We shall remember last Easter Sunday as the night we rushed to the hospital to be with a best friend who lay dying.

 

Este was already on sedative drip to ease her last moments. To us, she seemed merely asleep, her chest heaving regularly for breath. With her doctors, she planned this final palliative care, after her cancer (breast and, finally, lungs) made dying so imminent.

 

That was very Este—so organized, thoughtful and considerate, who wouldn’t want to be a burden to family and friends.

 

While her two sisters, Agnes and Marimil, who are doctors themselves, helped her doctors explain to her the progress of her ailment and the options available to her, she herself made and prepared for her decisions.

 

She was known as Este to us, her former schoolmates at St. Theresa’s College, and Fani (short for Estefania) to family and colleagues in banking. How ironic life is that the one school friend I had remained close to, beyond school and to this day, is the first one I lose.

 

A bank vice president until she retired a few years ago, Este Santos, come to think of it, has always served as a good foil to our lives peppered with celebrityhood. She never sought the center stage, whether it was at our regular dinners with friends or in our careers.

 

With her, it had always been “about you,” never about herself, no matter that her career achievements were also considerable (two MBAs and, I am told, specializing on material management). Even in her hospital bed chat, she would ask me how I was doing, no matter that it was her condition that was more pressing.

 

In our lives, she has always been a quiet presence, yet a stabilizing one: the order to our clutter, the equilibrium to our imbalance, the calming voice to our whine. We talked, she listened. And how she never tired of listening, only to come up with sober opinions or to laugh.

 

One afternoon two years ago, on the day we decided to gallivant from lunch into dinner, we both woke up, from our power nap, to the beautiful sight of a rainbow across the horizon. Awesome, I told her, that’s a good sign for us. The unspoken thought was the hope of her cancer never coming back.

 

She read our mind and assured us, “Twelve years was good enough. More than that is a bonus I’m thankful for.” She was referring to her 12-year remission from cancer, which would have been 15 this year.

 

While the rest of us quibbled about anything under the sun every day, Este, whether she intended to or not, showed us the gift of acceptance and gratitude.

 

The day before Easter Sunday, we texted her to ask again how she was. “Later” came her reply. (That was her last text. She died Wednesday after that.)

 

Indeed, later. That’s how it is when friends don’t need to say goodbye.

 

Tokyo, the new HK

 

Is it only a perception created by social media, or is it backed by empirical data?

 

The 21st-century Filipino is becoming more and more a leisure traveler, in and out of the Philippines—beyond traditional destinations such as Boracay for local, and California or Hong Kong for foreign.

 

Today’s Pinoy itinerary includes more and more Palawan, Bohol or Cebu, and abroad, Tokyo. The friendlier yen, even friendlier visa processing and budget airfare are luring the affluent class and the upper middle-class to Tokyo and/or Osaka, Kyoto, Nara.

 

As they say, Tokyo is the new Hong Kong, referring to how Tokyo is becoming an option to HK as a favorite destination.

 

We were blessed with coincidences to have approached Easter coming from chilly and windy Tokyo that was on the verge of spring, and from the summer breeze of Bohol. (See summer shoot with Pia Wurtzbach on F1-F6 of this issue.)

 

Two weeks ago was our second time in Tokyo in barely a month. Early March, we were there with Ben Chan, Virgilio and Nenita Lim of the Suyen Group on a food-tasting trip. It took us from the famous sushi place Kyubey to Saint Marc, where we had the by-now famous Chococro (among other irresistibles), to Maisen’s tonkatsu and Pablo cheese tart.

 

The Suyen Group is bringing in the leading Japanese brands Maisen, Marugame Seimen (for udon) and Pablo starting in the next quarter.

 

Ben Chan’s latest venture is already much anticipated in the metro. But more on that soon.

 

Two weeks ago, we flew back to Tokyo with retail pioneer Virgie Ramos of Swatch, National Artist (for visual arts) BenCab, Annie Sarthou, and Swatch’s creative team of Rowell Santiago, Gino Gonzales, Jerome Lorico, and the brand’s Belle Tison and Michelle Zenarosa.

 

It was the team that mounted late last year an innovative launch and interactive installation exhibit celebrating Swatch’s limited edition of BenCab’s Sabel. The landmark event celebrated Swatch’s 25th year in the Philippines.

 

Cherry blossoms

 

This Tokyo trip, however, had no strict agenda or itinerary, but just to usher in the cherry blossom season in Tokyo—a show of nature that every Japanese, and every visitor who has come to love Japan, looks forward to.

 

The landscape is resplendent with blooms that are a demure blush of color—nature asserting its originality and freshness over the cold universe that any metropolis like Tokyo has become.

 

One who spent her growing-up years in Tokyo where her father was Filipino consul, Mrs. Ramos was just too eager to share with us the cherry blossom season. I looked forward to reminiscing the Sakura festival of the mid-’80s, when in the park near our flat or at Ueno Park, we’d join the locals who would picnic and drink sake or beer under the canopy of cherry blossom trees. This was when we lived on and off in Setagaya-ku in metropolitan Tokyo with my toddler son who, now a grownup, has yet to leave the Tokyo of his childhood behind.

 

The Japanese know the exact days the cherry blossom would bloom, as if almost to the hour. We came upon buds in near-bloom and, like the Japanese, we were also marking the time until they would be in full bloom (during our stay, please).

 

The photographer in BenCab lost no time in documenting the flowering of the bud, doing a rather strict monitoring of the trees that stood gracefully in a row around the corner from his hotel in midtown Tokyo. Around the city, wherever he went, he captured the scenes and sensibilities of a country which is luring more and more Filipino tourists—its sense of order and structure (Tokyo must be the only city I’ve seen where the homeless on the street neatly lay out their belongings and sleep mat), the sense of security it offers, its food that, by now, is a favorite of the Filipino palate. Dining in Japan is relatively more affordable today, thanks to the yen.

 

BenCab also photographed some Japanese women in kimono, spotted on the street or in the malls.

 

A high point of our trip was a visit with Ambassador to Japan Manolo Lopez and his wife Maritess to the Philippine embassy residence in Fujimi, Chiyoda-ku, right in the heart of Tokyo.

 

The 4,500-square-meter property is in the Tokugawa Shogunate. The strategically located residence was purchased by the Philippine government, under President Jose P. Laurel, in 1944.

 

In 2013, it was declared a national historical landmark by the National Historical Commission, making it the first and, so far, the only designated national historical structure outside the country.

 

Ambassador Lopez recounted to us the visit of Yoko Ono to the embassy residence. The world icon and widow of John Lennon wanted to see again her family’s ancestral home, where she grew up with her grandmother.

 

The famous residence was built by her ancestor, Japan’s prominent businessman, Baron Zenjiro Yasuda, in 1934. It was inspired by Iberian style of architecture. Although it has undergone some sprucing up through the years, the structure and architecture are intact.

Inquirer columnist and historian Ambeth Ocampo is doing a book on the historic structure.

 

The US Ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, the only surviving offspring of John and Jackie Kennedy, had also visited the residence.

 

It was in the vast garden of the embassy residence where we saw, two weeks ago, the early cherry blossoms of Tokyo, their flimsy whiteness so stark in the soft light of the Tokyo sky right before our dinner, and which BenCab photographed.

 

Beyond the historical residence, Ambassador Lopez was proud of how the Japanese investors’ confidence in the Philippines has grown tremendously. “Everywhere we go, doors open,” he told us, referring to the improved image of the Philippines owing to the Aquino governance.

 

The Filipino community in Japan numbers a little over 200,000, many of them spouses of Japanese nationals, and a growing section of which are professionals.

 

BenCab masterpieces through the decades are prominently displayed in the embassy residence. Lopez is an early collector of BenCabs and is known to have the most comprehensive collection of the national artist. His friendship with BenCab dates back to the early ’70s.

 

BenCab celebrates his 50th year in visual arts this year; 2015 is his retrospective year, with a series of significant events. It kicks off with the musical “Sabel,” a brainchild of another BenCab friend and collector, Rico Hizon. (By the way, we made a mistake in our previous column on Hizon, where we said that Kim Chiu and Xian Lim starred in the teleserye “Forevermore.” So sorry about that.)

 

Retrospective exhibits are scheduled in leading museums and galleries throughout the year, starting with an exhibit of BenCab’s own collection of his works at the BenCab Museum in Baguio. (Watch for the schedule and features in Lifestyle.)