::. TOO OH OH EIGHT! .::

2008 -- OH WHAT A YEAR INDEED! I never really expected this much to come out of this year coz, although I didn't really believe in horoscopes and stuff, this was supposed to be a bad, bad year for the Horses. Thus, I did not really hold my breath for anything spectacular to happen.

But hey, I think by far, 2008 has been the year wherein I got to travel a lot: I was lucky enough to travel outside the country around the time I just turned 30. We had a conference at Bintan Lagoon Resort in Indonesia (April) so I grabbed the opportunity to go on vacation at Singapore (April/May). Singapore was such a safe non-scary place so I was brave enough to go around the city mostly by myself after my officemates have long gone home to Manila. I was thrilled at the thought of being in another country by myself and it was such a great adventure to me. I loved Singapore! The cabs and food were damn expensive but I splurged on Charles & Keith shoes anyway. I went to Vigan (May) and Boracay (Aug) with my dear high school friends and I've been with my family in Morong, Bataan (June), Laiya, Batangas (June) and Bohol (Nov/Dec).

But the most defining title of 2008 would of course be (hands down, duh!) the year God blessed me with a boyfriend. Not MU chenezes like the Canossa school syndrome ones. My boyfriend CJ. Really. Thirty friggin years, and technically, my first boyfriend! It's about time, God! And so I happily let go of the NBSB title :-) I met him while I was vacationing with friends in Vigan last May -- a trip that was supposed to be in Feb but was postponed to May. WhoWouldveThunk! Blessing in disguise indeedy...

The most controversial personal happening of the year was probably the Twinklekaka Scandal. The pathetic Multiply gal who plagiarized my blog post about my Camiguin vacation last 2007. I hope she has learned how to blog her own thoughts by now :p

I noticed that I have ceased to blog much in my Blogspot this year. I have been too lazy to hypertype vacations and various musings in detail. I've lost that blogging feeling, I guess. Or maybe it's coz I'm not such a big drama queen anymore than I was in the previous years. And maybe I'm too busy with real world stuff that I don't have the energy and enough focus to weave kickass words. Hmm. I am actually deliberating if I'll just concentrate on my Multiply and let my Blogspot die a natural death. I have pretty much settled into posting photos in my Multiply lately anyway. Plus, Abbie has introduced me to Twitter this year so whenever I itched to share something, I just chirped away 140 characters that encapsulated my very thought at that very moment. I love Twitter! It keeps me in touch with what's going on with my friends, even the most mundane things they do get some tweet press! I have long abandoned MySpace and I seldom log into my Friendster. My virtual world basically revolves around Twitter and Multiply. And yes, I gave in to Facebook. It's still a bit too cluttered for my taste but I'm beginning to get the hang of it. I'm still bugged about the deluge of Facebook app requests though (stop sending me Lil Green Patch whathaveyous!!! hahaha!). I so wanna iggy everything!

The pop icons that would probably best represent 2008 are David Cook and Edward Cullen -- or Jacob Black, fine, for the Team Jacobs out there! The PPG was so obsessed about American Idol season 7, such that we lived and breathed Cookie all the time we spent in Vigan! And I scavenged the net for everything Cookie I could ever find like his pre-Idol band recordings. And yey to Forces gals too, they influenced me to jump into the Twilight bandwagon. I have discovered the awesomeness of listening to an audiobook in my iPod and have in fact listened, not read, the first 3 books of the Twilight saga. To date, I have just started with an hour of Breaking Dawn.

I just realized that I haven't bought any audio CD this year. Yet, I have 3,799 songs according to my iTunes that could last me 10.7 days. Yey to free music :p I have shifted back to more R&B and a bit of alternative rock this year, thanks to CJ who's so into R&B, hiphop and those non-mainstream R&B jewels that Wave 89.1 plays.

Alright. I guess that pretty much sums up my 2008! I don't wanna dwell on the shake ups that happened on the latter part of my year (oh hey, I caught Dengue early this December and it was my first time ever to be confined in a hospital! Bummer.) but I hope and pray that those won't happen again. I am praying for a rosier and happier 2009. May we be blessed with wonderful love, good health, prosperity, peace, understanding, trust, acceptance and open-heartedness this coming year and thereon... With God on my side and with hard work, I'm sure things will fall into place... the divine place it should be ;-) Thank you 2008 for the lessons, realizations, the significant other, steady friendships, better relationships, improved character, stronger faith... I am happy and I have found what I have been looking for ;-)

::. WHERE WAS I LAST 08-08-08? .::

I spent the once in a lifetime 888 date with my friends Abbie, Charo, Tin and Jako at the sunny side of the Philippine Islands... in Boracay! Thanks to Cebu Pacific's low rates (and Abbie's purchasing power!), we managed to book a roundtrip ticket to Caticlan for a little bit under Php2K. Thanks to Tin's connections, we managed to enjoy a nice room for a steal at Serendipity which is conveniently located beside the D'Mall. Thanks to the coosome-twosome Jako and Charo's Holga for the nice lomo shots and the ever-reliable tripod of Jako that enabled us to jump to our heart's content (22 freakin' frames of chaotic jumping against the Bora sunset) and switch around four different digicams for the same group shot and angle hehe :p

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words... or maybe I'm just too lazy lately to blog and spew out nice profound flowery words hehe :p Just check out this slideshow ;-)

::. JUNE FAMILY OUTINGS .::

It's a stormy day today due to typhoon Frank. Boy, I am sure glad that we had a chance to go to the beach in the last coupla weeks!

Spent the last two consecutive weekends with my daddyo & mommyo -- first was at White Corals, Morong, Bataan wherein my most fave part was when we visited the Pawikan Conservation Center (so hard to find since there weren't really any signs pointing to where it was!). The beach at White Corals wasn't exactly that inviting so I opted to float around at their salt water pool instead. It's the same beach feeling minus the pesky sand getting trapped inside your swimsuit :-) Their room was okay -- with aircon and tv -- though hooks/rails to hang your wet clothes or bath towel are lacking. The food was so-so and there were a LOT of pesky flies competing with you as you eat. That was my major peeve about the place.

Coming from the Pawikan Conservation Center, we had a yummy lunch of pesto pasta and pizza at Xtremely Xpresso, Subic. We passed by Duty Free and then stopped over at the Lighthouse hotel to take its photos.


A week after, we went to La Luz, Laiya, Batangas. I liked the beach at La Luz :-) There weren't much sand coz it was practically tiny beach stones/corals everywhere... what's great about it is that you won't find any sand trapped inside your board shorts hehe :p The water was pretty deep even if you're just a few feet from the shoreline. The waves were a bit strong. It's high tide in the morning and low tide in the afternoon. When it's high tide, the water swallows most of the huge rock by the right-most (far) end of the beach. I went to that part of the beach to snorkel during the early morning (before 9am) and it was awesome! I saw lotsa fishes going about their own business, not minding me at all. They swam through the deep crevices of the stones -- black & white striped cichlids, yellow and black striped ones, deep blue ones with yellow and green streaks, tiny dilis looking ones.... gaah, i don't know what kind of fishes they were but anyway, they're all so wonderful to watch =) In the afternoon when it was low tide, we climbed the same huge rock and snapped away with our digicams. No sunset though at that part of Batangas :( We woke up early for the sunrise but it's not entirely visible as we would have wanted... we still managed to get some good sunrise shots though =)

I liked our room at La Luz, I think ours was one of the premier rooms. What's great about it is that it had separated the toilet, sink and shower so it's ideal for sharing with roomies. There's aircon and a ceiling fan; the only bummer was there was no tv. Good thing my dad brought his portable dvd player and I had my trusty iPod nano :-) Guests aren't allowed to bring in food and it is compulsary to pay for the Php950 buffet meals which include lunch, afternoon snack, dinner and breakfast the next day. Food was fine but I think my mom's cooking is way more delicious than that! ;-)




more bataan (and subic) photos at my multiply...




I enjoyed Photoshop'ing some of the artsy fartsy photos I took...

more la luz photos at my multiply...

::. I LEFT MY LONGGANISA IN VIGAN: THE JOURNEY .::

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I say, I am just too lazy to churn out words to narrate my Vigan experience last May with my friends Abbie, Tin, Charo & Jako.

We left Manila via the 11:30PM Partas bus trip last May 15. Arrived at Vigan 9 hours after on May 16 and immediately checked in at the oh-so-vintage Grandpa's Inn. Went to Chavit's Baluarte, ate the overrated bagnet at Cafe Leona, rode the charming calesa to the famous Bantay Bell Tower (which we climbed) at St. Augustine Church, dropped by Villa Angela, checked out Hidden Garden, ate dinner at Cafe Uno (yummy chicharon dipped in dinuguan!), had a night stroll through Calle Crisologo, chilled out at Sitio Bar, ate Vigan longganisa for breakfast at Grandpa's Inn, went to the Syquia Mansion (I'll never forget you lolo tarush!), ate Vigan empanada at the town plaza, shopped for souvenirs at Calle Crisologo, visited the Vigan Cathedral, bought Vigan longganisa at the palengke, tripped out on this el cheapo jukebox at the carinderia beside Partas bus station. Took the 9pm Partas bus out of Vigan on May 17. Got stranded somewhere in uhh I don't know where (pangasinan? tarlac? who knows where the hell we were?! it was pitch black outside... no electricity!) due to the terrible typhoon Cosme. Got to Manila around 2:30pm of May 18 after 17 freaking hours of stop and go travel. Ate a super late lunch at Yoshinoya Park Square Makati. Rode yet another bus (at that point, we HATED being inside buses) to San Pedro. Got home around 5ish pm.

Such a swell time. Long live the PPG! I love you gang! That was quite an adventure for the books! The forces of nature jinx is still alive hehe :p

Here are the visuals to tell the story of our trip...

::. I LEFT MY LONGGANISA IN VIGAN .::

My friends (Tin& Abbie and the coosome-twosome Charo & Jako) and I just came from a memorable vacation in Vigan, Ilocos Sur last May 16-17. I'll post more details/photos once I've gathered all my thoughts and have collected all the photos from the digicams of Jako & Charo, Tin and Abbie ;-)

::. SINGAPORE TRAVEL-LAH! .::

APRIL 30:

After our conference in Indonesia, we stayed overnight at the Carlton Hotel in Singapore. We checked in and then went to the nearby Raffles City mall. The peculiar thing I noticed in Singapore was that sunset came around 7:30PM. Anyway, around 8PM, Ed's former colleague in Kodak Singapore brought us at the East Coast Parkway for a sumptuous dinner feast of black pepper crab, chili crab, prawns and fish at the Red House seafood restaurant. After dinner, we had a joyride into the city and passed by Clarke Quay, the Merlion Park, CHIJMES, one of the routes for the upcoming F1 Grand Prix on Sept, etc.

MAY 1:

We went to Ikea and shopped for home stuff. I wish I could furnish my bedroom and office space with Ikea stuff... their items are nice :)


After Ikea, we went back to the hotel and checked out. The others prepared for their flight back home while Vic and I proceeded to Hotel Royal at Newton Street to check in for an overnight stay. Our former officemate Melis who had just relocated to Singapore with her family met us for lunch. We ate lunch at Doc Green's at VivoCity. Shopped around and bought a pair of white sandals at Charles and Keith and a black Bossini top for office wear. We then ate an early dinner at the Food Republic atop VivoCity, where the wading pools were and where one could see the entrance to Sentosa.

see the yellow sentosa express train behind me?

with vic and melis (see the cable cars to sentosa behind us)

wading pools full of children behind me...

Took some photos and then had my first MRT ride to Lavender station where we walked a bit to get to Melis' condo. Hung out there, had some beer/coffee and waited til her hubby and son arrived. Their smart and creative son Tod (aka Todzilla!) showed us his Paintbrush masterpieces of a variety of Godzilla stuff. Vic and I asked him to make us a Viczilla and Aileenzilla version (I told him to make mine colored violet and cute). We also took the opportunity to use the net for our KrisFlyer internet check-in (coz internet isn't free in the hotel!). Melis took us to the poolside and the rooftop... their place was sooo nice :)

MAY 2:

Vic had her scheduled flight back home in the afternoon so we split for the day... She went to Sentosa while I went to the Singapore Zoo. I took an adventure and rode the MRT to the Ang Mo Kio MRT station to catch the Bus #138 to the zoo. I had no problem finding the Novena MRT station near our hotel. I just counted how many stops until the Ang Mo Kio station just to be sure I didn't miss it. What I had some trouble finding was the damned bus stop for Bus#138! I went outside the MRT station/mall at Ang Mo Kio and checked out 3 different Bus stops nearby and I didn't see the number 138 on all those bus stops. After about 25 minutes of walking around the area, I decided to go back inside the MRT station. Somehow, I found my way into an indoor bus station which was inside the same building where I got off the MRT and magically found the stop for Bus#138. I was able to use the same card I used for the MRT... so efficient! It was a long bus ride -- about an hour. I arrived at 9am at the Singapore Zoo and availed of my unlimited tram ride -- one of the Singapore Airlines boarding pass privileges that saved me SGD5/ride. And believe me, with the area size of the Singapore Zoo, you would want to hop on the tram once in awhile or you'd be so tired from walking!

I super enjoyed the Singapore Zoo coz it had an "open zoo" concept. Such an awesome experience for animal lovers (or even just plain animal-curious!). I specifically wanted to see the Singapore-born polar bear Inuka coz where else can you find a polar bear in tropical Asia?!? The second animal in my must-see list were the white tigers. I wandered around and took photos in the zoo for about 3.5hours.








See more of my Singapore Zoo photos here...
View videos of Inuka the (son of Sheeba) polar bear eating his favorite watermelon treat and swimming around; Sheeba the momma polar bear waving to everyone...

After eating lunch in one of the zoo's restaurant, I took a cab (faster travel time, just 30minutes) back to Hotel Royal to check out and then proceeded to my next hotel (a cheaper one since I had no one to share rooms with anymore) -- South East Asia Hotel. It was just beside the famous Kwan Im Chinese Temple and very near to the Sri Krishnan Hindu Temple. After resting my feet for a few minutes, I proceeded for gadget accessories shopping at Sim Lim Square -- the famous electronics mecca of Singapore. Six storeys worth of gadgets and accessories! Shopped for my dad's bilins: digicam batteries for his Canon DSLR and mom's Kodak digicam. Checked out the price of a certain Canon lens that my dad wanted. Went to the upper floors and bought laptop sleeves (only SGD21!), laptop vacuum cleaner (only SGD9!), 2GB Kingston SD card (only SGD15!) and some iPod accessories.

After a tiring shopping spree at Sim Lim Square, I dropped off my best buys at the hotel, rested a bit and then proceeded to the Bugis MRT station. Alighted at the City Hall MRT station to get to the CityLink Mall where I ate dinner at O'Brien's cafe. Got mom a watch in one of the stores and then proceeded to Suntec City Mall. I intended to take a photo of the famous Fountain of Wealth at Suntec but I got umm, "sidetracked" and ended up buying 3 pairs of sandals at Charles & Keith as the store was about to close. By the time I was done shopping, the sales lady said the Fountain of Wealth was already turned off :(

Using the map, I successfully found my way to the durian-shaped Esplanade Theatres and the Merlion park. Had no problem having my picture taken in those famous landmarks since there were always Filipino tourists around ;-) After traversing the long bridge from the Esplanade to the Merlion Park, I proceeded to walk towards Victoria Theatre where a statue of Sir Stamford Raffles (Singapore's founder) stood. At almost midnight, I was too tired to walk further on but regretted that I missed a spectacular photogenic sight of St. Andrew's Cathedral which I saw as my cab drove off a few meters away from Victoria Theatre. Anyway, I got back at the hotel around 1am, so thirsty and hungry. I went to a nearby 7-11 and an Indian-owned convenience store to buy bottled water and some food. They say that Singapore's tap water is potable but I was too squeamish to drink straight from the faucet. Made sure I filled up the GST refund vouchers before I went to sleep! (Needed to claim the refund at the airport before I check in...)






MAY 3:

Woke up late coz I was so tired from the previous all-day all-night walkathon across the city. I wanted to catch a quick ride to the City Hall MRT station to take a photo of St. Andrew's Cathedral but I thought I would run out of time. Anyway, I just refunded the remaining value on my MRT/bus card. So I decided to explore Bugis Junction instead. Managed to buy another office top from there. On my way back to the hotel, I checked out the street vendors at Bugis Street. I spent my last few Singapore dollars on this cool vintage-look shirt with a camera print. At 11:30AM, I got back at the hotel, quickly took a bath and checked out. Sally, my colleague in Singapore, picked me up at the hotel and brought me to Changi Airport. She showed me around at the new Terminal 3. She treated me to lunch in one of the cafes at the 3-Top (I tasted the laksa she ordered... twas too spicy for me!). She then dropped me off at Terminal 2 so I could claim my GST refund, check-in and do some last-minute shopping.


at the 3-Top at Terminal 3...

I explored the Sunflower Garden and Koi Pond, rested at the entertainment deck for awhile and then went shopping for some chocolates for my nephew, Charles and Keith bag for my sis and sunglasses for me :)


at the sunflower garden atop Terminal 2
by the koi pond at Terminal 2... i love my cheap vintage style shirt!

More Uniquely Singapore sights here...

Yeah. Suffice it to say that I'll be out of moolah for the next coupla weeks after this Singapore vacation! :p

::. EI ASEAN CONFERENCE @ BINTAN, INDONESIA .::

Flew off to Singapore last April 27 (Sunday) on the first flight SQ915 at 8:20AM. Didn't have to line up for check-in coz I already printed my boarding pass and chose my seat via KrisFlyer's internet check-in :)

From Singapore's Changi Airport, we proceeded to Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal to catch the 2pm ferry to Bintan Island in Indonesia. The ferry ride was horrible! The floating platform at the boarding area was so wobbly that we got a bit dizzy already... and we're not even IN the boat yet! I had to make a little jump at the cue ("go!") of the crew who were holding us as we jumped into the ferry. {On our ferry back to Singapore, as I was jumping off the boat, I probably looked nervous coz the crew member who was assisting me said "Don't worry, Miss." } You know that lurching feeling inside your stomach when you ride Anchors Away at Enchanted Kingdom? Imagine feeling that for an hour and a half! Yeah, riding the Arung Mendara ferry to Bintan was THAT bad. But thanks to Pfizer's Bonamine, I did not have to use the blue motion sickness bag:) My officemates Jane, Vic and Bianx all had motion sickness and Ed had to attend to Jane & Bianx while I attended to Vic. We weren't able to eat lunch before we rode the ferry so we were so famished by the time we got to Bintan. By the way, Indonesia was 1 hour behind Phils./S'pore time.

the hotel lobby and the fish faucet that fascinated me...

beautifully crafted indonesian dolls/puppets for sale at the hotel shop...

Upon arrival at Bintan Lagoon Resort, the first few things we saw in our room was a can of Baygon spray and packs of a local insect repellent. Hmm. That didn't offer a comforting thought. I guess we were in the company of a variety of island bugs, yikes! True enough, our al fresco welcome dinner by the beach was occasionally marked with a small insect drowning on the strawberry syrup for the dessert cakes and some big bugs flying over our starry starry night sky.

tourists beware... arm thyself with this!

We were basically cooped up in our conference room from April 28 to 29 as we listened to everyone's presentations regarding marketing/sales strategies, a Fuji vs. HD vs. Kodak case study and an interesting Digital (HD) vs. Film presentation from a guest cinematographer from Singapore. The team went to the hotel's videoke after dinner on the 28th but I wasn't able to get a chance to enjoy it coz I, along with two of my Singaporean colleagues in charge of inventory had to access our ERP system that night... had to do some urgent work done coz we were having an inventory discrepancy back in the Philippines (ugh! I didn't even get to drink the margarita I ordered at the videoke bar!)

We had a free night to ourselves on the 29th so Vic and I joined our Thai colleagues for a night out of the hotel. Upon our local contact's recommendation, we went to this tourist plaza called Pasar Oleh Oleh. Not much, really. Just some restaurants serving local food and a number of shops selling expensive (rip-off!) tourist souvenirs. I was liking this small wooden jar (about the size of a Clinique All About Eyes jar) with a bright intricately painted design but it costed around Php500. No way! So anyway, we ate our dinner at Cafe Helo Helo wherein we ordered garlic fried Shrimp, Tom Yam soup, grilled fish and fried cuttlefish. Twas a good meal for about SGD 16.50/head (about Php511).

the entrance to pasar oleh oleh

the facade of cafe helo helo

bintang beer served on a heineken mug, hehe...

a traditional hut at the middle of the plaza

group picture at the entrance

On April 30, we had a team building at the Adventure Training Centre, conducted by Focus Adventure. Man, I am so not outdoorsy but I had fun doing the giant seesaw thing :) Didn't have as much fun though on the wooden skis thing coz it was so exhausting to pull the ropes up -- I had chafed my palms red in the process :( Had to hold ice cubes on my hand to relieve the redness. BUt anyway, overall, the team building day was fun. But come night time when we were already in Singapore, I felt my upper thighs ache from all that effort I don't normally exert everyday.

go team goooo!

the giant seesaw: a balancing act

the wooden skis: super effort walking and picking up of balls

More photos of our team building here...

::. KOTA KELUARGA .::

Spent the whole Saturday at Kota Keluarga in San Juan, Batangas with my cousins for some summer sun at the beach. Got a henna tattoo on my right ankle, ate lunch while I waited for the henna to dry and then headed to the beach!


It was only my second time to snorkel so my cousin's family friend whom they call Lolo Tisoy taught me some basics of snorkeling. I was having a hard time shifting directions while wearing fins so I swallowed salt water twice while I struggled with my snorkel. I probably need a lot of getting used to swimming with fins... I manage to float just wearing fins (no lifevest) but I just can't do a good turn while wearing them. I was first "trained" at the shallow part of the water and then our party of 5 (my cousins have started scuba diving a few months ago...) headed to the deeper part of the beach. I ditched the fins coz it would only make my life difficult. Just wore a lifevest instead. I think we were snorkling for a good 30 minutes or probably more... I dunno what the salt water fishes are called but anyway, they were like black angel fishes, some black & white striped cichlid-looking fishes, some yellow fishes... Nothing as breathtaking as the underwater life I saw at Mantigue Island (Camiguin) though...

After taking a bath in the late afternoon, my cousin and I trekked towards the stony right side of the cove. Did some picture-taking over there...

More photos at my multiply...