From One Beautiful City:

If you have lived in bigger cities, you will think that your place is provincial. By the looks of it, the buildings certainly rise higher, fountains more spectacular, the roads paved better, the malls wider and the parks are well-kept.

You might want to stay in a corner when the crowd talks about urbanity.

My hometown, Malaybalay City, however, has taller mountains in lieu of buildings, clearer streams instead of spectacular fountains, and green woods to walk by instead of wide malls and well-kept parks.

Jenny and I looked at a piece of property yesterday for a house in Malabalay. I took some photos but my camera doesn’t capture the vista. It’s on the crest of a hill and what I like about it is the 360 degree view of the surrounding mountains. The afternoon light reflecting brilliantly off the western face of the mountains was stunning. The only sound, the wind.

But you can also tell that in its immediate vicinity is a lot of clear cutting for farming and subdivisions - so even Malaybalay is loosing its trees.

I absolutely adore downtown Fortich Street in the afternoons after school. It is loaded with students and others strolling up and down, traffic moving easily and lazily. Like huge bunches of flowers moving and bobbing in the wind, the young girls in particular (by the hundreds it seems) make this a pleasant scene, groups of bright pink skirts (high school) here, groups of blue skirts (college) there, and a smattering of green skirts (elementary).