Diamond Princess takes us to Malaysia (Kelang & Penang)

Hallu everyone! Finally an update on our Singapore trip/cruise which took place last February. Yes, this entry is almost a year late XD

If I remember correctly, we left off after our had just arrived in Singapore and we spent our day wandering around the Cloud Forest at the Gardens By The Bay (blog entry here). The following morning, we headed to the Cruise terminal to board the Diamond Princess

After 5 cruises, I finally made it to Platinum Card status 😀

This basically means I get preferred boarding (goodbye long lines) and free internet on the ship (hooray!)

Ezra was really excited about being back on the Diamond Princess, since her last cruise was also on this same ship (Japan cruise blog entry here)

She was most excited about the buffet

Her goal on the cruise was to fatten up (since she lost a lot of weight in the US), while my goal was to not eat too much XD

After lunch we took a nap, attended the safety drill then checked out the sail-away party that was happening on the pool deck:

Ezra with her ice cream – still trying to gain weight

*Near~ Far~ Wherever you are~*

We spent our first day on the ship relaxing and eating. That evening my parents and I went back to the pool deck to watch Dr. Strange on the big screen.

(The vlog for this day can be found at the end of this entry)

The following day the Diamond Princess docked in Kelang, Malaysia:

INSTABITS : October 2017

Hallu everyone! This entry is late, as usual, but work responsibilities are piling up. Whenever I do manage to get some free time, I rarely have enough energy left to do anything that requires me to think. Most of the time I just binge-watch Youtube videos until I fall asleep.  Anyway, the semester is about to end, and my other work responsibilities are going to reduce significantly in a couple of days. I’ll definitely be celebrating next week.

Most of October’s INSTABITS were taken during our trip to Korea last month. We were there for a conference but of course we did our best to squeeze in as many touristy things that we could do. My skin broke out so badly because sleep became my least priority while we were there. We were only there for a few days so naturally we wanted to make the most of it. I  only got about 4-5 hrs of sleep each night, which is way less than usual. And trust me, having bad skin in Korea (where everyone is pretty much flawless) was not something I wanted.

 

My first post for October was a groupie with Sir Taps, Sir Marvs and Jorge at Kimbop.

Sir Taps pointed out that we were wearing similar shirts so he wanted to take photos for fun. He was trying to get me to laugh for the photo so here he is showing me a bunch of weird stuff on his phone

Raf and I went to Nuvali one weekend and we decided to have brunch at The Morning After.

I ordered chicken and waffles,  but they didn’t have waffles so they replaced it with pancakes.  The chicken was good, but the pancakes were a little dry.

We also had lunch at Silantro. It was my first time there so of course I had to try their popular beef nachos.

Eugene visited the Philippines this month so Aprille and I met up with him at Seoul Kitchen for dinner. It’s been 3 years since we last saw each other!

The 99th UPLB Loyalty Day was held on October 10. This was the CAS float for the parade.

Sir Taps, Jorge and I bought matching shirts this month. We planned on buying one for Dustin too but we weren’t sure if he’d wear it. But at least he agreed to wear stripes with us.

My baby Mochi celebrated his 2nd birthday this month. He’s such a fat and naughty bunny, but I love him ❤

 

My mom’s birthday is on the 17th and my parents and I flew to Korea to celebrate. (Sir Marvs, Amie and Ava followed shortly with a later flight).

Our first stop in Korea was non other than Myeongdong. As a K-beauty lover, this was definitely something I couldn’t miss.

Amie and I had a great time looking for our favorite Korean celebrities (well, their standees and posters) while we were there

Singapore 2017 : Lost in the cloud

Ezra visited the Philippines last February so we grabbed the opportunity to go on a cruise with her. The last time we went on a cruise together as a family was back in 2015, for our Japan-Korea cruise. This time my parents signed us up for a cruise that would take us around Thailand and Malaysia. It begins (and ends) in Singapore so we had to fly there. We wanted to explore Singapore as well so we decided to arrive a day before the ship was scheduled to leave.

We took an early flight so we were all pretty much half awake at the airport. And it didn’t help that Ezra set her alarm to go off at 1am that morning, and just kept snoozing it for the next hour.

We found this giant golden chicken at the airport because 2017 is the year of the rooster. (This was in February so the Lunar New Year had just ended.)

My parents managed to get hold of Singapore Airline’s promo fare, which included free entrance to Gardens by the Bay. We had to claim our tickets to the park  at the airport when we arrived in Singapore:

Just like all our previous visits to Singapore, we stayed at the Strand Hotel in Bencoolen Street.

We used to get the family room but this time Ezra and I shared a room and my parents stayed next door

One thing we love about this place is that it’s located right across the street from a Kopitiam/food court. This year we learned that it’s now called Food Republic.

Naturally that’s where we decided to have lunch

The place was packed, we had to wait a while before securing a table

I ordered my favorite – roast duck and char siew. We also got some sugar cane juice to wash things down

After this we looked for a taxi to take us to Gardens by the Bay:

Just like the airport, the place was decorated for Lunar New Year:

One-day tour of Taiwan (Goodbye Golden Princess)

This entry is about the last day of our Japan-Taiwan cruise last September 2016. It’s over a year late, but I can only edit and sort photos during my free time, which I don’t get often.

We spent most of our last morning on the Golden Princess packing to go home. We had to be off the ship by 8am, so we were up bright and early. We were in a rush trying to make it on time so naturally I wasn’t able to take photos, but here’s two from when we were waiting at the Wheelhouse Bar for our turn to disembark.

Since our flight wasn’t until the evening, we booked an independent tour around Taiwan. Our guide picked us up at the port and took us to Yehliu Geopark, where we saw lots of interesting rock formations near the sea:

The place was beautiful, but it was also extremely hot! We were sweating buckets by the end of our visit here. In the photo above I was barely able to keep my hand on the rail for the shot because it felt like molten lava.

INSTABITS : September 2017

My favorite month of the year – because it’s my birth month ❤  September always tends to be busy for some reason, but I love it because I always end up reconnecting with friends when they greet me on my birthday 😀 A lot of the people I know have very limited free time, so I’m thankful whenever they remember me 🙂

Most of my IG posts this month are from my El Nido trip with my parents. I couldn’t help it, El Nido is just so beautiful. I actually had to exercise self control so I wouldn’t spam my IG friends with posts from my trip. (But I did spam them with IG stories, sorry guise :p)

On the first day of September my parents and I went to San Pablo to have lunch with Tito Vergel’s family. Viel had just passed the Occupational Therapist Licensure Exam so we wanted to celebrate. Congrats Viel!

After lunch I met up with the gang at SM San Pablo. I kidnapped Deus since he told me he was planning on just sleeping at home that afternoon anyway.

Starbucks released their green tea yogurt frap that day so of course we had to try it

We ended up watching “Love You To the Stars and Back”, which was beautifully sad (and funny at the same time). My parents watched a movie too but I can’t remember the title. Here’s a group photo before we headed home.

The following day my parents and I flew to El Nido to celebrate my birthday 😀 We stayed at El Nido Resorts Miniloc, which was beautiful ❤

Check out that view. And the surrounding area had beautiful corals so we didn’t have to go far to go snorkelling

This is what we woke up to every morning for 3 days

The resort’s staff were extremely accommodating and knew how to make their guests feel special. We definitely recommend staying there.

One fun thing that you can do exclusively at El Nido Resorts Miniloc is swim with these jacks 🐟 They’re huge! We were told that each one weighs about 30-40kg. The staff feeds them everyday at 10:30am so they appear only around that time.

One of the places we visited was the Small Lagoon. The entrance is really small so the only way to get there is to take a kayak. In this photo you can see JP and PJ – friends we met during our trip.

Ishigaki 2016 : talking dolls and balloons

On the third day of our Japan-Taiwan cruise, the Golden Princess brought us to Ishigaki. We were having breakfast that morning, trying to plan out our day when I heard someone exclaim “Hindi ako makapaniwala sa nakikita ko ngayon!” (Translation : “I can’t believe what I’m seeing right now!”). When we looked up, we saw Nathan standing next to our table with a huge smile on his face 😀

For those who might be confused, Nathan was the Head Waiter in our dining room when we did our 7-day Japan-Korea cruise in 2015 (blog entry HERE). He was extremely kind to us and our dinners usually ended up being over two hours long because we had such a great time chatting with him every night. That was back on the Diamond Princess so we definitely didn’t expect to see him on this ship! It was such a pleasant surprise 😀

Here’s a photo from our Diamond Princess cruise in 2015 with Nathan:

This was taken during the formal evening, so the staff were in formal attire too. That’s Nathan on the right, and Yuni (our waiter) on the left. We were hoping to run into Yuni too, but Nathan told us he was on a different ship.

We stayed to chat with Nathan for a while and promised we’d look for him later that evening before heading back to our rooms to get ready for a day of sight-seeing.

Our ship didn’t dock in Ishigaki so we had to take the tenders to go ashore:

Inside the tender

We made it to shore, yay!

It was *extremely* humid that day. But at least it didn’t rain like the previous day.

Our first stop was Family Mart because we needed to exchange currency. Of course we did a bit of shopping there as well. I found these coffee-flavored ice cream balls there which was really good:

Brinks liked them so much that she bought another pack for herself.

We also found another convenience store nearby where we ended up buying some beauty products. I found the Sea Breeze Deo Waters that I love:

They were a bit pricier here compared to the ones I bought at Don Quixote in Okinawa.

We found this shopping street so we decided to look around to buy some pasalubong

Exploring Okinawa (Shuri Castle and Kokusai Street)

Day 2 of my birthday cruise from last year (Day 1 blog here). Since Brinks justified her expenses for this trip by telling herself that it was a birthday present to herself, my parents told the staff that she was also celebrating her birthday. Which explains why we woke up to two sets of balloons and greeting cards on our door that morning.

“Birthday” Kupos~

Hello Okinawa!

We didn’t plan on leaving the ship until later that afternoon so we spent our morning walking around and watching a culinary show at the Princess Theater:

The culinary show is usually very funny, unfortunately we couldn’t understand it this time because it was all in Mandarin

After the show Brinks and I went to the pool deck to take some photos

Week 24/52 : May every sunrise hold more promise and every sunset hold more peace

It’s my birthdaaaaaay~ For my present this year, my parents booked a trip to El Nido for the three of us. We’ve always wanted to visit this place so I’m happy that we were finally able to go. Tomorrow is our last day here and I’m not ready to leave paradise just yet to go back to work T__T

I normally hate getting up early but since it’s my birthday I convinced my parents to watch the sunrise with me 🙂 Our guide told us we were lucky because it was very clear today. We were worried we wouldn’t be able to see anything since it rained quite hard the night before, but fortunately the sun shone really brightly the following day 😀

Hooray for another wonderful and blessed year! Thanks Mama and Daddy for this amazing birthday gift! And thank you to our guide (I think his name was Ping) for taking this photo.

The quote in the title is by Umair Siddiqui. To end this entry I would like to share this prayer I found online. Unfortunately I don’t know who wrote it, but I thought it was beautiful:

Birthday Prayer
– Author Unknown

Thank you, God, for giving me another year of life.
Thank you for all the people who remembered me today
by sending cards, and letters, gifts and good wishes.

Thank you for all the experience of this past year;
for times of success which will always be happy memories,
for times of failure which reminded me of my own weakness and of my need for you,
for times of joy when the sun was shining,
for times of sadness which drove me to you.

Forgive me
for the hours I wasted,
for the chances I failed to take,
for the opportunities I missed this past year.
Help me in the days ahead to make this the best year yet,
and through it to bring good credit to myself,
happiness and pride to my loved ones,
and joy to you. Amen.

INSTABITS : July 2017

Just like last year, my July was quite eventful. It’s safe to say that it’s one of the (if not *the*) most exciting month I’ve had all year. I attended a cosplay convention, went to a bazaar, celebrated a friend’s birthday, and visited three European countries. As a result, this entry is going to be a little photo-heavy, please bear with me.

Kicked the month off by going to Toycon 2017 (this was my outfit). The last time I attended Toycon was back in 2014, so I was pretty excited. Ever since Ezra moved to the US I haven’t been going to conventions because I didn’t know anyone else who would go with me.

Thank goodness Marco and Don (both avid con-goers) invited me to go with them this year, yay!

Random vain selfie in the car. Check out those false lashes yo!

At the event, Marco, Don, and I stayed together at first, but after lunch we decided to go our own ways because we were looking for different things. They wanted to see action figures and toys, while I was on the lookout for cute clothes and merchandise 😀 This was my Toycon haul. I love the Pusheen shirt 😀

Although I found some cute clothes at Toycon, I still decided to drop by the Trendsetter’s Bazaar a week later. I’ve never been to one of these bazaars and Arianne has been telling me about all the affordable clothes they have there, so I decided to check it out.

This was my haul 😀 I found loads of cute clothes, and most of them were very affordable indeed! I think the most expensive outfit I bought was a 450-peso romper. (Although my most expensive item was the Beauty Blender.)

Brinky turned 32 this month and she held a tea-party at her place for us to celebrate

Look at this Pinterest-worthy setup! So cuuuuuute~

x

Raffy visited the Philippines this month and he came with me to the office one morning since he didn’t want to be left at home

Around mid-July, our family flew to Barcelona to begin our Europe adventure 🙂 We had a layover at Abu Dhabi, where I found this camel waiting for me 🙂 I’ve always wanted to ride a real camel, but this metal one will have to do for now.

Birthday Cruise : Keelung, Taiwan

For my birthday last year my parents decided to go on a short cruise around Japan/Taiwan, and as a special treat they told me I could invite a friend to come with us! As soon as they told me, I contacted Brinky who immediately jumped on board. Princess Cruises had a “Buy 2 Get 2 Free” promo during this period, so it was perfect. My parents booked their trips at a regular rate and Brinks and I were the “Get 2 Free“. (Of course there were still taxes and plane tickets to be paid, but the cruise fares were waived :D)

The cruise begins in Keelung, Taiwan so we took an early flight to get there.

Kupos in pink

Hello Taiwan!

We booked a shuttle to pick us up from the airport and take us to the port

During our last cruise my parents were finally upgraded to Platinum status, so we were able to skip the long check in lines this time around, yay!

The ship we would be sailing on is the Golden Princess, which is actually the same ship we were on during our Alaskan cruise (you can find my blog entries about that by clicking HERE). That was my very first cruise, so this ship holds a special place in my heart. Being back on board made us feel really happy, and we even met a few crew members who were there with us during our Alaskan cruise – and some of them actually remembered us! Pretty amazing considering that was two years ago and they usually have about 2000 passengers on board for each voyage.

Ceiling shot while waiting for the elevators

The crew was setting up for the champagne waterfall to be held that evening

Pretty~