Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts

June 1, 2013

Iloilo + Roxas

For this year's summer escapade, my family and I boarded a plane and visited the smallest of the 3 islands here in the Philippines, which is Visayas! 


My sister and I sat next to each other and in spite of the uber dirty and bird poop stained windows, she got her groove on and started taking pictures of the pretty fluffy clouds. She's been really immersing herself in spontaneous photography lately as in she takes photos during her walks around the bustling streets of Makati and I just love that. It makes me giddy that she can see the beauty while enclosed by looming towering buildings because it's something that I find really hard to do hehe. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that most of the photos here were taken by her since a) she really has an eye for nice things b) she whips out her itouch so quickly she could be a paparazzi and c) my laptop is crumbling and it can't read memory cards so it can't read the barely used slr's card (which doesn't have much in it since I got too lazy lugging around a huge chunky camera while out and about). 



One of my favorite photos!!
We got to the airport and we were just brimming with excitement and...autism. We jumped around and did synchronized jumping and counting and everything HAHA. 


Ate Stef looking oh so Ati-atihan chic

Kunwari new hairstyle......
The reason why we stopped by Iloilo before we went to Roxas, my dad's hometown, was because my dad's   good old friend wanted us to see Iloilo and so from the airport, tito Edmarc and his family (his uber nice wife and their super adorable baby Mel) picked us up and became our tour guides for the roadtrip.

Our first stop was at Ted's, the famous batchoy place. I remember the days when we'd go malling as a family and we'd eat the food court and pops would ALWAYS order from Ted's! It was so cool finally eating at a legit restaurant and not just ordering from a kiosk at a food court where the smell and the faint popping sounds from the staple sizzling place wouldn't tempt us hehe. After breakfast, we were ushered to our hotel which was located in the heart of Smallville which is...well...a small vill....age? It was a plaza with a ton of clustered establishments that mostly come alive at night naks. 







After resting for a bit, we got picked up and I graced the beach with my Indian princess-y presence chos. We ate at a restaurant by the beach and my sister played around with baby Mel and we ate and we drove for a long time and reached our host's house which was oh so peaceful and then we drove for yet another long time and got to Estancia! We ate an early dinner at another beach side restaurant and droooooooooove for a very looooooong time. By the time we got back to our hotel it was already past 9 in the evening!!!

After resting for a while, we headed out and checked out the local scene. We ended up at Pirates since it had a huge ass pirate ship sticking out and wala lang hahahaha. To cut the long story short, I ended up singing on stage for 2 songs before they ended their first set. It really sucked since they didn't have much songs to choose from and so I settled with a karaoke veteran, Dancing Queen hehehe. 


The next morning we got up bright and early to swim before we left for Roxas City. We already knew our hotel had a touch of Egyptian thingies but the El Dorado Resort which was somehow connected to our hotel (not really sure how), shocked us. It had native Mexican stuff all over and it even had an elephant in the pool! How awesome is that!!!!


I dub the huge guy on top Omac
From Iloilo, we rode a bus to Roxas City. It felt like it was the longest bus ride I have ever been to and riding buses is my means of transportation whenever I commute. The aircon was so bipolar, I'd sleep soundly all dry and wake up with my neck more moist than a chocolate cake :( But alas!!!!! We foinally arrived at Roxas and we got to ride a tricycle just like the old times and it was so fun cruising around town hanging on for dear life hehe. 


We hurriedly satisfied our tummy tums at our grandma's place and then went on to my uncle's fabulous dress shop, Vestes! The shop was so suave and sleek and oh so sophisticated with its black curtains, very chill aura and resourcefully recycled black hangers all over the shop. It was so mataray!


The rest of our trip passed by in a sunny and happy blur. We spent our early mornings by the pool just soaking up the sun, our lunch times with our family and the evenings were spent exploring the local hotspots. Our vacation was definitely one for the books! It took me such a long time to make a post about it because I really couldn't and still cannot put into words how good it felt to bask in the sun all day everyday hehehe and to be surrounded by the people you love the most hihi hay nakakabakla sa feelings.

I don't remember much what we did exactly during our stay but the important ones are A) we bonded a lot with my dad's side of the family :D B) we ate like we we'd be executed the next day C) we got so dark D) on a whim, my mum, my sister and I finally took swimming lessons hehehe since the resort we were staying at had ongoing lessons woop E) I developed an allergy to wearing clothes with sleeves hihi.






Hehe hay lovelovelove

May 24, 2012

Fast Times In Manila

Today was spent roaming around and getting lost in the heart of Manila with my dad. We originally planned on just checking an item off my mini bucket list which was to visit The Oil Paint Store located in the deepest recesses of Tayuman. Before we got lost, we ate at a cozy little Chinese restaurant called Wai Ying in Binondo. We then followed the LRT station's trail- from Carriedo to Tayuman! 

Pretty churches 

Binondo heehee
We got so lost in Tayuman! The Oil Paint Store is situated right at the intersection of M. Hizon and Yuseco. It turns out M. Hizon is such a skinny skinny alley oftentimes overlooked by the residents and so we spent about 20 minutes asking around for directions and weighing Jessica and Phil's pros and cons.


The store was like a gift from heaven. It was so tiny but what it lacked in size, made up for the mind blowing amount of supplies inside!! They showcase various paints all the way from Italy, they have kiosks for each big time brand in painting, they have a room filled with canvases and get this, they have a mini TV that only plays The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross all day long!!! I only bought 4 miniature head busts of gods and goddesses plus 1 Koi water brush wee.


We went back to my dad's office and on the way, we were freaking out because we still didnt know who won American Idol hahaha. When the time for the final announcement came, our maid called us and we had her put the phone next to the tv so we could hear Ryan Seacrest's voice!

I promptly fell asleep after taking these photos at my dad's office
After waking up, I went to Robinsons to have my camera checked out. Right after purchasing film, the guy behind the counter then chooses that time to say that my camera is a bit wonky and it'll need to be repaired for P680 and will be available after 3 to 5 business days. Ughhhhhh. When the whole debacle was over, I hurried and went to KFC to meet with Cheesecake and some of my old classmates. We ate lunch before entering MaSci for our orientation.

l-r. Orientation, the book I bought from Twinkle yay
I dawdled for a while inside the school grounds and caught up with a few people. I then went back to my lair a.k.a my dad's office. I started reading The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell and got so hooked! It's so nice and not to mention such a page turner. I ended up not sleeping on our way home since I was so immersed in the book hehe.

On our way home for Tiantian's farewell dinner

May 13, 2012

Acrophobia

I have a terrible fear of heights. Ask me to name my fears it would be heights first then deep water. I would totally cream my pants if the two were to be combined to make a colossal fear machine especially made for Gab. I seriously am terrified of heights. This one time we were in Ilocos I think, there was this huge lighthouse that you could go up in to see the whole island from, I only got halfway through the spiral staircase and throughout the whole ordeal, I had the staircase handle in a death grip. The last time we were in Subic, my parents decided to stop by this cliff thingy, looking back I realized that it seriously wasnt that high, its just that the rocks and crashing waves daunted me. I ended up crying after they asked me to have a picture near the edge. I cried and cried and sulked and sulked huhu. 

Now ten years after, we went back to Subic and headed to the Tree Top Adventure thingy on our 2nd day. I know this post is reaaaally late but here are a few embarrassing pictures of mine to make up for it haha. 

While listening to the briefing aka description of our deaths
You get to choose from an array of packages with different combinations of 'rides' that will suit your preference. I got Package G for Gab HAHA jk I got it since it had Superman (zipline thingy). Silver Surfer (pogo stick thingy) and the Interactive Free Fall. We first tried the Silver Surfer since it seemed pretty harmless..

Before

After

My legs were jello!!!! Needless to say I got a little shaky after the Silver Surfer, I swear people all the way from Manila could hear my screams
Next up was the Superman which basically is a zipline thingy where you get to pose like Superman. Big surprise tho was to find out that the guy manning the 'ride' was our old neighbor!! It was so cool. We didnt recognize him at first since he looked way different than he did before (I even had a tiny bit of a crush on him), after my parents took off, he asked us a bit of questions and when our parents arrived..BAM my dad was all 'Yeah, hey Ryan'. Hahaha too bad he got to see me flail and hold on to the ladder thingy for my dear life.
Well this picture seems awkward......................................................................





Me praying...

Still praying...



My death
Last activity for the day was the Interactive Free Fall. It's sort of like a rollercoaster with all the sudden drops that will leave your stomach 50 ft in the air. It repeats for about 4 times and maaaan did my tummy ache haha but out of the 3 it was surely the most chill and the easiest.








May 10, 2012

Revisiting Zoobic


I finally had my pictures from the Zoobic trip developed today. My dad called in to tell me that the pictures weren't really that good since my camera got wonky and they only recovered 21 pictures and the rest were too badly damaged. He also told me not to expect much from them. When he arrived though, I immediately went for the package! The pictures are different from my previous batch maybe the fact that I used Kodak on this set instead of Fuji. 






Everything looked vignette-y and dark even though we took them under the blazing sun. Oh welly well well, lesson learned I guess, my camera likes Fujifilm more than Kodak. Good news though, I dug through the boxes inside my closet and found our family's old Pentax camera! Pops is gonna bring it tomorrow and have it checked out and loaded with film wee. 

Meow meow

-_-

Only decent picture of me from this batch :(


Bird feeding!

Baby goats..are they called goatees? He he he


There were so many pigs in zoobic...so tempted to go and just grab one to take home with me