freedom's home for imaginary friends

Raising a three year old is like unveiling a JR Tolkien soul on a teaspoon of butter.

Lately, we have been becoming master storytellers to put our son Freedom to sleep or to keep his relatively short attention going. Being so totally engrossed with the series Thomas the Tank Engine, we are also trying to give him a variety of toys to play by as not to stagnate his imagination... and this is the best we can come up with. It's not much but hey, we're trying to be creative parents here!

So ladies and gentlemen, we bring you our collection of bears and stuffed creatures... amassed through the years and brought to life by our futile efforts to entertain the dragon emperor of the house!


Panda Bear is a scholar on Chinese literature and communist idealisms propagated by the late Mao Tse Tung. Brought from China by my wife's former boss Donald, Panda Bear is the serious one among the brood. Here he is trying to compare the Chinese version of Mao's revolutionary little red book into the newly released English version sold for dime-a-dozen in front of Tiananmen Square...


Bear Lao (no pun intended for Beer Lao) is a gift from Freedom's cool designer ninong - Don. Like his donor, Bear Lao is a cam whore (a trait he also got from mommy Kawadjan) and is an avid subscriber of Vogue - Paris. He also loves designing (a true fashion vulture) and is supposed to show his latest collections in Bryant Park for the New York Fashion Week!


Kroma Bear is a true blooded Cambodian bear from the kingdom's most luxurious residence - the Amansara. His other brothers and sisters were adopted by a doting couple named Brad and Angelina and were given to their three children - Maddox, Zahara and Shiloh. They now live in hollywood but they still write to Kroma Bear and remit money back home to support several foundations for the betterment of the lives of Cambodia's cotton weavers.


Best friends BaaBaa Sheep (a gift from my buddy Karl) and Kiwi Bear (another gift from Donald) both hail from New Zealand and are the adventurous backpacker types. One morning, you see them prancing around the grass, and the next morning, they are clambering up the steps to the studio. Although notorious for finding only dirt cheap haunts and restaurants, they know how to differentiate a trying hard Australian Chardonnay from an opulent New Zealand Shiraz.


Polar Bear was a creature rescued from the harsh effects of global warming when the polar ice caps melted somewhere in Alaska. Given as a bday gift from Freedom's tita Wena, he survived the rising waters by clinging on a floating Louis Vuitton Neverfull bag which got dropped from a passing luxury cruise liner one summer. Eats only prime Norwegian Salmon and Japanese Wagyu steaks.


Pinoy Bear on the other hand is a devout Roman Catholic. He has worked one time as an engineer in Saudi Arabia, as a waiter in Dubai, as a cultural performer in Tokyo, as a teacher in Thailand, as a caregiver in London and a manager in a restaurant in New York. These diverse experiences have taught Noypi Bear invaluable lessons in life and so far has given him enough savings to put up his own convent back home. He also drives a jeepney during weekdays.



Greenie Bear is a certified alcoholic and party animal. Always a fixture in the hottest parties, Greenie used to be BFF's with Paris Hilton and the Olsen Twins until her parents, the Vanderbears, moved their steel factories to Cambodia. Greenie has also recently released her own lingerie and perfume line.




Angel Bear is a distant cousin of Pinoy Bear. Also deeply religious, they promote only natural conception and family planning methods for the ethnic minorities of Southeast Asia. Young as she is, Angel Bear is the chapter president of the Catholic Women's League in the upper Cambodian region... Her favorite perfume is tea-rose.




Yellow Bear loves spending time in the bathroom. Came free from a spa product set that mommy purchased from U-Care Pharmacy a few years back. Always mistaken as a scrub by dad, Yellow Bear lives in the presence of water an was formerly a pearl diver on a pearl farm somwhere in Vietnam... a true Pisces in every sense of the word.




Ranger Bear, a certified naturalist from Chattanooga, Canada was a gift from Ninang Sarah, probably on one of her trips from North America. Current president of the World Wildlife Federation, Ranger Bear is lobbying people here to turn him into the official mascot for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver... also a die-hard vegetarian...




Huggie Bear and Nappy Bear were both freebies from packs of diapers. They love to snooze around and simply sleep the day away. This is because of a curse endowed on them by their evil stepmother who thinks they are more absorbent than her.



Brother Bear bears the most beautiful story of all. After Freedom was born, we used to go to the Old Market on weekends to buy our food. While browsing around a sea of tomatoes, fresh prawns and imitation underwear, we found Brother Bear on a pile of second hand toys, with such droopy eyes that seem to scream "Adopt me!". With Brad and Angelina's exploits reaching far and wide, we decided to adopt Brother Bear for a cost price of 2,000 riels (US$0.50)! Brother Bear has since become Freedom's loyal sibling until Thomas and Friends came along...

coffee with supermodels

Having spent twenty three summers of my life in a suburb in Iloilo, I always thought living in this provincial threshold meant you are left out from the rest of the world. I remember the time when even newscasts were broadcast a week late on our tv sets and the only sign of civilization you find in the city is the rickety SM department store (Iloilo had the 1st SM outside of Manila in 1979) and a Dunkin Donut store.


Living in a lazy, middle-of-nowhere former Spanish colonial outpost, who would actually think that I'd be rubbing shoulders and spending coffee breaks with future supermodels and super designers who will eventually grace the face of global catwalks? And what more do their first photo shoots?!

Grendel Alvarado, originally from Bacolod City, won the Robinson's Iloilo Fashionista Search. A year later, she tried her luck modelling in Manila and was eventually chosen as a finalist and grand winner of the hit reality tv show The Philippines' Next Top Model - hosted by Ruffa Guttierez.

She is now a regular face on most fashion magazines in the Philippines and globally.


This shoot was for my friend Don's magazine called OWN where we tackled musings and inspirations from the final last days of the Berlin Wall. Pieces by visiting designer Gian Romano who a year before had won the MEGA Young Designer of the Year Award and had just returned from New York on apprenticeship from the fashion collective AsFour.


Military-tinged dresses by barangay-kagawad-turned-jetset-designer Bo Parcon, uber cool and devil-may-care finalist to the Philippine edition of Project Runway in ABC 5. Episodes can be watched via You Tube. Apparently, he is one of the most memorable charcters in the show... and in real life, he really is!


Pieces here are by Yohji Yamamoto and the unimitable Don Protasio - otherwise known in the blogosphere as fuchsiaboy. Don has been designing art (he doesn't design clothes, dear friends - he designs wearable art pieces!) since we were in college and has grown into a fashionable monster since then - regularly showing and capping great reviews in Philippine Fashion Week and has even showed a full collection in Cambodia by invitation from the Kingdom's Silk Forum. Although he is now based in Cambodia like me, he goes home every season to showcase his work. Grab any copy of Mega or Preview and you'll sure to bump into his name!


The team during the Berlin-inspired shoot: Nonoy Mosquera, Bo Parcon, Shoebe, Grendel Alvarado and Don Protasio


Another supemodel who is a familiar face in Philippine and international fashion is Ria Bolivar who Don discovered in a Salbakuta concert in Robinson's Iloilo. Standing out from the crowd like a sore thumb at 5'10 and with an unbelievable body frame, Don asked her to model for him. The rest as they say, is history.


Ria first broke into the Manila scene after winning one of the top prizes in the MTV Fashionista Search and representing the Philippines in Turkey. Now, she is a regular face in Philippine Fashion Week and Fashion TV.


Ria has also appeared in countless ads and fashion spreads in several publications from home and abroad. Her catwalk stints range from shows for Inno Sotto, Monique Lhuiller and even as far as Hongkong. The last time we had dinner with Ria, she was being courted by agents for the Milan Fashion Week.


I did these shoots with them right before they hit it big time - way before when I was still doing my photography on a borrowed analog film Yashica camera...

Now, it's just overwhelming to go back to these and say "Whew, I used to drink coffee with them!"

saigon 101

I was in Saigon to buy a birthday gift for my wife, and going around Vietnam's dynamic business heartland gave me a brand new perspective of how lucky I am to be living in this part of the universe - Southeast Asia - where a bus ride for six hours can take you to another world. It has been almost three years since I have last been here, and the changes you see around is utterly remarkable.

First and foremost, Saigon is not known as Saigon anymore - it has been renamed Ho Chi Minh City since the country was reunited in the late 1960's. But for a hopelessly romantic travel nomad such as I am, it will always be poetically-correct named as Saigon.


I roamed its streets again and was taken aback with an overflowing sense of nostalgia, from the vestiges of its French colonial past, to the American War, even to my personal connection to its history...

The gothic-spired Notre Dame Cathedral is a significant reminder that despite the country's solid stance on communism, it is still largely deeply rooted in Catholic faith - a gift of the west via France.


The Reunification Palace used to house South Vietnam's government before the Fall of Saigon. Now, it seems to be haunted by ghosts of the past.


The park facing the Opera House is also an outdoor art gallery - housing exhibitions of images and visions from around the country.


The iconic Opera House featured the Vietnamese Army Band outside when I came to Louis Vuitton to buy my wife's bag. I had a live music background while at the LV store in Opera View which conveniently faces the Opera House (hence the name). It was like they knew I'll be there to shop for love.


Coffee culture, a remnant of France's heritage in Vietnam is everywhere... Trung Nguyen Coffee is considered king.


The Vespa is also king of the road in Saigon...


The humble Cyclo comes in close second...


The Vietnamese are extremely skin-conscious people. I know the Chinese are notorious with their skin care but they cannot compete with the Vietnamese obsession in protecting their skin from going tan.


It's streets are littered with women (and even men!) who cover themselves from head to toe to escape the scorching heat, but not the overflowing perspiration!


And like an apple lost somewhere between a haystack and a peach tree, love exists in Saigon in unexpected corners... from the lovers French-kissing on a tree by the park or through a newlywed couple starting happily ever after outside of Gucci. Yes, love will always be in fashion anywhere you find it...

forevers and louis vuittons

Four years ago, I married the girl of my dreams.



Being a penniless, starving artist that I was then, I had no means to give her the wedding of her dreams – a flowing white Vera Wang or a Vivienne Westwood dress, a sunset ceremony on a deserted beach, wedding rings by Cartier or Tiffany, a theatrical reception with a string orchestra, chocolate fountain, free flowing champagne and designer canapés and a dinner whipped up by three-star Micelin chefs from France.


Instead, I married her in our little house garage in Iloilo. She wore a fifty peso ($1) long skirt which she converted into a dress from Landmark in Makati. Our rings were bought for 200 pesos ($4) from Divisoria’s Tutuban Mall and our reception was catered by my own mom who cooked everything from scratch. Our entire wedding cost us 10,000 pesos ($400) which I got as payment for designing the uniforms of Club Noah Isabelle in Palawan. Our plane fares were free, as we’ve accumulated enough points from the loyalty program of Cebu Pacific, back when they still had the Summit Club. I also got some extra money from selling two paintings for only 5,000 pesos ($100).


Since that was all I could offer her at that time, I vowed to myself to MAKE IT UP to her as soon as I am financially stable. Through time, I have learned to keep myself abreast with the thing that has gripped my wife’s fancy into a growing obsession since time immemorial… LOUIS VUITTON.


I remember seeing her face light up every time we pass by the LV flagship store in Greenbelt IV when we were still living in Manila. Her cheeks would gush at the sight of the monogrammed canvas, and when Marc Jacobs, creative director of LV, took bolder steps in collaborating with more artists in designing new bags and reintroducing the classics, the fire became unstoppable. Being introduced to the blog of another LV fanatic Cecile Zamora Van Straten (chuvaness.livejournal.com) didn’t help at all.

So after a successful exhibition in Manila last April, I took her LV shopping. But as much as taking Cocaine and a woman’s Louis Vuitton obsessions are the same, they will always crave for more. Lately, my wife has been bombarding me with not-so-subtle hints (see a comment on my last post!) of what she wants for her birthday.


So as my love for her is growing and getting stronger each day, I have no choice but to translate that love into a silly, materialistic, consumerist, capitalistic symbol of desire to spend forever by her side…. I AM EMBARKING ON A JOURNEY OF LOVE – a long, six hour drive from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh (it actually took me 23 hours on the road as my rickety Toyota Camry's transmission system broke down!), and a seven hour bus ride from Phnom Penh to Saigon (the nearest Louis Vuitton store) to buy another LV bag for the woman I am dearly enamored with.

How far will you go for love?

the sun shines in september

In a span of a month, I had my second highest number of artworks sold in my gallery by the Passage (the most would be in April this year). Normally, September is a very quite month here, but just last week, a man walked into my gallery with his wife and decided right then and there to shop for art. That man turned out to be the owner of Formula 1, and apparently, one of the wealthiest men in the universe.



He bought a total of 10 artworks - six of them from my Khmao or black series



Four of them were from my Saffron Spirit and My Asia series. They found me through my friend Don (www.fuchsiaboy.blogspot.com) who happens to be the curator / artist extraordinaire of Hotel de la Paix where they were staying. I hurriedly packed the ten artworks in time for them to stuff them into their private jet the next day. They also commissioned ten paintings from Khmer artist Em Riem who was exhibiting at Hotel de la Paix's Arts Lounge.




I also sold a diptych to a couple from Venice, Italy a couple of weeks ago from my new series - Faith of Our Fathers.




Two nights ago, I also sold a bigger print (100cm x 100 cm) to a lovely American couple from San Francisco. This one is from the same series that I brought to Beijing.

Just last night, I was also able to sell another print from my Linga Bar exhibition to a couple from New Zealand who are now based in Singapore.

The unprecedented sales from my artworks and the amount of connection I have made to different people from all walks of life through my art has been truly amazing, especially during the time that you would least expect it - and I am so much thankful for this gift!

The sun really shines in September!

journeys with yesterdays

I have been blessed with so many great friends - but these are two who are definitely worth blogging about... For my art exhibit in China last August, two long time friends who also happened to be my classmates since kindergarten all the way to primary school and high school (in college, we all went to the same university as well, but different departments) went all the way to Beijing to join me in my exhibition... We had been out of touch for a long time after moving abroad, but when I broke the news to them of my olympic invitation, they all found a way to meet up!


Karl, one of my best buddies, traveled around 10,388 kilometers from Auckland, New Zealand to Beijing and spent almost a day on the plane. He took time from his work in the land of Frodo and Middle Earth where he has been living for the past three years. Among us, Karl had the most relaxing journey to China - flying with ease onboard Air New Zealand bringing with him a bagful of exotic cheese as pasalubong for us!

Karl has the least possibility among the two to come because he had just came from a month-long vacation in the US and his boss is definitely not giving him another break from work... but with much persistence and convincing, his boss agreed and he even extended his China trip to a couple of days in Japan! Details are sketchy of what he did to his boss to get an approval, but he made it!



Elaine on the other hand, traveled from Iloilo to Manila, then Manila to Hong Kong - covering around 1,561 kilometers. From Hong Kong, she journeyed by train to Guangzhou, stayed a day, then took another train again going to Beijing. The train ride alone covered a distance of 1,887 kilometers and took her almost 24 hours! On the way back, since most of the train seats were fully taken because of the closing of the games, her trip had to take twice that long because she had to do stops in a couple more cities around China!

Among the three of us, her journey was the most gruelling and nerve wreaking (not to mention plucking heaven and earth just to get a measly 7-day Chinese visa in Cebu!) - and I truly admire her for that... think of it as a field training for her as she is preparing to move to the United States in a couple of months...

After my own gruelling journey of crazy flights (Siem Reap - Phnom Penh - Hong Kong - Beijing) covering around 3,490 kilometers, we met up in Beijing in the hotel and spent a couple of days roaming around - reminiscing how we used to take these crazy trips together back when we can only afford weekend trips to Boracay, Tagaytay or Manila!

Two years ago, when I started working in Cambodia, these two also took an arduous journey from Iloilo to Manila to Bangkok. Then, they took a seven-hour bus and taxi ride to the Cambodian border and all the way to Siem Reap to see me and my family (my baby was just born then)!



Since this has become quite a tradition for us, we are saving up for a trip to Vancouver in 2010 for the Winter Games and in London in 2012 for the next Summer Games! Since I ALWAYS pay for their hotel, Elaine has "promised" to buy our airfares to Vancouver and Karl has also "offered" to take care of London. Right, Karl and elaine???!!!

Now where do you get friends like them?

of fried frogs and dancing shrimps

My friend Don (together with blog buddies Kawadjan and Gibo) recently came from Laos and was raving about their trip, from the photo shoot, to the stench-ridden 6-hour journey to Viang Veng and the food… oh yes, especially the food. It got me thinking about my last trip to Laos in Vientiane where, I was unceremoniously “forced” to eat some wonderfully exciting (read: super exotic) food that would give Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom a run for their money.

I was there for a photo assignment and overall redesign of a corporate identity of a backpacker hotel and the owner made sure that I try everything out that Laos has to offer…



The adventure started with a trip to the market where we looked at stuff to photograph for the brochure. While we were going around the wet section, I chanced upon a pile of live frogs and got curious about it. But sadly, curiosity not only kills the vegetarian cat… it feeds them food they are not ready to eat! At the hotel, the frog was deep fried in garlic. I couldn’t say I didn’t enjoy it, but it I don’t think I’ll gorge on it with fries anytime soon.


Another item on the menu was fried river snake which was also seriously good because of the drizzle of fried garlic.


The dancing shrimp salad was another adventure on its own. A trip to the countryside by the Mekong River brought us to this floating restaurant which served a salad which you had to eat quick because it's ingredients are jumping back to where they came from!


This used to be a Jurassic Park-looking fish from the Mekong river, but with a dash of red wine sauce, steamed vegetables and fries, this became on of the most decent meals I had.


Although I wasn't brave enough to eat these pile of crickets, I watched my hosts gorge them like Pringles on a sunny afternoon in June.


Apparently, these plates of insects are a popular snack item.


Any exotic food experience in Laos can only be enjoyed justifiably with their national drink - Beer Lao. Light and mild but equally tasty, I can drink this with any meal!


After a spin of exotic food and Beer Lao, take another spin around the city with this tuktuk...


...and venture out to bsorb Vientiane's sights like their national treasure and symbol... the That Luang stupa painted in gleaming gold.


Pathouxai is the "Arc de Triomphe" of the city. Often called the vertical runway, this monument was built using US funds originally meant for the building of their airport.


Wat Sisaket is the city's oldest surviving temple and is home to a huge collection of Buddhas.


Laoatian smiles and faces...



They say Vientiane is nothing compared to the world heritage city of Luang Prabang, but for me, this adventure was good enough as an introduction to a country as exciting as Laos.