A Different Pleasure Downtown

Bookshop: La Belle Aurore Bookshop
Camera: Pawlito, a Nikon D3100
Location: G/F Honey Hunt Pension House, Junquera Extension, Cebu City

After school, under the soft afternoon light, I walked the familiar street—past P del Rosario and its vendors and pedestrians—and indulged in a different pleasure downtown—La Belle Aurore, a bookshop that offers intimacy. While browsing, my head swayed with the euphony of Bach, Handel, or was it Wagner?

And it was amusing to see  a basket for "Christmas Gift: A Love Letter to Stranger," a project propagated by a poet friend. JB the owner—who personally manned their newest branch—shared that Cindy dropped by that morning.
I encourage everyone to join. Who knows, you—imaginary reader—can make someone happy with pure words. Address the letter to a balot vendor, a kargador, a cancer patient, a street kid. Prove it to yourself or to others that words are far from being dead, that words do not only exist on text messages, Facebook, email, yes, blog. Write a love letter. Yes, to a stranger. Ted Talk's Hanna Brencher's love letters to strangers must propel you to join.

I picked The English Patient since I gave my copy away to a friend at work—for her to read one of the most poignant love stories ever written. Because, again, the saddest love stories are the most beautiful. But P won't agree, the saddest love stories are the most moving, not the most beautiful.—A blog entry on Backpacking with a Book