Higalaay 2022: Oro Photographic Society (Photo) Exhibit

All of August this year (yearly) is normally filled with fiesta or festival events. Cagayan de Oro City's patron saint is St. Augustine and we usually celebrate his feast day on August 28. It's a roman catholic thing and y'all know how the Philippines is a very roman catholic country sans other Christian denominations existing, co-existing here with us, roman catholics, and how, especially here in the Mindanao island, we have people of the Islamic faith, too.

Before the series of pandemic lockdowns, August is normally teeming with a lot of events from the fun run I really have been wanting to take part of for a looong while now to agriculture trade fares or displays at the Gaston Park right across the Cagayan de Oro City Cathedral, and to other trade and food fairs in 2-3 malls around the city. August here in Cagayan de Oro City is a pretty festive and fun month.

The month's already at its end but you can check the core events of the 2022 Higalaay (comradeship, camaraderie, brother/sisterhood in English) Kagay-anon, Cagayan de Oro City fiesta here.

For this month and this year, I didn't really go out to check out events going on for the festival. Miss 'Rona (COVID 19) is still around and it's also been raining on and off, week in and week out, every afternoon and evening so I try not to be around crowds much...yet, anyway. I'd like to stay away from being sick with anything for now especially now that we're heading into the last 4 months of the year.

Hmn...I did have a busy week catching up with some friends who are here for their holiday from other countries. They are some one or two fellow native Kagay-anons who've moved abroad to get married and work there. And in the process of catching up with them, I got to check out a few happenings or events of the Higalaay fiesta around Ayala Centrio last week.

One event I got to check out last week was the Oro Photographic Society's exhibit. It's a photo exhibit. It's just ended today, actually.

Three of my favorite photos from the exhibit are from my own Cagayan de Oro City, of course. Or at least two of them are from here. One is from Camiguin Island but it's close to our city so I'm claiming that one as well here. Haha.

I have featured Camiguin Island a lot on this blog. Kagay-an natives are known to frequent that island for long weekend vacations and more and I and my family are no different from those and we've lived here for years so that Camiguin Island photo definitely is up there with my two Cagayan de Oro City shots.

 

Bacolod and the Batanes Islands are in my to travel to list here in the Philippines, of course. I'm including those shots here are some distant-ish 2 and 3 favorites after the three above these two.

I didn't really know we have the Ibong Adarna (if you follow Philippine lore, you'll know this pretty mythical bird) here in our city but we do so I found this pretty cool.

I'm not at all sure if this exhibit will still be up in September. It says in the core events schedule that it ends today, August 31.

I've been to some other sort of core events of the Higalaay festival this year so I'll blog about that some other time this week. Definitely watch out for an onslaught of blog posts from here on out. This space will be quite busy this week and until around end of September and hopefully onwards. 

Until the next blog post, then! See you around here. :)

a late start for 2019, an I'm still alive post

Forever21 bodysuit in white via Tops in Ayala Centrio, vintage shorts and shirt (2nd hand Pull and Bear) as jacket, So Fab heels via Zalora.ph, Coach mobile phone pouch, sunglasses from Bench ph

This bodysuit is heaven sent. Bodysuits are heaven sent in general, I think, that when I saw this hanging on a corner at a store or boutique in our own city's Ayala Centrio called Tops, I just knew I had to get it. Also, I got it for about less than 200 Php so it was quite a deal.

I've been meaning to do this post since we got these while randomly going around Limketkai Mall on a random...err...holiday a few weeks ago. Chinese New Year's holiday, February 5, to be exact. So basically speaking, this is a very, VERY late post.

As for the heels, I got these last year for a company party---the year end, Christmas party in one thing that I have been thinking I'd abstain from next year since I'm not exactly a huge fan of events with huge numbers of people. The free stuff gifted by the company I work for is just too good to pass up, however.

I find myself super busy lately. But the good kind of busy. It's not so much as the work but it's more of me going back to doing my thing, the things I'm best at and these are, well, a number of pretty interesting-ish things. I'm back to the thrifting and shopping game although I still keep it controlled. I'm doing shopping for an online shop on Instagram however. I'm thinking of making it a treasure trove of everything fun for the sunny, summer days comin' up. So yes, the comfiest tees and tanks, the smallest and prettiest as well as roomiest sun dresses of every kind and brand... big things for this are coming, yes, and I am pretty excited about this one. I've been amassing these things little by little and even as I travel, I'm looking forward to getting more for the shop as well.

Aside from getting back into the thrifting game which is something I've loved since eons ago, I'm also ecstatic for a lot of travelling this year. Tomorrow, I'm going to the Greater Manila for one. I was supposed to be there to watch Years and Years' concert at the former Kia Theater in Cubao with a really good friend on LiveJournal, Twitter and even Instagram slated on the 25th, on Monday which is a holiday because it's the EDSA People Power anniversary... But Years and Years announced on Twitter that they've cancelled all concert dates in South East Asia: Hongkong, Bangkok (Thailand), Singapore and Manila (Philippines) a few days ago. So we're left on the limbo---such a good thing we haven't purchased the tickets yet as the friend was looking to buy it in person from the ticketing office at the concert venue but there were others who already bought them so...---and instead resolved to chilling around the city and doing nothing super productive in particular instead. I'm on leave from work on the 26th so I come back to work on the 27th. Other upcoming trips include a summer trip to Siquijor Island with a couple of co-worker-now, really, really good friends and the two best friends since young/high school and college, in April. We will be there during the Holy Week this year since it's a really long weekend then. The last one is a trip to Davao City for a close friend's wedding. This one is for the room mate and best girl friend from when I was in Dumaguete City, the loveliest island city-town hybrid I so miss as of late. I'm sure there'll be more trips along the way, yes. I also am attending my little brother's graduation from college in the month of May so that makes four...or five. I've lost count. I sincerely promise a lot of pictures, outfit pictures, travel pictures and guides after every trip, yes.

There was a planned Tokyo trip but I don't think I'm making it. I need to get the existing, now-opened for anytime travel air tickets to and from Tokyo, Japan but this one might take a while to retrieve so... It's been missing around the house since last year-ish. I'll think about Seoul, South Korea next year instead as tickets there are definitely waaayyy cheaper than Japan's.

Fandom...? I'm still as obsessed as ever. Latest targets: Japan's Da-iCE and Cube Ent's BtoB or Born to Beat, especially rapper Jung Ilhoon. I think I'm slowly easing back to Jpop. It's my first fandom and it'll remain still the best for me outside of my latest wandering around the kpop realm. Anyway, meanwhile, some of my favorites from Ilhoon. Yes.

Yep, I'm still quite the same after all these months. Although I've been working more and more, I guess, I've been learning to take the time off on weekends and holidays and well, to take the time to just do my thing. I have more plans for the coming 2020 especially big ones...I really want to move abroad soon so yes, that's in the works too,...so that one, I'm sort of excited and thrilled for although I'm also, at the same time, quite scared of it. I've such big plans for 2020 that I don't know if I'll be able to sustain the momentum until the next few years or I'll end up burning out like I did intermittently two to three or even more times in the past so...I'll take care not to overwhelm myself by then. 

Anyway, I'm more active on the fangirl account on Twitter and am semi-active on the selling account on Facebook... I'm also always lurking around the selling account in Instagram and sometimes switch to the personal blog Instagram account so I'm not all that hard to miss. I still limit Facebook usage because I don't see myself getting over hatred for Facebook due to their lack of good security measures. I'm also quite active on posting on the Tumblr account as it's linked to my blogging Twitter account so... you know where to find me. Just really, email me or message me on Twitter or Instagram (avoid Facebook as much as possible, please) if there's anything you'd like to let me know or so. I'm always checking on there so it's not hard for me to reply to emails and SNS messages then. 

And until the next post! I still have to pack up...yes.