at the launch of new website Republikha.ph  
A house of up & coming quality Filipino brands w/c are locally made for the Filipinos, by the Filipinos. Create, buy & wear LOKAL: www.republikha.ph

a cool launch by Bryan and Joacqui...more power to Republikha.ph

WWW.REPUBLIKHA.PH
Now on its soft launch! View the website now as we continuously work on it for a better online shopping experience! Create, buy, wear & support LOKAL! :)

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in and around Singapore again...

design by nature...

pretty and waiting for the bus

a colorful, vintage shop under the Singapore flyer

art all around...a shop on Haji Lane  and
Botero's Adam and Eve

traditional Singaporean kopi-o is a must at 1.20 to 1.80 dollars

cuteness all around

Dean & Deluca...love the cafe, hate the coffee (5dollars)

but Ikea's one dollar coffee, 
I love...

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Chicify trend updates...

Chicify is an online shopping mecca for things chic and stylish. It heavily advocates homegrown fashion, making the site your go-to for local brands and new, upcoming designers. 

The products in the site are handpicked and well-curated by a team of editors, making sure they not only complement the variety of existing items, but are also of good quality at pocket-friendly prices. 

like them on facebook

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how to travel light

get the look

urbanchichipster.com
how to wear your poet's shirt

travel photos, favorite things, 

colors, textures, inspirations, 

food, style, shopping, lookbook, 

people, favorite places and spaces, 

discoveries, fixations, influences...

coffee, cafes, cakes, pastries, 

sun, sea, sand, shoes, 

elements, fixations, art, installations, internet,

blogs, life, simplicity, 

boho, boheme...

Be Boheme 
Bambi Boheme

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Van Gogh's Starry Night

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Ha-Noi

red is the color of VietNam

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in and around Barca...

Barcelona

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Vive le France

                                                             a loft in Lyon                                                                                 

benches on a bridge in Paris     

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this is the real deal, photo taken at the National museum of Singapore, no flash of course




my friends and I recently went to a cafe in QC called Van Gogh is Bipolar, discover it yourself

like them on facebook

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Hanoi is and amazing ang magical place

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Gaudified...is what happens to you in Barcelona


such a small city, every square inch of which is filled with art, color and life extraordinary


walking in Barcelona is walking in art and history

no two facades are alike, every building is unique

my biggest expense is coffee...I gauge the cost of travelling in a city by the price of its coffee;) a delicious cup of fresh, frothy black coffee or espresso in Barca at any local cafe is .65 to .85 euro...beats any American coffee franchise in the Phils!

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Paris 
at winter time has a sepia/black and while film quality to it, just like Audrey Hepburn movies

it's like being caught in a time warp

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coffee is very good in France and not so bad at 2 to 3 euros a cup, I'll take that anytime over franchise coffee 

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a couple on a bridge somewhere in Paris I think

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oh don't get me wrong, i love our local Barako and Benguet coffee, but it is almost impossible to find them in our local coffee shops, I do brew my own and order from Kape Umali in Baguio

like them on facebook!

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streets of Lyon and Paris

the Eiffel of course...

i love bridges

back of the Louvre

front of the Louvre;-)

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Hoi-An, Vietnam

a covered bridge in Hoi-an

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sunrise in Hoi an

Hoi-an is a well preserved French colonial town, a UNESCO heritage site




old buildings have been converted to charming shophouses...




one gets to sleep in century old houses, eat on the street and observe local life despite it's tourist destination status

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coffee is a staple in Vietnam...at 10,000 dong, I can have my deep, black, velvety, chocolatey Vietnamese coffee allllll
daaay looooooong!!!!

traditional Vietnamese coffee

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dreamy, foggy Ninh Binh

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Hue

the ricefields of Ninh Binh are surrounded by limestone mountains, it is like being in Halong Bay minus the sea

rent a bike and cycle in and around the ricefields

the temperature dropped to 8 degrees celsius thus the dreamy quality

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forbidden city

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Yogyakarta

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of course it's a MUST, my daily dose of caffeine



deep, dark, Java coffee

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in my favorite cafe in Yogya

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a skinny hotel in Prawirotaman 

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amazingly the courtyard of the skinny hotel

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hallway of the skinny hotel

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the area we stayed in had charming little hotels with narrow fronts that opened up to large courtyards, even pools and gardens!

sunrise in Borubudur

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shophouse or junk shop?

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                rooftops

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I was in university when I saw Borubudur on the cover of National Geographic magazine, it sounded like a strange, faraway place....fast forward 2009 in the era of cheap airline tickets via online booking on the internet, we chanced upon  promo flights to Jakarta via Cebu Pacific six months advance purchase at 1,650 pesos roundtrip!


take that trip we did! 

downside, blame our cluelessness, it was Eid so everything was closed in Jakarta and all the locals were heading the same way we were to Jogja! Yay!

it was arduous and strenuous moving from one hotel to the next

but all's well that ends well

a colorful house or shop waaay below street level...

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Bangkok

a rustic guesthouse in the midst of the metropolis

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Singapura

the Helix Bridge, Singapore

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starting the day right with the smoothest, blackest cup o' kopi-o

kopi is with milk
kopi-o is black

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Singapore is a bustling, modern city filled with commerce

a heaven and haven for retailers and shoppers alike 

a city to walk in rain or shine with its underground metropolis...

where Manila has multi level basement parking, Singapore has  multi level, interconnected, underground shopping which to me is an engineering wonder;) 



Singapore cuisine is amazing
Indian, Peranakan, Indonesian, Thai, Chinese...name it they have it

the Henderson waves bridge

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i love shophouses, doors, windows, stairwells, ceilings...

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we explored almost every corner of Singapore, visited all the parks, did a lot of treks


crossed to  Pulau Ubin, lost and found our way in the trails




we explored every shop on Orchard heaven, ate in the hawker centers, went to the beach

little India

Katong

Marina

Orchard

Singapore art museum    etc etc




we walked, and walked and walked and walked....

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Rome

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when in Rome, look up!

one can't help but look to the heavens and get a stiff neck, every square inch or every ceiling is beautifully painted and decorated with painstaking detail

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Laos...

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Vientianne, Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang

Dubai, UAE

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souk, city, desert, creek, marina