Caribbean Footwear: Experience a wild summer adventure with the Urban Safari Collection!

Travel is the ultimate get-away from everyday stress and the monotonous life we suffer from--may it be school, work or both. We go to the beach and take vacation trips to rejuvenate and refresh ourselves, and that comes with considering comfort and ease in what we wear for our summer ventures. Comfort always comes first with our clothes, especially our flip flops. We must have all experienced those flimsy and uncomfortable pair of flip flops that didn't even last a month, designs that grew pale and pasty and even stuck on our feet. Worry no more--Caribbean Footwear, the ultimate novel brand that infused art and science into our flip flops--has finally granted our wishes.

A proudly local brand that first bloomed in 1995, Caribbean Footwear spells travel, beach and adventure. It formerly manufactured products for big footwear companies and started their flip flop designs in 2010. This year Caribbean Footwear launched its newest Urban Safari Collection with media and bloggers last April 3 at Red Mango, Greenbelt 3.

Comfort, Durability and Fashion--these are the three tenets of Caribbean Footwear. It ultimately believes that comfort and style can be stringed together by art and science and can eventually achieve a durable and long-lasting pair of flip flops perfect not just for our summer escapades but also for our everyday use.

Here are the concepts behind the perfect blending of fashion and technology that make Caribbean Footwear unique from other flip flop brands:

1. The science is in the strap. Caribbean's flip flop straps are molded perfectly to achieve comfort, durability and elegance using its own avant-garde technology.

2. The technique is in the toe. Revisiting and reconsidering the science of balance in our feet, Caribbean specially designed its flip flop's arched structure that supports the balancing act maintained by our toes.

3. The core is in the curve. Counting durability as one its main principles, Caribbean offers the model of the mid-foot curve, which serves as our aide that maintains our posture and proper foot formation. Such perfectly and practically designed structure enhances our endurance while walking or running.

4. The secret is in the sole. Caribbean footwear is scientifically-designed to shape our sole that provides comfort in mobility and protection against harsh elements that usually leave our feet injured or calloused.

5. The absolute transformation is in the Anti-slip technology. If there's anything especially extraordinary and revolutionary in Caribbean compared to other well-known footwear brands, it is the anti-slip foot bed technology that can make us finally say goodbye to that uneasy and unpleasant feeling when we walk our flip flops for too long.

Caribbean's flip flop combines art and science in one--its classy and elegant designs that range from its basics collection, design prints to the stripes revolution available for men and women, and its cutting-edge technology that lives up to its promise of durability and long-lasting comfort.

Caribbean Footwear is now available in leading department stores and supermarkets nationwide. You can never go wrong with Caribbean Footwear with its Urban Safari Collection design and its affordable prices ranging from P180-P300. You may also visit their website at http://www.caribbean.com.ph/ and like their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/CaribbeanFootwear.

My Urban Safari flip flops!

Hugo Cabret: Forgetting names, remembering legacies

The legacy you offer to the world is not measured by how people remember it, but by how it has changed others; how it has changed the world for the better.

First glimpse of how the camera zoomed its way through the white smoke of the train station, I remembered Platform 9 3/4. It also reminded me of Ratatouille with that unmistakable and classical instrumental music at the beginning of the movie that immediately took us to Paris. Most of all, it reminded me of my childhood passion for adventures, only this time I made my way through the magical lair of a 12-year-old orphan behind the walls of Gare du Nord station with a perfect view of the lovely Eiffel Tower.

Truly Academy Award winning, Hugo Cabret (2011, directed by Michael Scorsese) is the movie that has offered more than our childhood adventures and the beauty of Paris; it also showered the audience--both young and old--with life's important lessons on perseverance, on realizing our purpose in life and on having faith in our dreams and achievements even though people have long forgotten them. The package also came with the story on the birth of the art of film that made me appreciate movies all the more.

Based on the children's novel entitled "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick, the story starts with orphan boy and clockmaker Hugo (Asa Butterfield, The Boy in Striped Pyjamas) living behind the walls of a train station alone and stealing food for survival after his father, also a clockmaker (Jude Law) died in a fire at the museum where he worked and his Uncle Claude left him to watch the clocks at the train station.

A mysterious automaton was the only memory he had left of his father and was determined to fix it thinking it would a message from his old man. With the help of a friend, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Montez, Diary of a Wimpy Kid series) who's crazy about adventures and had longed to experience one "at least outside of books", Hugo fixed the automaton and accidentally entered a "story of sadness" mysteriously webbed with the memories of his father, a movie of a moon hit by a rocket, magic tricks and even the automaton itself. As they discovered it was the story of the old toy maker Georges Melies (Ben Kingsley), a "broken" but legendary filmmaker and magician who was long forgotten by the world, their adventure became a quest to "fix" the old man that would also change their lives forever.

What I loved most about the film is that every character, even the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) has his own insightful story to tell and share. We eventually learned he was also an orphan and has experienced the cruelty of the people in the orphanage that's why he hates kids like Hugo. Among all these we have seen each story unfold through the eyes of the 12-year-old orphan as he entertains himself with the daily whereabouts of the people at the train station (ie the love story of the station inspector and Lisette (Emily Mortimer) and of Monsieur Frick (Richard Griffith) and Madame Emilie (Frances de la Tour)).

 

It's not simply a children's movie revisiting the exciting real-life adventures and fantasy dreams made of witches and mermaids and an ambitious voyage to the moon; through this movie I was able to reflect on how Georges Melies lost his faith in his films when the people had lost interest in them. Deep sadness, maybe even leading to depression because the world seemed to have forgotten you may truly be part of human nature, but as George lingered on it for too long, he has deprived himself of the better side of his works: that even though most people have forgotten him, some people's lives were changed because of his works. Hugo had found his way home through George's automaton, and even the life and childhood of Professor Rene Tabard (Michael Stuhlbarg) revolved around Melies' inspirational works.

 

Being forgotten may be part of the sad journey as one eventually says goodbye to the ever-changing world, but maybe no one is really ever forgotten: what one leaves as a legacy, how he passionately shared and taught it to others, will inevitably be passed on to the younger generation, and so even though people have forgotten his name, his legacy will forever be remembered.