Adventures of a traveller....

...soon

The world is mine to explore....

Struggling but still alive

I'm on sick leave today. Not really feeling 'sick' but I needed the break (despite having a relatively boring weekend)... and I was up and about doing chores (mostly dishes) and being the 'taong bahay' since mom, Pat and Anne were out.

 I decided to bring down my laptop so I could be more aware if there were visitors or if mom decides to come home early. So, after a few minutes of 9gagging and watching pewdiepie on youtube, I decided to fix the pictures in my laptop. With today being a Monday and all, my brain was set to do some productive work, so I sifted through a lot of material and tried to 5S them. Working through eight thousand raw pictures over a single afternoon is impossible, but I was able to work through at least a thousand of them... I wasn't in a hurry and I even tried to clean through them by deleting blurred or double copies and even editing some of them (crop, sharpen, straighten, enhance and all those iPhoto one-click wonders) and geo-tagging them for reference.

 You could say I was proud of what I did this afternoon. :-) Despite missing work today and knowing I'll have a load of them tomorrow, the creative side of my is urging me to follow through with a travel blog or at least a chronicle of my adventures. But sifting, sorting, sanitizing and scavenging photos (and some videos) would be the first and hardest step. Next would be going through all of Rick Steve's guides and try to be as accurate with my account as possible.

 It's a tall order, I know.. but everybody has to start somewhere..!

 I wonder when I can next sift through my piles of photos?

Second Wind

It's a beautiful Friday morning. I had to wake up early because of a "breakfast" thing with our managers and the president. We’re not really included in the breakfast but it was more of a “strength in numbers” kind. Should the president decide to go to our area, at least we were there. But that wasn’t what happened... you see, even if we were dressed in sort of business casual attire instead of the casual Friday look, we had our own breakfast at the pantry. I had my fried bananas and coffee while my officemates munched on Bread Talk pastries.
The week flew by fast (I guess that’s what happens when you’re suddenly bombarded with requests and some jumpstarted initiatives. Nope, I’m not going to discuss work. Not now. ^_^

This week, Joey flew to Singapore to attend a forum and take advantage of the IT Fair at Suntec City. I had felt a little guilty for not informing dad earlier so we could give him the apartment key so he could save on accommodations. Dad was also busy with his business trips and is still recuperating from his appendectomy a few weeks back. Dad’s back in Manila now, the hole near his bellybutton got infected and was recommended a few days of rest.

So anyway, I’m giddy to see Joey again tomorrow with his bag of goodies. I didn’t ask him to buy anything from the IT Fair but I know he bought some gadgets and I just want to see his latest toys. =)

I’ve also been busy in the nostalgic department. I still need to create a slideshow of the trip we had in Europe 2 years ago! That and fix the slideshow of our trip the year before! The transition of the slides were too fast for mom and dad’s comfort so I had to fix them manually. I hate rework so I decided to start all over. Clean slate is better than looking at a horrible mess.

I’ve been meaning to leave the office on time today and spend a few good hours at a coffee shop and finish my slides. My good ‘ol ipad is struggling with the massive photos and videos but seems to be keeping up. I’ve finished Zurich, Lucerne and almost done with Vienna... it’s a wild ride back to memory lane. I’m still thinking if I have time to create a blog entry about it. Or maybe create a separate blog for my travels.

Seriously, where is this energy coming from??? ^_^

Times Forgotten

This morning, I booked myself a flight to Kalibo by end of October. It's been a while since I visited mom's place of birth... 8 years to be exact. The last time I went there was when I was in high school.

That time, it was only me and mom who visited Lola Nancy, her siblings and my cousins. We used to go there on summer holidays. It's either Silay or Malinao for 2 months of going back to basics. Of course there's tv, electricity and running water.. but on summer days, kids play out on the street, swim in the nearby rivers, sleep early in the afternoon and pray the Angelus every 6pm.

Life in the barrio is very very different than in the city. Sometimes, I realize how much comfort I have at home, when most of my cousins still walk 5 kilometers just to get to school on their very thin slippers, braving the weather and the muddy roads.

I'm thinking that as I spend my week with my relatives, it's going to feel longer than an 'urban week'. I'm thinking of bringing some books to read or a journal. Among other things:

1. Talk to Lola Nancy and see how she's doing.
2. Bring an awful lot of insect repellent lotion. Gawd, mosquitos there are mutants.
3. Bring a plug-in insect repellent.. you'll never know when a cockroach strikes.
4. Sunblock... maybe a sudden roadtrip to Bora
5. Bikinis...refer to #4
6. Visit Sister Claire in Bulabod. Maybe I'll get to finish those stations of the cross...
7. Hiking boots.. refer to #6
8. Food trip in Malinao or Kalibo
9. Visit relatives in Kalibo.. make myself known after all these years

Come to think of it.. maybe my week won't be such a dud. I have a lot to catch up. After all, my mom's family is almost half the people in the town. =)

Mythbusted!

On our flight to Singapore last night, I chose to order the beef with noodles meal. I was feeling immune to beef lately. I ordered burger meals at the local fastfood chains and did not feel that head-wrenching migraine. I was assuming I was already cured of the allergy.

Hehe, boy was I wrong!

I was all red halfway into my meal, my mom got very angry and forced me to drink my medicine. I was woozy and my head was pounding. All the while, I was thinking it was the red wine that got me all heated up. =) Bottomline, I'm still allergic to beef. Bottomline, the burgers I ordered at this well-known fastfood chain is NOT beef. Hmmm... busted!

One Day at a Time

My office laptop broke down 2 hours before I was supposed to go to the airport for a much deserved vacation with dad in Jakarta. I was still hoping for the best by bringing it with me. It would be sad if I let my teammates down by not being available. True enough, it was already dead before it even boarded the plane.

Right now, I got sore eyes. And it feels unfair because the last thing I did was go swimming and I was swimming with mom, Pat and Anne... and they don't have sore eyes. It's itchy, it's irritating and I have alcohol everywhere with me to keep myself from spreading the love.

Still making the most of this vacation.. whatever happens!

Moment of Weakness

Allow me this moment of weakness. It's been a day since we got back from Tokyo. The transition from pleasurable bliss to depressing piles of work was too much. I feel like I've been harshly pulled down from cloud nine, without any remorse for the confusion of my mental and psychological state..

haha, andrama!

I struggled this morning to serve in this morning's mass. And then I went back to sleep and woke up again sweaty and with a sense of unease. I worked half-heartedly, my laptop went on blue screen as it struggled to download 100++ emails. It was a relatively uneventful day. Can we wait till tomorrow to get things in its momentum??

Suicidal

I indulged myself with really rich hot chocolate, twice! The feeling was ecstatic. It was bliss. That's coz I'm on vacation. :)

Vacations give me an excuse to let go. To be free from self-imposed restrictions such as dieting. Especially when I'm on out-of-town trips where the food here is unlike anywhere else's! So of course you try taste as much of the local food here as possible. Suicidal! Suicidal!

Damn all these delicious food! That's why my diet will never work.. you had me suicidal! Suicidal!

Tomorrow we'll be going back to Manila. It was a well-deserved rest and relaxation. :) Too bad we won't come back here on December. I would have enjoyed the Christmas feel up here.

******************

I like roadtrips. There's a certain sense of uncertainty, and of course, the bonding that will happen in the car, in the coffeeshop, in the gas station... it's like a roadtrip is there because of the journey, not the destination.

I've always loved roadtrip with my family. We try to leave the house early in the morning, eat breakfast somewhere, continue on with the trip, stop at a gas station for CR breaks, eat lunch 5 towns away until finally arriving at the destination. At that day, the energy is spent on the journey and most of the time, the destination is just the finish line, not the starting point.

The longest roadtrip I've ever been to is when we went to Albay and Vigan. Both trips had us sitting on our asses for 12 hours... the 12 hours had included the stopovers and the occasional wrong/missed turns. At the end of a long drive, we'd be very glad that we finally arrived at our destination and just look for the inn we're supposed to stay. And then we'd just plop down on our beds and doze off.

There are still a lot of places we haven't been to. And with dad working out of the country, we only have a few options on when we can leave.

Sagada...

Banaue...

Tuguegarao... hmm, anong makikita dun?

Cagayan Valley... heard there's white water rafting there...

Corregidor... this isn't really a road trip but I really really really wanna go there!

Hidden Valley... just so I can say I've been there

La Union/Zambales.. I've always wanted to try surfing.

Thinking about it, there are a lot of places in the Philippines that are worth the roadtrips. It's also cheaper than going shopping in Hong Kong and Singapore and gambling in Macau. You get to be in touch with nature and the natural wonders we learned in Hekasi during our grade school years. Sometimes, going to those places are worth it. The pictures in the textbooks do not do justice to the beauty of our country.

Someday, I'll go to all of those places and do all of those things with my family, with my significant family and my family.