The Crescent Moon Cafe

We visited the Crescent Moon Cafe nestled in the Hills of Antipolo which houses a restaurant and the pottery studio of Lanelle Abueva-Fernando.

It has a huge koi pond and lovely Flora and Fauna. We arrived in the afternoon just in time for some merienda, which, being in Antipolo, meant "suman" (sweet rice wrapped in banana leaf).

Antipolo is famously the home of the Church of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage. If you were a good Catholic Filipino worth your salt, you would brave the traffic and winding roads up to the hills of Antipolo and visit this church before you went on big important trips (like shopping in Hong Kong). Story goes that the statue of the Virgin Mary was originally housed in another church down the hills but it kept disappearing and every time they would recover it nestled among the "tipolo" trees in Antipolo. So the villagers construed this as a message that they should build a church there. Or maybe they just got tired of the daily drama, search and recovery. (And to Neil, I say - no, this is not a case of a gay monkey who wanted a divine barbie to play with).

But I digress. The Crescent Moon Cafe was started by Lanelle's late husband. She also sells some of her pottery there including bowl sinks, teapots, countless plates and other tableware. Incidentally she's having a sale this weekend. Her sister, Wendy, an artist/architect lives next door in an equally interesting house with even more interesting plants and flowers.

The photo above shows the koi pond and a huge rambutan tree on Wendy's property.