~* ROSE-COLORED TIMES ON RIDES W/ YOUR EYES CLOSED *~

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those were rose-colored times on rides with your eyes closed.
those were rose-colored times on rides with your eyes open wide.
~ lisa loeb

i sooo loved the pink dusky sky!

I brought Charo, Tin and Abbie with me to our company outing at Enchanted Kingdom (Sta. Rosa, Laguna). Charo, Tin and I were at the amusement park around 4ish pm and Abbie followed around 7:30pm. We stayed til closing time 10pm. Basically, here's what we did:

1. Got our Wizard Money from my officemates. (P500/pax! woohoo!)


2. Snacked on hotdogs.


3. Got tickets for the 4D Discovery Theater (Pirates). It was just around 5ish pm but the ticket they were selling were already for the 8:20pm showing.


4. Pondered on whether Abbie (since she's still recovering from losing a gall bladder) should take the "real" seat when we see Pirates. The ticket attendant suggested that Abbie could seat herself on a monobloc chair. And then somebody will stand beside her and manually spray water on her using a spritzer. (Ok, the latter was my suggestion. lol.)


5. Tin, Charo and I proceed to the Dodgem. Wooohoo. I know na how to drive a bump car! It was my first time to navigate one by myself. Driving lessons c/o Tin and Charo hehe.


6. Rode the Roller Skater. It's like a mini-primer for the Space Shuttle. Tin took photos while we were on the kiddie roller coaster.


7. Got on the farthest side of Anchor's Away. I can't believe I let myself get talked into riding at the farthest side! Aaaaack. I screamed like a girl. I felt my insides lurch. While I was screaming and all terrified, Charo and Tin carried on with the photo ops! I couldn't even raise my hands up in the air! I was holding onto the bar (and leaning towards Charo) for dear life!


8. Gathered our senses in the *very boring* Rialto featuring "Peril on Akryls". *Yawn*


9. Braced ourselves for the Space Shuttle. Let me tell you that it does not help to have vivid recollections of the scenes from Final Destination 3 in your mind while queuing for the Space Shuttle. I was so paranoid that my seat's bar would come off in the middle of the ride and I had visions of myself dangling upside down as we go through the loop. Not good. I closed my eyes and screamed the entire duration of the ride. I think I hurt my neck and my back over there! Gaaah. I swear I will never ever ride that thing again. I'm getting too old! :p


10. Took a much-needed break and ate Domino's pizza while waiting for Abbie to arrive. I was still a bit woozy so I didn't quite enjoy my pizza.


11. Okray'ed the showband while eating pizza.


12. Met up with Abbie at the entrance and let her buy some food.


13. Proceeded to watch Pirates at the 4D Discovery Theater. I loved this one! It was fun with all that wind and water spray effect. Got kinda OC though about the 3D glasses coz I was thinking of how many people already used it. Ewww. I was thinking "oh no, I might get pimples!"


14. Rode the Jungle Log Jam and got mildly wet. Yuck, murky water! haha!


15. Witnessed the tail end of the fireworks display as we alighted from the log jam. Got a nice view atop the log jam bridge. I wasn't too happy with my fireworks snapshots though. They sucked.


16. Claimed our Jungle Log Jam photos at the booth. Tin blocked Charo's perfect log jam mega-watt smile with her hands up in the air hehe. Meanwhile, Abbie and I looked like happy/terrified (take your pick...) dentist patients.


17. Lined up for an uber-long time at the Rio Grande Rapids. The kawawa little boy with his parents got totally drenched on the first wave just a few minutes after our "take off". My back got a total shower on that big waterfall while Tin, Abbie and Charo's bottoms got wet by those huge splashes of waves.


18. Got our photo at the Rio Grande counter.


19. Still had lotsa Wizard Money left. Since the park was about to close and our money could not buy us a flesh-and-bone wizard for each of us, we spent our money at the Rialto gift shop. I got a purple pillow with the wizard's hat patchwork and we got Gabby (Abbie's niece) a violet wizard bag as pasalubong.


20. Had a final picture-taking in front of the Grand Carousel and at the park's facade.


21. Headed home with the gals. Mom made us a nice yummy post-bday/post-EK dinner of pasta, chicken and lumpiang shanghai. Jako followed at our house.


22. Watched -- or more like "listened" -- to the free extremely blurry signal of 24/7 Pinoy Big Brother on cable. The Slovenian "exchange housemate" just arrived. Crushed on Mickey's voice ;-)


23. Called it a day (umm, night?) at 1am.

more photos on my multiply: http://lilacstardust.multiply.com/photos/album/17

~* DEAR LIE *~

Dear Lie,
You suck. You said you could fix anything. Instead I'm f***d. You made things even worse for me... Guess I'm not smart. I let you unnerve me. I let you control me. Afraid the truth would hurt me when it's YOU that hurts me more.

A picture of you reminds me how the days have gone so empty. Why do you have to leave me without saying that you love me? I’m saying I love you again, are you listening? Open your eyes once again, look at me crying.

Waited by the phone all day thinking that you’d call but you never did. So tell me it’s not over now, will you? So I won’t be hangin’ around and you won’t see me crying.

SO WHAT'S THE POINT IN ALL OF THIS WHEN YOU WILL NEVER CHANGE? The days have passed, the weather's changed. Should I be sorry? Could I be sorry?

I did it all -- all for you -- hoping you would see. Your eyes are dull, your hands are clenched. Are we ready? But you, you think about yourself, only but yourself -- but what about: Un-lonely nights, romantic moments, the love, THE LOVE, what about them? Throw it all away.

You know me well. You know it's wrong. Then what is it you feel? You hide behind those perfect smiles. It won't fool me coz you already did.

Someday you’re gonna realize. One day you’ll see this through my eyes. By then I won’t even be there. I’ll be happy somewhere even if I cared.

Someday someone’s gonna love me the way I wanted you to need me.

~* VISITA IGLESIA '07 *~

In observation of the Holy Week, our family had our traditional Visita Iglesia last Wed. April 4 plying the Tagaytay-Batangas route. As usual, our first stop is our very own parish - Sto. Rosario. Then we visited two churches in Tagaytay. In Our Lady of Lourdes church, we were fortunate to be there the same time as the famous relic of Padre Pio -- a piece of his glove -- was displayed there for the faithful to pray on.

In Batangas, the parish of San Francisco Javier had such a beautiful interior -- the grand altar, the painted ceilings and stained glass windows were awesome. The facade of the church was also nice to photograph since it had this regal-looking belfry.



It was our first time to see Caleruega and, indeed, it lives up to its reputation of being one of the beautiful churches to hold one's wedding. Inside the vast grounds of Caleruega are function halls, cottages, a koi pond, a hanging bridge and a chapel. The Transfiguration Chapel is ensconced in the midst of the flowery garden of Caleruega. The chapel is very picturesque and one could take pictures of it at different angles, at the upper and lower grounds. The pine trees frame the chapel and flowering plants line the stairs leading to it. Plant-lovers will have a field day touring the grounds of Caleruega coz they have soooo many varieties of plants around the compound. The place also has an outdoor stations of the cross which we couldn't pinpoint at first coz it was a wooden engraving featuring an "Igorotized" version of Jesus, et al.

To sum it up, below are the churches we visited:

1. Sto. Rosario Parish (Pacita Complex, San Pedro)
2. Chapel in Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (Tagaytay)
3. Our Lady of Lourdes Parish (Tagaytay)
4. San Francisco Javier parish (Nasugbu, Batangas)
5. Parish of Saint John the Baptist (Lian, Batangas)
6. Transfiguration Chapel of Caleruega (Nasugbu, Batangas)

More photos on my Multiply...

http://lilacstardust.multiply.com/photos/album/12

~* TUESDAY BEACH DAY *~

Like in the past years, the family headed to Camayan Beach in Subic to kick off the long holy week vacation. There weren't much people in the beach so it was great to unwind. The water was cool at 8am so there were some annoying tiny jelly fish stings here and there. I've never been stung in our past visits to this beach so it was quite an annoyingly new experience>:( Most of the time we stayed near the shore where the water was warmer (hence, no jelly fish!). It was lovely sitting on the cushy sand, feeling the wet sand on my feet and the lapping saltwater on my skin :-)

What I always loved about this beach was that one could always get a glimpse of varied kinds of salt water fishes even in waist-deep water. Near the shore, one would find a school of super tiny gray fishes. Farther from the shore and near the rocky part, one would find black and white striped cichlids and these silver split-tailed fishes with a hint of blue on the head. My dad and I held pieces of bread with our fingertips underwater and in seconds, the fishes swam near us and took nibbles of the bread. One time I got startled and shrieked when the silver fish took a quick nibble of the bread AND my finger. Not painful at all but it was just really surprising to feel a one-second fish nibble! I was about to go back to the shore when the morsels of bread were almost finished by the cichlids but then this totally unique fish came swimming by to eat the bread remnants. It was totally breath-taking: a lone fish, colored blue-green on the head til the mid part, graduating into a bright green near its bright yellow split-tail. It was about the size of my hand. It was sooo beautiful! I wish I've taken a picture of it but I couldn't since a) I don't have an underwater camera and b) my digicam is tucked inside my bag on the table at the shore. The fish would have been gone by the time I got back with my digicam.

We ate our lunch by the shore and come 12noon, we heard this shrill whistle-like sound coming from the forest right beside the shoreline. At first we just saw about two monkeys descending from the trees and onto the beach cottages. In less than a minute, we saw probably about ten monkeys hanging around for their lunch break. Some went near the hotel (I saw one toting what looked like a plastic bottle of sunblock or shampoo!) while the others went near the cottages where we were, rummaging through the garbage can. One was sipping a discarded zesto-ish kind of juice foil pack (the one with a built-in straw) and another one was trying to open an empty 1.5 liter Mirinda.

And now, for the NatGeo moments...

[click for larger image] the mirinda-loving monkey

More pictures posted on my Multiply...

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