My brother and I decided to go on a sort of "urban hike" today and we ended up walking from Monumento to R. Papa and then back to Malabon. All in all we covered a distance of about 8km and made around 16800 steps. Not too bad hehe, considering we were just targeting around 10000 steps.
I joined a start up art studio and it has been a fun (spreadsheets, yay!) yet hectic two weeks for us. I wanted to do something different today and something that will help feed my eyes for a bit. Man, I know it sounds sort of lame, but walking from Monumento to R. Papa and then back to Malabon using a different route was a visual feast for my eyes. I enjoyed everything, the heat, dust, seeing tons of people again doing their stuff and heck, even the pollution. Somehow I felt alive again, and somehow made me appreciate, in terms of the amount of inspiration one can get, this country where we live in.
Now, before we go all Heneral Luna on me, no, I haven't watched the film yet. I hope that my team can go watch some time but the real reason that I wanted to go outside and just walk an extended distance was because of 2 Graphic Novels that I read this week: Sixty Six by Russel Molina and Halina Filipina by Arnold Arre. It has been quite a while since I've read indies and it is really refreshing, at least for me, to get to read comics that speak of life as a Filipino in a way that does not exaggerate it but rather describes it as it is for me as in the case of Halina Filipina. It was also fun to get to read about a Filipino super hero who is as Filipino as Balut as Mang Tino of Sixty Six. I admire the passion of the people behind these novels, I like how they see life here as an inspiration instead of something to scoff at. This was the real reason why I wanted to go out and just walk. I wanted to look for the things that they saw and see if it will help fuel my passion to create. I have to admit that one trip outside is never enough and it will take a long time for me to start to really appreciate the country, what with all the crap that the Government and Media throws at us but outside of those two forces, I think this country has lots of things to offer for the creative mind.
