With over 140 guests (both from showbusiness and the media) flown in for four glorious days, you knew the action would start from mid-morning all the way to the wee hours of daybreak. Power boxing, courtesy of Chinggay Andrada, at 9 a.m., quickly shifted to 10:30, as the bleary-eyed revelers of the previous night dragged their weary carcasses through the sand, in the hope of injecting some energy and verve. A far greater number made lunch their first inkling of the new day having arrived.
That first afternoon, the beach volleyball tournament reeled off with my being drafted by Jackie Castillejo into the team of her sister Dyan, Marc Nelson, Jake Roxas, Morten Bremelhoej and Robbie Carmona. To complete the team line-up with substitutes (we were playing four a side), I coerced Ipe Cruz, Ana Kalaw and Minelli Bautista to sign up as ex-officio cheerleaders, kibitzers – and so I wouldn’t be the most inept! At one point, we envisioned ourselves as the "nuisance team," born to underachieve with style and noise. It didn’t help that our opponent that afternoon was the team of Richard Gomez, Chinggay and Borgy Manotoc. Well, it took us three tough sets, but we eked out a victory and duplicated that the following day (against the team of Wendell Ramos, Nadia Montenegro, etc.) to emerge champions. I think Ana and Minelli are still in shock over being awarded championship medals.
That morning of the volleyball finals, I succumbed to the lure of the links (ok, it was Raul Teehankee’s pleading), and made it to the 9 a.m. tee-off at Fairways and Bluewater to play with Raul and Richard’s father-in-law. My first golf game in four years, and scrambling to a gross 98, I took the Class B champion trophy. Don’t ask me how or why, I just took the trophy, sheepishly grinned, and "ran."
With breakfast, lunch and dinner all taken care of by the Nivea hosts, we were scattered over three hotels (Pearl, Terraces and Seawind). In his debut as a DJ, fashion director Robbie provided the music one night, and Freestyle took care of the other night, with Ipe, Richard, Jomari and Ara ably jamming.
While on a hectic schedule, we were given some free time to just "do our thing" and I finally got to sample the calamansi muffins of Stables. Run by and baked by Nadine (one of those expats who visited and made the island their home), they were truly worth the hype. Leave it to Ipe to then turn our hour there to a discussion with Nadine of how raisins are made, and whether white or red grapes make for better raisins.
Yes, Nivea pulled out all the stops for this one. Pampered at the spa huts Cathy Escano set up in front of Pearl, we had our fill of the Nivea lines of Body, Sun and Visage, and appreciate the commitment of the brand to make the Philippines one of its primary Asian markets. Till the next time, Rica and Patrick!
I have to confess, I tend to shy away from women authors who throw up ceaseless permutations of "spunky 21st century modern woman" (Helen Fielding and her ilk), so I was a bit wary about picking up the book at Fully Booked, especially as it was being plugged as a "new love story." But I can now say – if you love fiction, if you appreciate good writing, if you want mainstream, yet quirky, go get this book and be ready to be enthralled, and it doesn’t matter if you’re man, woman or mouse. This is not just a wonderful first novel, it’s a good read, period.
It’s described as "the story of Clare, art student and Henry, librarian, who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was 30, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry 30. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first persons diagnosed with Chrono Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets, and he finds himself misplaced in time, his disappearances spontaneous, pulled to moments of emotional gravity in his life, past and future."
The great thing about Niffenegger is that she resists turning the novel into a Forrest Gump "look at the hero in momentous historical events of the last 30 years" procession. She keeps the story very personal, sticking to the two main protagonists and how this "ailment, gift, sickness" would really be handled by two persons much like you or me. Its magical shifting from the amusing and light, to the depths of yearning and want, and plumbing the nightmare and tragedy that living in such a state would entail.
As a father who often wonders about what will happen to his kids, how they’ll turn out and whether I’ll still be around; and remembering the yearning one felt as an expectant first-time parent, I really empathized with some of the passages of this book and had to wipe away moist eye corners. Hell, it may sound trite to admit, but it’s not often a book can spontaneously do that to me. The last time I remember that happening was with Corelli’s Mandolin some eight years ago (and I am talking about the book, not the disastrous movie adaptation).
So, trust me, it’s a grand story about "small, ordinary" people. The time traveling is a wonderful conceit used to drive the unique storytelling, and does not take over the story. This early, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston have bought the rights to the book, though I’ll keep mum on just how good that sounds to this writer.
(E-mail me at peopleasia@qinet.net)