outside of Germany was Brussels for a very practical reason: lack…
The Great Wall, not of China, but of South Korea: Hwaseong Fortress
It was cold winter. The temperature was dropping to 0 degrees Celsius. The good thing about this kind of weather was the coldness. I would not get sweaty and I would be very comfortable to move around. The bad thing about it was also the coldness: moving was limited and it ironically it was also…
The Dead Lives Among Us: The Royal Tombs of the Joseon Dynasty
The International Federation for Theatre Research – Asian Theatre Working Group (IFTR-ATWG) 2019 was hosted by the Korea National University of Arts in Seoul through the Department of Theatre Studies’s Prof. Meewon Lee. The colloquium was slightly different in the sense that the opening program and the opening keynote were scheduled at 3:00 pm. We…
A Volcano Paradise that is the Jeju Island
My friends know very well how unaffected I am with nature (A.K.A. I am not a nature lover!). I remember how bored I was when I, together with my colleagues and friends, visited the World Natural Heritage Site Puerto-Princesa Subterranean River National Park (Underground River) in Palawan Island in 2012. It is not that the…
Art Nouveau and Victor Horta
When I was young, my only idea of Belgium was Christelle Roelandts. The year was 1994. And my interest in Belgium began. Christelle Roelandts and 1994? Miss Universe 1994 was held in Manila, Philippines. Christelle Roelandts was Miss Belgium and she was one of my favorites. Unfortunately, she did not make it – not even…
Four UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Four Days: Day 3 and Day 4 in Beijing (Part 2 of 2)
In the previous post, I talked about the Forbidden City experience and how we wasted time waiting for two other participants of the group tour. As a consequence, we needed to skip the shopping activity at a posh Beijing street, which street-name I forget. At the same time, we needed to adjust the alotted time…
Four UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Four Days: Day 3 and Day 4 in Beijing (Part 1 of 2)
The third day, 23 December, the temperature continued to drop. We were warned the night before that the temperature would reach up to -7 degrees. Jayson even asked everyone to wear our warmest clothes. The itinerary of the day began at the Tiananmen Square, a city square in the center of Beijing named after Tiananmen…
Four UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Four Days: Day 2 in Beijing
After the tour on our first day, Jayson dropped us off at the hotel: Ease Cloud Hotel. When the agency (Royal Kites Tours and Travels) announced that we would be staying at Ease Cloud, instinctively, I googled it and read some reviews. Relatively, Ease Cloud Hotel is a new hotel. This means, there are only…
Tanghal Kultura 