Make that nine, if you include the default language, English. Thanks to this really cool plug-in, Translate Widget by young Trevor Creech, visitors to this site can just click the appropriate flag on the side bar and read the whole site in their own language!
You can try it here — just click the flag representing your preferred language. Then just switch back to English by clicking the UK flag. I get a big kick out of reading my site in Spanish.
When I pinged this blog at Technorati a few days ago, I was shocked to see that the No. 1 search term was Anna Nicole Smith (after all, she was no “hot young item” like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears) and was even more shocked to find out that it was because she had died unexpectedly at the age of 39. After a cursory reading of the news articles, what bothered me so much is that it seemed too coincidental that:
> mother and son (Daniel) would die under the same mysterious circumstances
> and ostensibly of the same cause (prescription drug overdose),
> within 5 months of each other,
> both dying at a relatively young age,
> both deaths still under investigation.
Visitors to Baguio’s premier horseback riding area, Wright Park Riding Circle, are usually surprised to see a white pony with a shock of pink hair, or sometimes a brown one with a bright orange mane. In recent years, the Pony Boys, experts in giving little kids their most memorable first pony ride, have learned that children prefer white horses (thinking they’re “nicer,” i.e. “more mabait,” than the brown ones) and to make them even more attractive, have taken to dying their hair or puttiing a little pink paper flower on their hair. Don’t worry, the hair dye does no damage to the horse.
I did a bit of blogrolling to check out sites that reference Baguio on Technorati today, and found quite a lot of Multiply sites that kept announcing excitedly, “Baguio, here I come!” And it was very heartening to note that folks, especially the young ones, still look forward to coming up for the Baguio Flower Festival (Panagbenga) despite concerns in recent years about how crowded it gets, how there’s no parking, etc. Maybe I’ve just been listening to folks who expect to just relax in Baguio each time they come up. Of course it’s crowded! And that’s to be expected because in just 12 short years, the Panagbenga has risen to the top of the Philippines’ fiesta calendar.
I created a page called “Old Baguio.” There’s nothing in it yet, but I plan to post articles and photos of the Baguio I fell in love with.
Since Go Baguio!’s redesign, I have been receiving emails and comments from former Baguio residents who now live abroad. What we all have in common is, we knew Baguio during its “glory days” before the great earthquake in 1990 and miss it terribly.
Of course we can’t turn back time. All we can do is give you a glimpse of Baguio Past and hope that Baguio Present will try at least to live up to it.
Here are the things I miss:
