Capturing The Dawn in Guiuan, Eastern Samar

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Imagine waking up early morning facing the calm sea and listening to the gentle waves reaching the shoreline. 

 The sound mesmerizing you to the sweet symphony created by sea and shore. The morning air touching your face and refreshing your skin. The fresh salty breeze invigorating your mind and filling up your lungs accustomed to metro smog with the freshest air imaginable. 

 Watching as the sun slowly rising and touching the small house on one side, and the green mangroves on the other side. 


As each minute passes the sun's rays also stretches out slowly reaching the island on the other side. Seeing people going about their morning chores. A lone outrigger boat (banca) cutting its way through the sea across the bay. 

Not caring about the time because times moves slowly and the pace of life is so relaxed. This is paradise.  This is waking up in Guiuan, Samar, Philippines.

Guiuan, Samar is quite small. It's an idyllic coastal municipality located at the southeastern tip of Eastern Samar. It's a fishing haven where there are a lot of dive spots.  You can easily go around the municipality in tricycles and can reach the town square, town hall, and seaside market in just a few minutes.  

 Life in this coastal municipality is far laid back compared to other municipalities in the metro.  The people are friendly and accommodating.  They are not in a rush unlike in the urban jungle.

Interestingly though this coastal municipality was the first landfall of the devastating "Typhoon Haiyan."  I heard harrowing accounts of residents at the height of the storm while we went around.  It's a good thing that the mayor was able to evacuate most of the residents before the storm. He even begged them to leave for their own safety.  They suffered low casualties because of the timely advise.
You can reach this quiet place from Tacloban airport; and you need to take a UV ride crossing the San Juanico bridge over to Samar.  

 It's almost a four hour ride. You'll be passing a lot of municipalities before reaching Guiuan; including Balangiga where the town bell was taken by American soldiers way back in our history. 

The trip is all worth it. Guiuan is totally relaxing.   I think this is a nice place to retire in your twilight years. There are a lot of hotels along the seashore to choose from if you're going to stay for the night.  You can ask assistance from tricycle drivers.

I'm starting a blog thread that will talk about the "dawn".  I looked up the meaning online and it says "the first appearance of light in the sky".  I had this idea to capture different dawn scenes wherever I go, because I would like to share those scenes with you.  

 I've been to a lot of places, but I haven't really given it much thought. Maybe, because my travels were work related and didn't had time to slack around, even mentally. 

 Why the dawn scene? There are lots of photo-ops for other scenery during the day. Well, the dawn is special because of its meaning in life.  A lot of literature have been written about the symbolism of the dawn. 

 To name a few:  "genesis"; "victory of light over darkness", "a new leash in life"; "starting anew"; "correcting mistakes of the past"; "throwing light into the darkness of life"; "a new perspective"; "grace to live life another day"; "hope"; "re-boot if things got stuck" (geekish)..there are so many metaphors about the dawn.

 Each of us gives our own meaning about the dawn. As for me, I hope to always capture it with both eyes and through words.

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