Week 19/52 : Sometimes you wake up from a dream. Sometimes you wake up in a dream. And sometimes, every once in a while, you wake up in someone else’s dream.
Quick picture Ezra took of me during our vacation last week in Bohol. We didn’t have time to do a shoot, but we did manage to get a few SP-worthy shots. This was taken during our first day there, as we explored the beach at our resort. We found this little wooden couch-like thing which Ezra dubbed “The Armadillo Chair“. The bottom picture is a shot of our resort from when we went glass-bottom boating on our 3rd day there.
The quote I used for my title came from the book Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead. I just finished reading her Georgina Kincaid series and I absolutely love it~
(EZRA) 19/52 : A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets
Our family went to Bohol last weekend to celebrate my parents’ 28th anniversary. They’ve both been to Bohol plenty of times before (they even had their honeymoon there) so they decided it’s about time Ezra and I visit the place. We stayed at the Panglao Blue Water Beach Resort, which was BEAUTIFUL! And all the people there were so nice. I wish we could have stayed longer.
Title from a quote by Gloria Stuart from the movie Titanic.
Hearst Castle : “La Cuesta Encantada”
Day two of our quick sightseeing trip with my aunt and cousins. (You can read about Day 1 HERE).
We woke up early that morning because we had 9:30am tickets for the Hearst Castle tour. I didn’t really know much about Hearst or his castle until my aunt arranged this trip for us, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. She told us that the place once belonged to Sir William Randolph Hearst. After he died his children decided to donate part of his property to the state of California, and since then it has attracted many visitors. It was a well known fact that Mr. Hearst only invited aristocrats and elites into his home back when he was alive (some of his favorite guests included Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable and Winston Churchill) so I suppose a lot of people simply wanted to see the place that these famous people once visited.
Ate Maryann dropped us off at the Hearst Castle Visitor’s Center at around 9am. (She couldn’t join us for the tour because she had to work.)
It was a beautiful sunny day. Just look at that lovely sky~
In case you were wondering, this isn’t the castle yet. It’s just where visitors go to get their tickets and wait for the tour guides to pick them up.
We looked around inside and explored a bit while Kuya Wibet went to the counter to get our wristbands.
Mama Darling headed straight for the gift shop XD
Tour packages available for visitors. We got the Grand Rooms Tour.
Map of Hearst Castle
Our tour bracelets:
My mom helping me put mine on
Ta-dah! All set for our tour.
We had about 10 minutes before our shuttle arrived so we just did more exploring and took a few more pictures at the visitor’s center
Poor Kurt woke up with a heavy migraine that morning and could barely stand. But he didn’t want to miss out on the tour so Ezra volunteered to be his crutch for the day, lol. It must have been hard on him seeing as she’s so much shorter, but at least he was able to walk around (really slowly) through her help.
He still managed to smile for cameras too. (He said it was because he didn’t want to look back on the pictures and videos in the future and see himself in pain, lol). But he got better throughout the day and even managed to take pictures during our tour. (Some of the shots I will be posting in this entry were actually stolen from his camera XD – Thanks Kurt for the copies!)
Soon our bus arrived to take us up to the castle. As we drove up, our bus driver gave us a bit of info about Mr. Hearst and this place. He told us that all the land we saw around us belonged to Mr. Hearst. He used to call this place La Cuesta Encantada (“The Enchanted Hill”). Mr. Hearst loved animals so he filled this place up with them. We saw a couple of black cows, deer, rabbits, squirrels and some zebras on the way up. Supposedly Mr. Hearst even kept polar bears around back when he was still alive (but he made sure they were locked up of course).
All of this belonged to Sir William Randolph Hearst. I can’t even imagine what I would do if I owned this much land! Probably build my own amusement park.
It took us about 10 minutes to get up to the castle, where our tour guide was waiting for us.
Our first glimpse of the famous Hearst Castle. It’s beautiful, but not what I expected. I sorta envisioned a modern Hogwarts when my aunt told me we would be visiting a castle, lol. This seemed more like a church or a cathedral to me – which was actually what it was modeled after (according to our guide). Oh well, it may not have been Hogwarts, but it was still gorgeous.
Speaking of our guide, here’s a quick shot I took of him. Doesn’t he sort of look like Jack Nicholson? I kept telling my mom that and she didn’t believe me, but my dad and aunt agreed with me XD
Anyway, Mr. Nicholson-lookalike (I can’t remember his name, sorry) gave us some background information about Sir William Randolph Hearst and his famous castle. Supposedly he had a lot of strange quirks and was quite eccentric, but no can could deny how brilliant he was. He was a perfectionist and he loved art. As for the castle, something that many people may find interesting was that it was designed by a woman named Julia Morgan. While this may seem trivial to some, our guide reminded us that the castle was built in the early 1900′s and female architects weren’t as common back then. According to him, Ms. Morgan was a brilliant architect and she utilized a lot of modern technology (well, modern for their times) which allowed the castle to withstand a lot of earthquakes and survive up to this day. (He did admit that the castle has undergone many restoration projects but there wouldn’t be anything to restore if it wasn’t for the castle’s strong foundation.)
After his brief introduction of William Hearst and his castle, we were finally allowed to go inside. We had to go through the side entrance though because the main entrance lead to a hallway which had intricate mosaic tile floors. In the past, visitors were allowed to enter through there, but eventually the tiles became damaged and the people running the place had to pay to have it restored, which took years! The guy who fixed it told them that they better not let anyone walk on those tiles again, because there was no way he would agree to repair it a second time.
One thing we all noticed going in the castle was how tall and narrow the doors were. Only one person could fit at a time, so we had to queue up to enter the building. Some people even had to walk sideways. It makes me wonder if weight loss didn’t present as much of a problem back then as it does today.
Inside we were taken in to see the assembly room. It was huge and reminded me of a fancy hotel lobby.
It looked so cozy and inviting. I would have loved to have curled up on one of those armchairs with a good book. But we weren’t allowed to touch anything, let alone sit on the chairs. In fact, visitors were only allowed to step on the areas marked with a black/gray carpet to prevent any sort of damage to the room. Flash photography wasn’t allowed either because they wanted to avoid light damage, so forgive me if some of the following pictures turn out a bit blurry.
Look at the details on that ceiling!
There were two of these huge Christmas trees inside. (Uh yeah … it was the holidays when we went there. I guess I should probably mention again that I’m pretty lazy when it comes to blogging, which is why this entry is 5 months delayed ….)
Took some selca shots while our guide explained more about the room
Solvang and Pismo Beach
(Finally had time to finish writing this entry after Ezra’s nonstop complaints of how I take forever to post pictures, lol. Can’t really blame her though seeing as it’s already April.)
After Christmas, my aunt and cousins had a bit of free time so they decided to take us to take us sight seeing. First on our list was Solvang, a Danish village in Santa Barbara county. We left my aunt’s place early that morning and arrived at Solvang after about 3 hours. I didn’t really know what to expect when they told us we would be going to a Danish community, so when we first got there and I saw all the buildings I was so amazed. I felt like I left America and traveled all the way to Europe. The place was so beautiful! It was like something straight out of a children’s story book. I mean look at this:
Aren’t those buildings just super gorgeous? And to top it off, it was wonderfully warm and sunny that day. I didn’t even bother bringing my coat down from the car because the sun felt so good. Also, may I just mention how incredibly amazed I am with how clear and blue the sky was. We never get such clear skies here in the Philippines. Even when it’s sunny there’s always a handful of clouds up in the sky. You won’t find a single cloud in the pictures above 
(And no, its not because I photoshopped them out or anything – these pictures are pretty much SOOC except for resizing and watermarking.)
Anyway we spent our morning just walking around the village and taking pictures of all the pretty buildings. Kuya Wibet kept teasing us because we stopped in front of practically every structure we saw to take group photos, lol. (Forgive us and our tourist ways~ But seriously, can you blame us? This place is so lovely!)
(Kurt became more interested in the cars than the buildings)
Horsies! I had to snap this really quickly because cars kept passing by and blocking the view of the carriage
After about an hour of walking, we passed by this Subway restaurant and decided it was time for us to have our lunch anyway, so we went inside to grab a bite and rest for a bit.
Subway : Danish style
Two hungry girls waiting for their food XD
After eating we walked around the village again and stopped at some gift shops to look for souvenirs:
We came across this shoe store
And took pictures in front of the famous giant red clog:
Little Tokyo (Japanese Village Plaza)
My thesis revisions have been keeping me busy these past few weeks, but I finally have some free time now to blog and sort through vacation pictures again. These were taken a while ago (three months to be exact), but better late than never right? XD
My last vacation-related entry was about the last day of our little Vegas-Arizona tour. It was fun but quite tiring, so after that my parents just wanted to spend the next couple of days resting at my aunt’s house. It’s a good thing that Kurt had his last final exam the same day that we got back, and he decided to temporarily move in to my aunt’s house while we were there as well, which meant that Ezra and I had someone who was willing to drive us around. We gave him a couple of days to relax and get some energy back from all the studying and deadlines he had to face during his Hell Week before we started requesting places that we wanted to visit. First on our list was Little Tokyo (AKA J-Town) in Los Angeles. Our relatives have taken us there a couple of times before during our past visits, and they introduced us to the the yummiest mochi ice cream, which is something that Ezra and I miss terribly back home.
We’re here!
The trees were so pretty, all decked out in Christmas lights
We didn’t want to buy the ice cream immediately because it would melt, so we looked around first before dropping by the grocery store. We passed our time looking at the shops, eating snacks and peeking inside the restaurants (in a non-creepy way) to see the different foods they serve.
Wishing tree~
Ethel M Chocolate Factory and Cactus Garden
I can’t believe that it’s March already! And here I am still blogging about Day 3 of our Las Vegas/Arizona tour from last December! Ack~ Anyway this will be a short entry because the last day of our tour was pretty uneventful since we were just heading back to Los Angeles that day. But we did make a few stops along the day. The first was at the Ethel M chocolate factory in Nevada:
The company is owned by the same people who owns Mars Incorporated, which is known worldwide for chocolates such as Milky Way, Twix, Snickers, M&M’s and (of course) Mars bars.
To get inside the factory, we had to pass through the gift shop, which was filled with M&M’s merchandise:
We didn’t have anyone to guide us along the way and give us information, so we just peeked through the windows to see the chocolate factory and read the information written on the bulletin board:
The factory:
It must be so cool to work here, surrounded by chocolates all the time XD
The factory is divided into different sections, such as the caramel apple station, cooling tunnel and the cutting tables:
Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon and Stratosphere Tower
This entry has been sitting my drafts folder for over a month now. It’s long overdue, but here’s day two of our 3-day tour to Vegas and Arizona
(Read about our Day 1 in Vegas HERE)
The second day of our tour started really early. We woke up around 3:30am because our guide informed us that we needed to be on the road by 5:30 at the latest. (Some people need only a couple of minutes to get ready in the morning but my mom, sister and I are a bit more high maintenance so we need at least two hours.)
Our first stop that day was the Hoover Dam. Our tour guide gave us a bit of background information about the dam on the way here, but I fell asleep as soon as I got on the bus and didn’t hear most of it. Thankfully we have the internet:
Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over one hundred lives. The dam was controversially named in honor of President Herbert Hoover.
-Wikipedia
(“Deaths”? “Controversially named”? Hmmm…)
Anyway these days the Hoover Dam is mainly used to generate electricity and it’s also a popular tourist attraction.
Paparazzi shot that my dad took of Ezra and me while I was fumbling with the zipper on my jacket. It was *really* cold that morning. It took me a couple of tries before I was finally able to get the zipper up because my fingers were frozen. Some of tourists even decided to stay on the bus because they didn’t want to face the cold or wake up from their naps. (It was still dark when we got there and most of us were still half asleep, but I really don’t see the point of joining a tour if you’re going not even going to get off the bus.)
Hello Hoover Dam! (The sun began to rise while we were there.)
Brrr~
To be perfectly honest, I was too bangag to fully appreciate the dam’s beauty back then, but I was still very impressed by how large and majestic it was.
We took a few pictures, admired the dam then headed back on the bus and prepared ourselves for the 4-hour ride to the Grand Canyon. Again, I fell asleep as soon as I found my seat and only woke up when Ezra excitedly shook me awake and told me to look out the window. What did I see? This:
SNOW! Lots and lots of snow~ It was the first time we saw snow again after two years
Our tour guide told us the night before to bundle up because it would be very cold up in the Grand Canyon, but we didn’t really expect to see snow on the side of the road.
Before heading up the canyon, we made a stop at this National Geographic IMAX theater for lunch:
There was a small cafeteria inside where we had our lunch. Our tour guide also encouraged us to watch a short film about the Grand Canyon while we were there. It was only about 20 minutes long but it was very well made and it made me feel like I went on a helicopter ride around the Grand Canyon and went white water rafting on the Colorado River.
After the show we headed outside to take some pictures with the snow:
It was very windy that morning~
Oh Christmas tree~
Care for a snowball?
Christmas loot (AKA California haul)
I know this is extremely late, seeing as it’s already February, but I promised my friend Tring that I would make an entry about the stuff I got for Christmas, so here it is I also decided to include some of my vacation haul in this entry because I’m too lazy to make a separate post about it.
I’ll start off with my Christmas haul, which consists of stuff that I didn’t pay for. These are some of the things I managed to take a picture of. (Some of the items were still in balikbayan boxes when I took most these, and by the time we finished unpacking I wasn’t in the mood to take pictures anymore.)
A new laptop from my parents I’ve already talked about this in a previous entry, so I won’t go into much detail about it here.
A Bath and Body Works gift set from Mama Darling
A clutch bag from Ate Zsa Zsa and a wallet from Tita Melda
Victoria’s Secret gift set (in Sheer Love) from Ate Zsa Zsa and her family
Oh Christmas Tree~
As you probably know (since I’ve mentioned it a bazillion times here on my blog already), our family spent last Christmas in California with our relatives. My aunt/Ninang was kind enough to let us stay at her place the whole time that we were there. She lives alone so I think she welcomed the company. The last time we spent Christmas there, my aunt didn’t bother to decorate her house because she was too busy, but this year she decided to go all out. So bought lights, took out decorations she had in storage, borrowed some Christmas stuff from my cousin and even bought a tree! A real live tree!
Ninang told us that she’s always wanted a real tree for Christmas, but she never had the chance to go out and get one, mostly because she knew it would take a lot of time and effort to set up, which is something she wasn’t willing to go through since there was no one but her to appreciate it anyway. But this year, since we decided to have our Christmas party at her place, she told us that she would finally go out and get one.
I guess buying a Christmas tree becomes boring after a while to people who do it every year, but since it was a first time for all of us, we were all really excited. I imagined walking into a place filled with pine trees and inspecting every single one until we find the “perfect” tree. For many tree farms, I suppose that that’s the case, but my aunt decided to get her tree at Costco, so it didn’t happen like that. (She didn’t actually plan on buying her tree there, we were just shopping for some essentials when we saw a sign near the entrance which said that they had live trees for sale at the parking lot so we decided to check it out.) They only had one tree set up, and the rest were tied up to facilitate faster sales I suppose. My aunt bought the tree there because it was much cheaper compared to some other places she looked at. She paid about $40 for an 8 and 1/2 ft tree, which is a such a bargain, but little did we know that we would soon be wishing that she picked a smaller tree instead.
Me with the one tree on display that was not tied up
Trees for sale. That’s my Ninang in the red jacket on the right.
Customers picking out trees.
My aunt wanted a big tree, so she chose this one. Some friendly advice : if you plan on buying a tree for the first time, I have to tell you that seeing them tied up like that was very deceiving of its actual size. We thought that what we had in front of us was a good estimate of what the final tree would look like once we set it up, but we forgot that it will need a base to stand, and that it will double in diameter once we untie it!
Christmas 2011
Once again our family was able to spend Christmas here in California with our relatives. We’ve only done so once before (back in 2009) and I’m very thankful we could do it again this year. We don’t see much of our relatives when we’re in the Philippines, so every moment spent with them is precious to us 
My Christmas celebration this year started on Christmas Eve day when Ezra, Kurt and I went to Palm Springs to have lunch with Kurt’s family. We planned on leaving Pico Rivera at around 10am, but Kurt stayed up late chatting with his mom and sister (they live in Japan) so he was pretty groggy that morning. We decided to leave a little later to give him a little more snooze time.
I was already dressed and made up by 9:30am, so I decided to camwhore a bit while waiting to leave.
Ohayou~
I like how I did my eyes that day
Gold snowflake ornament which I grabbed from my aunt’s Christmas tree (it was right next to me)
Hmm
Then I noticed that I liked how sparkly and pretty my nails looked so I decided to show them off:
Did I mention that I liked my make up that day?
(Yeah, I’m pretty vain XD But you probably already know that if you read my blog.)
Anyway, we ended up leaving at around 11am and arrived at Palm Springs around 1pm. We met up with Kurt’s family at their house and they took us to have lunch at the Spa Resort Casino. Afterwards we headed back to Kurt’s house again to take some pictures and so Kurt can grab a quick nap before he drives us back to Pico Rivera. (I passed the time by playing Katamari Damacy )
Group photo with Kurt’s family – stolen from Kurt”s camera XD
We left Palm Springs at around 6pm and made it back to my aunt’s house around 8pm. When we left that morning, there was only my dad at the house, but we returned to find a whole lot more people who have arrived to join in on the Christmas celebration:
Ate Zsa Zsa and her family arrived from Las Vegas, Kuya Wibet flew in the night before from San Francisco, Ate Maryann arrived from Chatsworth and Mama Darling arrived from San Jose.
Ezra and I were especially happy to see our niece and nephew, McKayla and CJ, again. They’ve grown so much since we last saw them. Especially McKayla! When I last saw her 2 years ago, she was this tiny:
And now look at her:
Isn’t she precious? She was adorable as a baby, but she’s gotten so much prettier.
Viva Las Vegas
Since we arrived here in California during the 2nd week of December, most of our friends and relatives were still too busy with work to take us sight seeing. So while waiting for their holidays to start, my dad decided to book a 3-day tour to Vegas and the Grand Canyon. We’ve been to Vegas several times before since my cousin lives there, but we’ve never been to Arizona so I was pretty excited.
(I decided to make two separate entries about the trip instead of having a super long one. This entry will focus on our first day, when we went to Vegas.)
My dad booked the tour online and the confirmation email told us that they would pick us up at a supermarket near my aunt’s house at 7:30am. My aunt had to be at work by 9am so she dropped us off at around 7am. It was really cold that morning and the supermarket was still closed so we decided to grab some breakfast at the nearby McDonalds first.
Hot choco – perfect remedy to chilly weather
At around 7:30am, a van arrived to collect us and take us to Chinatown where the bus was waiting for us. Our tour was organized by Sea Gull Holiday tours, which is a Chinese company (I think). Most of the tourists were Chinese so the guides were required to alternate speaking in English and Mandarin.
Our bus. We had to make sure to remember our bus number because there were 3 other buses travelling with us they all looked exactly the same. (We forgot to look at our bus number in the beginning so my mom ended up getting on the wrong bus after our first pit stop. Luckily she realized her mistake quickly and we found the right bus in the end.)
Off to Los Angeles : Hello Kitty and funny mirrors
If you’ve read the last few entries on my blog, you can probably tell that I’m on vacation right now. I’m actually in California at the moment, visiting relatives for the holidays. The last time we were here was in 2009 (which was also when this blog was created – I took a lot of pictures of our activities and my shopping hauls back then that I wanted to share with friends so I made this blog XD) Anyway, we had so much fun spending Christmas with our relatives here that we decided to do it again.
We left the Philippines on December 10. We arrived at the airport early to avoid problems during check in, which meant that we had a lot of time to kill while waiting for our flight. Ezra and I passed the time watching Running Man while munching on the free snacks offered at the airport lounge.
Ezra and me
We sat near the buffet table so we can grab food more easily XD I only had crackers for breakfast so I pigged out on the mini sandwiches and siomai
Setting up Ezra’s laptop so we can watch Running Man
They had free wifi there too, so I checked my FB while waiting. (I had to use my PSP because I didn’t bring my laptop with me.)
Running Man! Ji Hyo’s so cute ^___^
After about an hour, we decided to head over to our gate and wait for our plane to board. Our flight was supposed to leave at around 2pm, but it was delayed by about 20 minutes.
Camwhoring on the plane XD
Kuala Lumpur Adventure
Last batch of our Singapore-Malaysia vacation photos. About time too, it’s been 4 months since our trip! But at least I finished blogging about it before the year ended XD
On our 2nd day in Malaysia, we decided to hire a guide to take us around Kuala Lumpur. We made arrangements to meet at our hotel lobby at 9am, but he arrived an hour late. (Obviously this didn’t sit too well with us, but our guide was really apologetic so we forgave him.) Our first stop was Batu Caves, which is actually outside KL, but not by far. It’s a famous limestone hill with several small caves inside. Some of the caves house a few Hindu shrines so it’s also a place of worship for some people.
The first thing you see upon reaching the place is this HUGE statue of Murugan, a Hindu god. According to Wikipedia, the statue is 140ft, making it the tallest statue of Murugan in the world.
The second thing you will notice is the number of pigeons that surround the place:
They’re used to people so you can sit down next to them and take pictures. You can even buy bird seed from some vendors and feed them.
Ckloy kept chasing them around, trying to take close up shots but it was hard because there were a few kids there who kept running around trying to make fly away.
He did get this though:
To reach the caves, you have to climb up 272 steps (that’s right, *two hundred and seventy two*) so make sure you eat a hearty breakfast to help you get you through it. Also, it’s a good idea to wear shoes with plenty of traction because the steps are really small and some are a bit slippery. I have itty bitty feet and even I had trouble climbing them. Some people had to walk sideways so they wouldn’t fall.
At the foot of the stairs you’ll see more Hindu statues:
Up we go:
The climb up was tiring but amusing because there were several monkeys running around begging for food.
Once again, Ckloy was mesmerized by the animals. He really should consider a career as a wildlife photographer, lol.
He took these pictures:
Don’t let those innocent eyes fool you, they can be extremely aggresive when they want to be. If they catch you with food, they’ll run up to you and grab it out of your hands (or pockets), so be careful. While we were climbing up we heard this loud shriek coming from below us. For a while we thought that someone had fallen off the steps but it turned out that a monkey had just grabbed some food from a tourist.
Sunway Lagoon (Malaysia)
Another overdue post…
This is still part of our Singapore/Malaysia vacation. Finally got some free time this week to sort pictures again.
Our first day in Malaysia (if you don’t count the day of our arrival) was spent exploring Sunway Lagoon in Petaling Jaya. It’s a HUGE park that’s actually composed of five smaller attractions : Extreme Park, Wildlife Park, Scream Park, Amusement Park and Water Park. We were mostly excited about the water park since the last time we’ve been to one was wa~y back in 1997 (if I remember correctly) when our family went to Raging Waters in California.
We left the hotel around 9 because the park opens at 11 on weekdays and it was a bit of a distance away. (It opens at 10 on weekends.) Our driver dropped us off in front of this gorgeous hotel (which is also owned by the Sunway Group).
We found another trash bin for Ckloy’s quest. It amused him that the Malaysian word for “push” is close to the Tagalog word for it.
We had to take a couple of escalators down to get to the park itself.
The park’s mascot : Captain Quack. That’s some beer belly he’s got. And he sounds a lot like Donald Duck when he speaks, lol
At the entrance we found a sign that shows a list of the park’s rules, as well as a dress code.
They had the usual rules on there, such as no sharp objects allowed on the rides, Sunway wristbands must be worn at all times, no outside food allowed, etc., but what amused me was the list of allowed “swimwear”. I’ve always thought that swim suits were required for most water parks, but they allowed other sorts of attires in Sunway – such as body suits, aerobic suits, leggings, etc. And yes, I did see people swimming in leggings and body suits, despite the deadly heat that day. I’m breaking a sweat just thinking about it.
We arrived a few minutes before 11, so the park was still closed. We looked around and took pictures while waiting for the staff to open the ticket booths.
Group shot near the entrance
There wasn’t anything special about this trash bin (except from the fact that it’s dirty – after spending a few days in Singapore we got used to everything being uber clean, even trash bins), but it was there so Ckloy figured he might as well take a picture next to it.
This was supposed to be a solo picture of me with the view before Ezra and Raffy ruined it by walking into it while fooling around and rough housing. It was their favorite past time during our entire vacation.
You can choose to buy a ticket that will allow you entrance to all five parks, or the three-park ticket, which allows you entrance to the amusement park, water park and wildlife park. Naturally we wanted to see all the attractions, but we realized that we probably wouldn’t have time since the park closes at 6pm, so we chose the 3-park ticket. To keep track of which ticket the visitors bought, Sunway wristbands are provided. Blue for those who bought the 3-park tickets and orange for those who bought the 5-park ones.
Let’s volt in!
As you enter, security checks your bags and confiscates any outside food you have. Unfortunately, my aunt brought a bunch of chocolates with her which she wasn’t allowed to bring inside. Instead of having them confiscated, she decided to rent a locker and store them there until we had to leave. We were already inside when she was inspected, so we waited for her by the entrance and took pictures again.
Me, with a girl’s crotch behind me, lol. Kept my shades on because I didn’t wear make up that day. (What’s the point right? It’s going to smear off in the pool anyway XD)
I love this shot of Ckloy and me
Ezra, my mom and me. The misty thing behind us is actually a sensor-activated shower. My mom almost got caught in it. She walked in, activated the sensor and was suddenly sprayed with water from both sides (and from above). Fortunately for her, she was only a few steps in and managed to turn around and run back out before she got too wet.
Goodbye Singapore, Hello Malaysia
(Yes, its been 2 months since our trip, but I don’t have a lot of free time to blog these days. I apologize.)
I wanted to sleep in on our last day in Singapore and wake up just before we had to leave for the airport, but my aunt wanted to make the most of her vacation so she decided to squeeze in some last minute sightseeing that morning. We only had about 2 hours to spare so she decided to just check out the Fountain of Wealth at Suntec City since it was nearby. Ckloy’s never been there before either, so my mom suggested that we tag along with them.
Suntec Convention Center Lobby
Welcome to Suntec baby!
Glad to be back here. I still remember attending my first conference here (ICMAT 2007).
Walking around
A blurry shot of me and Ckloy
You’re welcome XD
I mentioned in my last Singapore entry that the Food Republics in Singapore always have some sort of theme. The one in Suntec had a library concept:
I love how real the books look. They’re actually paintings. Pretty cool noh?
Some giant sake containers
Walking around Singapore : Orchard Road, Merlion and Marina Bay Sands
The original plan for our 3rd day in Singapore was to visit the Singapore Zoo, but after walking around Sentosa in the scorching heat the previous day, we decided to skip that and just spend the day leisurely exploring the city instead. That’s not to say that we didn’t do any walking this day – in fact we did a lot, but when it got too hot we would take a break and go indoors to cool ourselves down.
We spent most of our morning exploring Orchard Road. On our first night in the city, we saw a Dr. Martens shop at Orchard Central. We were focused on sightseeing rather than shopping back then, so we didn’t go in. Ezra had been regretting it since she had been looking for a pair of white Dr. Martens for a while now, so she asked if we could go back to the store and check it out.
Walking along Orchard Road. Ckloy’s camera shy XD
We passed by a couple of these shops again, lol
A sign inside the Dr. Marten’s store
Ezra wearing her new babies
Ckloy’s parody version, LOL
Ezra is not amused
Sentosa
More pictures from our Singapore trip
The 2nd day of our vacation was spent exploring Sentosa, a small island south of Singapore. It’s also one of the country’s largest tourist attraction. There are beaches, cable cars, shows, animal encounters, etc. This was actually my 3rd visit to Sentosa so I wasn’t super excited, but I still looked forward to it. (My first time was with Amie, Hahriz and my mom after we escaped from the conference we were supposed to be attending, and my 2nd visit was with my parents and Ezra, during a family vacation.)
There are many ways to get to Sentosa from our hotel. We decided to go by taking a train to Vivo City and walking the rest of the way.
Entering Dhoby Ghaut station
Group shot inside
I love their ticket machines
We found Marymount on the map, LOL
Bobble head shot XD
This should give you an idea of how tall I am
Hello Singapore + Dinner with Emiko
Last month, my aunt asked my parents for suggestions on where she can spend an affordable yet enjoyable vacation. She’s already been to most of the tourist destinations here in the Philippines and decided that it was time for her to start exploring other Asian countries as well. Our family’s been to Singapore a couple of times before and we’ve always loved it there, so we figured that was a good place to start.
My parents felt that they needed a break from work as well, so they decided they might as well make it a family vacation, hurray~
I was really excited about this trip for two reasons. The first is that it’s been a while since I went on vacation with Ninang and Raffy. Our last trip together happened over 10 years ago, when they visited us in Myanmar and we went to Thailand together for some sightseeing. The second (and more exciting) reason is that this is the first vacation that Ckloy and I will spend together, booyakah! We’ve been a couple for almost 6 years, but we’ve never really had the chance to go on a trip together. We’re normally quite content with just spending our time at home, watching movies, playing games, etc. This was a great chance for us to do something different and enjoy ourselves.
Our flight was around 2 in the afternoon, so we left the house at around 9am. Tito Mar drove us to the airport.
Ezra and me in the car. Ckloy sat in the back next to our luggages since we didn’t have that much space XD
At the airport with our bags. We bought Lety’s buko pie on the way to the airport to give to Ate She and Tito Raffy (not to be confused with my cousin Raffy. The Garcia family likes to recycle names for some reason. We have 3 Esperanzas in the family – Ezra’s one of them – and I have a distant aunt with the same name as me as well.)
Garcia girls
Bobble head shot XD
Ckloy with my mom’s and his luggage, heading over to the check in counter
Filling out my departure card. I look so serious. Ezra’s trying to bribe me to fill hers out as well.
Ckloy looks pleased with his card
Ninang and Raffy arrived a while later, so we waited for them at the sides while they checked in.
Filling out their forms
We took pictures to pass the time:
Looking innocent as we tried to shove each other out of the picture
Pictures from Baguio
Finally found time to sort pictures again. These were taken about a month ago so I’m feeling a bit lazy about writing this entry. But here goes:
My adviser had to go to UP Baguio to meet some people last month, so we headed up there after our Ilocos adventure. We arrived the night before his meeting. We stayed at this apartment owned by a my adviser’s colleague (I think).
The place had a kitchen so we cooked dinner instead of eating out. Beulah and I don’t know how to cook, so it was Amie who did most of the work. All I did was put the rice in the rice cooker XD
Getting ready for bed:
Amie and Beulah – all bundled up
Hiding under the covers. It was so cold!! It was around 9 degrees that night (according to the apartment’s caretaker).
The next day we went to UP Baguio for my adviser’s meeting. Amie, Beulah and I didn’t really have to come with him, but he let us tag along so we could go sight seeing. He was pretty busy that day so we decided to go off on our own and explore the place for ourselves.
With UPB’s Oblation statue (I don’t think we were allowed to go near it so we took pictures from afar.)
Beulah grabbing his butt cheeks
Amie and Beulah with a statue of someone we didn’t know XD
UPB library
Amie and me with a huge bee
Taking a break from walking. I don’t know if it’s the cold air or the high altitude, but walking in Baguio seems more tiring compared to walking in Manila (or LB).
After taking a quick look around campus, we decided to head off to SM Baguio where we would be meeting Amie’s friend, Nathan, who agreed to show us around.
We passed by the beautiful garden on the way there
so many flowers!
The benefits of walking
Random shots of some signs I saw a while back.
These were way back in October when I attended the SPP at the Meralco Management Leadership Development Center in Antipolo. The place was really big, and we had to do a lot of walking to get from one place to another. (There was a free shuttle service, but it was usually full.) I guess the people who designed the center knew that guests might complain about all the walking they had to do there so they put up these signs all over the place:
Ilocos!!!
Finally found some time to blog about my Ilocos trip three weeks ago.
We left UP Diliman around 10pm. My adviser prefers to drive at night to avoid traffic. He’s made the trip to MMSU a couple of times before and knows that travelling at night saves a couple of hours.
We arrived at Batac, Ilocos around 6am the following day. Kuya Don was able to make reservations at the MMSU guest house (it was previously called “The Mansion”, but we were told that we shouldn’t call it that anymore since people might confuse it with the other “Mansion” in Baguio). Amie, Beulah and I pretty much slept the entire drive up to Ilocos, but we still collapsed on our beds and continued to sleep until Kuya Don called around 9am to ask if we were ready to go to MMSU. We were still all half asleep at that time so he told us he’ll call again later to see if we’re ready. After ending the call, we realized that the three of us were hungry (our last meal was dinner the previous day, unless you count the siopao we had for a midnight snack at one of the rest stops), so we decided to shower and look around for a place to eat.
We stayed in Room 3.
The room that Amie, Beulah and I shared. It was pretty big. There were 8 (or was it 7) beds there and two bathrooms.
Living room/lobby?
Another lobby? I like this sofa set. It looks similar to the one we have at home. Plus it was really soft.
In front of the guest house (with a “MANSION” sign in front).
There was a small eatery in front of the guest house, but we saw this:
Jollibee!
We flagged down a tricycle and asked the driver to take us there. Kuya Don and Sir Chelo laughed at us when we told them that we had brunch at Jollibee. Where was our sense of adventure, they said XD
While we were eating, Kuya Don called again and asked us to meet him at the guest house around 1pm so we could finally go to the university and do some lab work.
(I’ve already made a separate blog entry about our clay processing experience, so I won’t write any more about that here. You can just read about that HERE if you’d like.)
We spent the entire afternoon and the morning of the following day processing clay. After we’ve gathered enough clay, Sir Chelo and Kuya Don showed us around Ilocos. It was Amie’s and Beulah’s first time there. I’ve only been to Ilocos once before, back in highschool, so I was pretty excited too.
Sir Chelo parked in front of this sign when they went to buy some shovels at a hardware store:
We stopped by the famous Pasuquin Bakery to buy some soft biscocho, which is a specialty of theirs. I bought one bag to take back home, but unfortunately it got mixed up with Amie’s stuff and she ended up taking it home with her. (I ended up with her tupig, XD)
Then we went to see the famous Bangui windmills:
Can you see the windmills behind us? It was so windy that day that all of them were moving (spinning?). Kuya Don and Doc Chelo told us that this was the first time they saw this happen. Usually only a few windmills would be spinning at a time.
We moved to get a closer look at the windmills
Of course we had to take some jump shots there
I love this shot Amie took of me
Clay processing at MMSU (Ilocos Norte)
Last week, I went to the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) in Ilocos Norte with a few members of our lab to get more clay for a project we’re working on. We didn’t want to bring back huge sacks of raw material to Manila so we processed them there as well. Kuya Don (a member of our lab) is a professor at MMSU, so he was able to give us access to their facilities. (It felt kinda weird calling him “kuya” while we were there, everyone else addressed him as “sir”.)
“Ceramic Manufacturing Plant and Training Center” – where we did most of the processing
Kuya Don and Sir Chelo (my adviser) showing us how it’s done
Our turn
We used a sieve to get rid of the larger particles
Amie and Beulah. We had to wear a mask because there was dust (dirt?) flying everywhere. It was so windy!
Beulah and me
After that we had to weigh the clay and get it ready for wet seiving
Amie and Beulah next to the sieves we’re going to use
Ukay Ukay : What can you get for 700 pesos in Baguio?
I just came back from a week-long fieldwork which ended in Baguio. On the last day of the trip, my adviser had some business to attend to so he allowed Amie, Beulah and me to go shopping and sight seeing. I’ve been to Baguio a few times before but I’ve never had the chance to go ukay shopping there before, mainly because I didn’t know where to go. Luckily, Amie has a churchmate who grew up in Baguio and he agreed to show us around. He took us to some really nice places that we probably would have never found on our own. Thanks Nathan!
It was Beulah’s first time in Baguio so we went sight seeing first (blog entry to follow). But of course we’re girls and we were also very interested in shopping so we asked Nathan to take us to good ukay places.
I don’t really know what the place we went to was called, but I think it was the hilltop market. I was surprised to see clothes being sold for as low as P5! Seriously~ I couldn’t believe it so I even took a picture of one of the signs, LOL:
Amie and Beulah found some nice things. I was able to get a shirt there for P30. It was a bit hard to dig through all the clothes though, mainly because it was really crowded:
Check out that crowd! Ukay shopping is not for the faint hearted
After a while, we found a large ukay stall and we decided to go in. The stuff being sold there were a bit more expensive than the ones outside, but it was much easier to find things we liked because it was more organized and less crowded. We spent quite a bit of time in there browsing through racks of clothing and picking out stuff we liked. I had to control myself because there was so much stuff I wanted. But looking back, I wish I bought more since everything was so cheap. In the end, I left with 8 pieces of clothing, all for P540.
Ukay haul: denim skirt (P99), 5 blouses (P75 each), shirt (P30) and a dress for Ezra (P99). (The total was more than P540 but the shop gave us a discount.)
Sabangan Beach Resort (Batangas) pictures
When my balikbayan aunts visited us during the holidays, they wanted to go to the beach, so we took them to the Sabangan Beach Resort in San Juan, Batangas. It was actually our first time there as well. We found the place over the internet, and it looked okay, so we booked two cottages for three days. The resort wasn’t that big, but it was nice.
The beach itself wasn’t that big either, but it was clean and not too crowded, which we liked. We walked along the shore and did some exploring as soon as we got there.
