happy 2010!

survivor caramoan day 1

June 19, 2009:

5:00am: Arrived at the airport to see the girls already waiting near the check-in counter in time for our 620am flight. We all look excited, even though Pamy has yet to sleep while the rest of us had only 3 hours worth of sleep.

5:50am: I am amazed by the on-time boarding, we’ve been wanting to be in the plane so we can snooze a bit, besides we don’t want to keep Cris, the driver of our van waiting. I got a text way before our boarding time that he was already at the Pili Airport waiting for us.

6:20am: We finally took off and it was also the signal for us to catch up on sleep. Although I wasn’t really able to sleep as I preferred to read through the Smile magazine, I just couldn’t resist reading so I’ll have an idea where else I can travel to next J

7:30am: We arrived quite on time and proceeded to the van that was parked near the flagpole. I was surprised our van was labeled as GT Express, I thought that tag was only used in Manila, guess it’s a standard things across the nation.

8:40am: Upon arrival in Sabang Port, we were roused up by a number of manongs trying to open our van’s door! Good thing it was a little dented so it did not open easily, otherwise we’d think we’re being mobbed! It turns out that they were jostling to get to us so they’ll be the ones to carry us and our bags to the boat when it arrives.

8:45am: As we walked to the dock, the other manongs informed us that we just missed the boat by 10 minutes and we had to wait until 11am when the next boat is scheduled to leave! Instead of being pissed about it, we just passed the time looking through the nearby carinderias for breakfast.

9:00am: Got in the biggest carinderia we saw and ordered veggies, killer adobo, fish sinigang and rice. We all loved the meal, specially the sumptuous sinigang soup, and to think our meals with soft drinks only cost less than P40!

10:15am: The too friendly manongs advised us that we need to board the boats as more and more people are gathering. Since it’s the last trip, we’d want to secure seats right away, so we wouldn’t be left again! Pamy wrote down our names in the manifesto and the manongs lined up in the hopes that they can carry us to the boats. But since we were prepared to get wet, we just asked them to carry our bags to safety and we braved the waist deep waters to get on the boat. Funny how the manongs kept offering excuses so we would allow them to carry us. They kept saying we’d get wet, and when we said that’s ok, they mentioned that the water is “mahapdi”! We found their excuses more pathetic when not 5 minutes into the boat ride, we got splashed by some big waves! Talk about wanting to be saved from getting wet by carrying us when we could not escape getting wet due to constant waves crashing into our boat! I wonder why they didn’t just put signs similar to EK’s Rio Grande telling people they’d get wet on the ride, but then, that would ‘kill’ the manongs’ source of income and entertainment.

12:30nn: After almost 2 hours of a very wet, bumpy and wild boat ride, we reached Guijalo Port and were touched by the simple yet effective welcome sign from our hotel, Rex Inn. I should’ve taken a photo of the small manong waving his sign while smiling widely on the dock.
12:40pm: We piled up into a tricycle – a bigger yet barer version, and started our journey to the rough terrains of Caramoan! We had to go up the sides of the mountain before we can reach the town proper, it was a good 20-minute journey holding on to the shabby bamboo handles of the tricycle for life!

1:00pm: We got into our one big room and after depositing our bags, we were offered lunch and who could resist the feast offered to us: shrimps in garlic sauce, laing, fried chicken and lots of rice J We weren’t sure if its just our hunger that made everything taste good or not, but we were more than happy and grateful for the food served to us. With our stomachs slowly filling up, we felt more relaxed and got to updating each other with the latest events and happenings in our lives. We can’t help but discuss work stuff but they weren’t the “juicy news”. Everyone was surprised when Ina simply stated her newest revelation about her New Year’s news. We also finally heard the real reasons behind of Robbie’s brief office romance. Cean ultimately admitted that she and aHeremy were an item and we got the latest update/ status of the Pady/ Jomy ‘friendship’. We were just getting on to more serious conversations when our tour guide aka Kuya Lito reminded us that we need to leave soon if we want to start with the real reason behind our almost 6-hour journey to their town!

2:00pm: We again hopped on another tricycle and went on not just a long and winding, but also a bumpy, roller coaster and baby-aborting ride to the Paniman dock. I knew it’s not the usual road but I must admit I didn’t expect it to be this rough!

2:30pm: We’re finally at the beach, but we’d still need to ride a smaller boat to get to the real beaches of Caramoan. We got to ride a red boat named Chu-Chu and we all got a plank seat to ourselves as the boat does not really have enough space for us to seat next to each other.

3:00pm: We first went to Matukad Beach, a small yet beautiful beach with powdery white sand, but not after passing Gota Beach, the only island with accommodations, and some other islands that are being used by Survivor France. Upon landing, Kuya Lito told us that there’s a lagoon up the side of the mountain which we can climb. But since only Ina is the master of wall climbing, we just asked her to take photos for us! And while she was up there, we took a dip into the ocean and marveled at such an amazing and wonderful experience! After a few minutes, Ina joined us and told us the lagoon wasn’t worth the risk of climbing but the view was something worth seeing J Good thing she brought my camera so it’ll look like I took the photos up those cliffs hehehe J

4:00pm: We left Matukad and proceeded to the quaint Honongan Beach, one of the islands used for Survivor France. This was something else, it had huge limestones on both sides of the beach to create an illusion that you are alone a.k.a. trapped in between them and have the little paradise for yourself. I think a photo best explains what I meant by that J Cean and Pamy even agreed that it was like the set for Disney’s A Little Mermaid movie. Hence, we took photos of them pretending to be Arielle J

4:45pm: We passed by Lahos beach but since it was occupied by the noisy neighbors (our co-passengers on the boat to Caramoan who did nothing but shout whenever they got splashed by the ocean, as if it was the first time that they experienced it), Kuya Lito brought us to a smaller island. We were a bit tired from getting in and out of the boat so only Robbie was ‘energized’ enough to go down and take some photos.

We asked f we can go to an island where we can see the sunset and Kuya Lito instead brought us to the now deserted Lahos Beach. We had fun with the soft muddy sand and went on to massacre the smooth beach surface! It could be an effective ad for flip flops, but we forgot to take a photo with a real pair, so we’d have to photo shop one before sending it to any brand who’d be willing to use it hehehe J

5:30pm: We hopped back to the boat and started our journey back to Paniman Bay to call it a day. We got on another tricycle and was requested to walk through a trail, in the steeper part of the road, so we would be able to proceed with our ride home, without suffering from any injuries!

6:15pm: Back at the inn and we were all tired but glad that we’ve seen probably some of the best beaches of Caramoan already. Our friendly Chef inquired if we wanted to eat and Cean answered with a resounding “now na”!

And where we happy to see what’s for dinner! Crabs (including one giant crab!), chopseuy, adobo and a plateful of rice! It was probably the best meal we had (although when I think about it, all the meals were simply delicious!) and one of the few where we finished one dish! Again, let the photos speak for themselves J

7:00pm: Since we only one have bathroom, we had to fall in line and wait for our turn to bathe. But we didn’t mind waiting since there was enough space in the room to sit and stare at the TV. We couldn’t find a decent channel, so we opted to tune in to MTV instead. And before I had my turn to shower, we were treated to David Archie’s Touch my Hand video J We all went into fan-girl mode, except for Robbie, who tunes out when talking about AI. Cean admitted that she wanted to stand and watch the video but she was already half-asleep and too tired to do so. She said that at least, she fell asleep listening to her favorite Archie song J

9:45pm: Lights out and off to bed! In the morning we all admitted that it was probably one of the earliest bedtimes we had in a loooooonggg while!

Up Next: Day 2

excerpt from the warrior of light

There is always someone in the world waiting for someone else, whether in the middle of the desert or in the heart of some big city. And when these two people’s paths cross and their eyes meet, the whole of the past and the whole of the future lose all importance, and there only exists that moment and that incredible certainty that everything under the Sun was written by the very same Hand. The Hand that awakens Love and creates a sister soul for everyone who works, rests and seeks treasures under the Sun. Were it not for this, the dreams of the human race would make no sense.

- Love by Paolo Coehlo

davids in manila

it's been only 5 days but seeing david cook in idol earlier made me feel the experience is still surreal. why was he in idol already when he was just here with archie last saturday?!?! but i guess these photos prove that it was real, that they were here and i was there, screaming my lungs out (thus my voice still sounds croaky)! o my! can't wait till their next visit!


the beginning...


... and the end


archie's set included: touch my hands, barriers, a little too not over you, you can, my hands, your eyes don't lie, to be with you, don't let go, waiting for yesterday, stand by me/ beautiful girls, a thousand miles, angels. zero gravity and crush.



cook's song list included: the world i know, heroes, mr. sensitive, declaration, life on the moon, always be my baby, kiss on the neck, straight ahead, make me, avalanche, little lies, come back to me, light on, bar-ba-sol and a daily anthem.

The P50 Indonesian Holiday

Mar 11: Landed in Jakarta by 11pm, local time and paid a whopping IDR200,000 for the cab ride to our hotel, which is roughly 10x more expensive than our actual airfare to Indonesia! Anyway, we just charged that to experience and vowed to take only Blue Bird taxis from then on.

Good thing we had a nice, quaint hotel and yey! They had Star World so I knew I wouldn’t have to miss on the other addiction also known as AI! But too late, I opened it to see Jorge, which meant Anoop has just finished his song.

Slept at about 2 (3am MLA time), as we had to adjust a bit to the time difference hahaha!

Mar 12: I was fully awake as early as 6am because that’s about 7am in MLA already, although I think the real motivation for my early rising is AI’s replay J and we also were supposed to wake up early to go to Bandung, a ‘province’ in the north of JKT. But since we didn’t want to rush ourselves, we took our sweet time preparing and was finally on the train to Bandung by 830am. It was a 3-hour train ride so we had some time to nap and chat. We even had the chance to eat because there were free snacks on the train! It’s not much, but at least there’s free food with the IDR40,000 train ride :)

We were in Bandung a little before 12 and went to straight to the Tourist Info Desk to ask for a map and directions to the nearest money changer. I thought the officer was nice enough to point out the one that has the best exchange rates, but I felt otherwise when we reached the place, after walking through a Divisoria-like area, and waiting for almost an hour just to get our money exchanged for a million rupiahs! Yes, we were millionaires for a day!

It was al most 2pm JKT time when we had real food in Sindang Reret, one of the more famous restaurants in town. The food was good, not the best, but for two tired and hungry people, we could have been served wood and it would still taste good! Kidding aside, I liked their Sate, but the Nasi Goreng looked more like yang chow and the noodles were a bit bland. I was hoping it was some sort of noodle soup but it turned out to be their version of the pancit canton.

Now that we were full, we geared up to walk to Dago Street, where the FO’s (factory outlets) are. We first went inside an almost mall and saw people going gaga over a bakeshop, we were intrigued so we looked around and promised to come back later.

We walked a while before we stumbled upon the FO’s, and I was a bit disappointed because I didn’t find anything worthy to buy. There were lots of branded clothes, but I never was a fan of them, and maybe it’s because I couldn’t really find clothes that will fit haha!

After visiting about 5 stores, we decided to head back to the mini mall and try out the gelato Olive wanted. It costs IDR16,000 a scoop and we got one choco mint and strawberry and semi-shared the sweet, light yet flavorful goodness of the gelato. Then we spied on the throng of people who were lining up and buying so much stuff from the bakeshop and ended up buying one cheesecake and 2 brownie pans to take home. And boy did it take some intense self-control not to devour, or even take a bite off, those cakes.
We took a taxi back to the train station and waited for our 630pm train. This time, tired as we were, we didn’t get one minute of sleep as we were busy talking about stuff that I shouldn’t really write about :)

Oh, we did get to taste some brownies though as our snack included a slice of it!

We were back in Jakarta by 10pm and we went to the nearest mall to have a decent dinner, and wow, it was really a decent one because it costed IDR214,000, IDR100,000 more expensive than our lunch in the fancy Bandung restaurant. But never mind, we enjoyed the fish and chips and pasta and the salad that we had for desert. The mall also had a nearby Starbucks so we went to see if they had a Jakarta tumbler that my sister asked me to buy. Unfortunately, they only had the mug, which if I had the mistake of buying, would get me a scathing reaction from my dear sister!
Anyway, we went back to the hotel and asked if we can extend our stay for another night. Sadly, it was already booked so we inquired at a nearby hotel if they have an available room for the next night. We’re not actually staying the night, we just needed a place to shower and rest before our flight back, so yes, we were a bit exorbitant but what’s IDR414,000?!?!?!

We were back at the hotel by 1130pm, just in time for the AI results show. Okay, so it was the first time that day that I thought of the possibility that Anoop might get the boot but I was still hoping that his legion of fans would save him. Of course, he was in the bottom three, and worse, the bottom two, but he still had more fans than Jorge so he survived to stay another week. Thank goodness Slumdog Millionaire won the Oscar’s! And thank God I could sleep soundly that night knowing I’d still have a “manok” when I catch AI in MLA next week!

Mar 13: Woke up a bit late today because we don’t really know what we’d do today, although shopping was definitely one of them. We decided to go to Taman Mini Indonesia, their version of Nayong Pilipino, so we’d get to see the entire Indonesia in one day. By now, we were expert taxi passengers so we rode a Blue Bird taxi all the way to Taman Mini Indonesia. We were there a litlle early, and were a bit lost where to go until we looked for the information center where the personnel told us to ride the white cars that drive around the park.

We walked towards the shuttle station but good thing one came by and picked us up. So the driver cum tour guide drove us around real slow, talking about each area of Indonesia and mentioning entrance fees for museums or parks inside the park, and he also commented that then Pres Marcos came to one of the conferences in one of the halls in the park. He was a good guide, but although I found it a bit too forward when he asked for a tip, we thought his effort was worth the IDR1,000 we gave him, even if we didn’t think he’d appreciate the amount that much! I felt it’s similar to giving a P1 tip to a cab driver!


We went around the mini-Java areas and took several photos of the beautiful houses. But since it’s quite a big area to cover, we got tired after the sixth area and waited for the white car to drive us to Bali :)

However, the white car never came, so we were left stranded until we decided to just walk across the Indonesia map and straight to Bali.

It was worth the walk, though, and we also found the Borobudor Miniature and just took photos despite it being enclosed in a glass casing.



At about 130pm, we then finally ate our first real meal of the day, Nasi Goreng (again) and the Baksa (soup with beef balls). We also went to look around the nearby souvenir shop and bought a bag for Tin, whom we left back home.

We then walked back to the taxi areas and rode a Blue Bird taxi with a “happy almost high” driver who took us to Plaza Senayah where we bought pasalubongs for friends and family. I couldn’t buy as much as I wanted because they were a bit pricey, and the ungenerous me held back, but not until I saw the HP shirts that were on sale! I practically re-arranged the whole stocks to look for Ron shirts and ended up buying 3 shirts J I wish I bought more but I couldn’t really wear an HP shirt everyday , right?

After the shopping, we ate Pad Thai, Nasi Goreng (yes, for the 3rd time) and Fish and Chips (for the 2nd time) at an Asian Cuisine resto in the mall’s food court. We also explored the supermarket where we bought a mini 2-in-1 Wall’s tub of ice cream J
So we went to our new hotel to rest and bathe (we had a bath tub this time!). Olive slept while I watched Travel and Living. It’s a good thing we didn’t stay in this hotel from Day 1 because they didn’t have Star World, that would have made the vacation AI-free and I don’t think I could have endured it!

I woke Olive before 9pm and we prepared to go to the airport hoping we’d get to shop in their duty free shops. We still had about IDR200,000 to spare and we’d like to see if there’s anything worth buying at the airport.

The shops in the airport aren’t many and most of them were already closed. I saw a Starbucks and I had to see if they were selling the Jakarta tumblers, because if they did, I would have asked if I could buy one even if they were already closed, as a local mentioned, because I didn’t want to disappoint my sister.

Anyway, we went to our gate and lo and behold! The “departure area” where the seats were would not open until 1030 and it was just quarter to 10! So we had to wait and sit along the sides of the walkalator while munching on our IDR28,000 cheese muffins and ISR35,000 watermelon shakes. Since we didn’t see anything worth buying with the rupees we had left, we decided to buy the next best thing – food, as our P50 flight didn’t include food.

So we were on our way to the last inspection before we take our flight and I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t bring home the bottle of hot sauce I bought at the grocery simply because their airport didn’t allow liquids in hand-carried bags, so I had to say goodbye to my IDR18,000 condiment.

We boarded the plane by 1130pm and took off 15 mins after. I didn’t remember much about the flight except the captain all woke us up just to say that we are beginning our final descent to MLA. We touched down a little before 6am and I was home via a yellow, expensive airport taxi before 7am.

All in all, the brief but busy holiday was worth it, and I couldn’t wait till the next cheap trip comes along.

happy new year!

cheers to a better, brighter, lovelier and more fun-filled 2009 :)

random post

it's a slow day in the office, only because our data has yet to come. so i thought i'd use the time to update and change this blog though i haven't written much lately simply because there's really nothing much to say. i'll just update photos i took from a boracay wedding i attended last month as soon as i upload them. they're still in my camera phone... geesh... i've been lazy :D