throwback april 2o1o: taal (plus my travel diaries widget)

If you're happy and you know it.. BLOG!! :) 

I've been positive and lighthearted lately. With lately, I mean.. like a month already? Hihi. Tonight is no different. My brother and I were laughing like crazy because I was teaching our 3-year old niece how to open a locked door with keys. There were four keys together and she can't figure out what she already tried and failed. Picture my niece's super cute face then add determination, annoyance and anger. Hahaha! She even had "napapagod na ko" lines but she kept on trying. Haha! I can't get over it. Now I didn't want to waste the good vibes so I thought of blogging. It's such a breeze to think and joke around when your happy, right? There, I just let you in on a secret. 

Anyway, for tonight let's relieve the moment of my first unglamorous short trip. This was back in the days when I haven't dreamt of trekking nor running, or any other strenuous physical activities. I was the typical girly-girly back then so imagine the horror when I found out I have no choice but to join the activity. We had clients then and they personally chose to trek Taal. Trekking? Why on earth? Hahaha! And as I've said I had no choice. Or probably I had. I was just too chicken to say no then. 

And the experience? It was horrible! I remember posting on Facebook just how horrible it was - heat of the sun, dusty trail, smelly horses. Those were my exact issues. Ang arte ko dati dba? Annoying!! Hahaha! But as cliché as it may sound, it's true that change is the only constant thing in this world. 3 years after this nerve-wracking incident, I have climbed mountains, joined fun runs, went spelunking, tried wall climbing, got frustrated in wakeboarding and successfully stood on a surf board! All that and even more!! 

I'd have to note though that this activity wasn't my turning point. It is after I found out about bucket lists that I realized I've been missing out a lot. And that there are a lot of things out there that we should try - even just once in this lifetime. Naks! Yan tayo eh!! :P

what I perceived as bad before ✌

the beauty that's Taal

I regret to inform you though that this blog post will entirely be personal - no travel details or whatsoever. Heeyy, I know nothing about organizing trips back then. Plus this was three freakin' years back! I really just had to do this throwback thing altogether because as you can see I created a "travel diaries" widget on this blog. Look right or down. See it? See it? :)

Update 02.15.2014 
Deleted the photo 'cause I realized it's ugly. Instead, I have my TRAVEL PAGE now. Woohooo! :)

I was supposed to just list down all the places I've been to from A-Z like most travel bloggers do kaya lang my OCD hit me. By all means, I tried to understand a little about Philippine geography and tadaaaaa.. Thank you so much to Wikipedia. And since I'm feeling informative, not to mention, hyper tonight, I'm going to share some realizations I had. By the way, I tweeted the bullets below with the hashtag #geographyfordummies. I felt such an idiot!

• I found out that Olongapo is just a city in the province of Zambales. All the while I thought Olongapo is a province by itself. All the while too I didn't know that Subic has got something to do with Zambales. At least now I know, Subic is a municipality of Zambales.

• And speaking of municipality. It was my question too, what the heck is a municipality. Wikipedia said that a municipality, after reaching certain population and revenue requirements may opt to be a city. A bill should be passed then signed into law by the president. Really now.

• All the while I thought Camiguin, Bukidnon and Cagayan de Oro are equals. I don't know - probably they are all cities of a certain province, or they are all provinces by themselves. Anything that would make them peers. Apparently, I'm wrong. Camiguin and Bukidnon are provinces while Cagayan de Oro is just a city of Misamis Oriental. Why do we frequent the term CDO over Misamis Oriental??

• I got refreshed that we have 17 regions and I found out that I've been to 10 of them. 7 more to go including Region II (Cagayan Valley), Region VIII (Eastern Visayas) and the rest from Mindanao. I doubt though if my parents will ever let me to Mindanao again.

• Last but not the least, I realized that my bullets are black and there's no obvious way for a geography idiot to figure out how to switch their colors. Ho-huummm.

PS

I cannot believe you let me bore you like that! ;)

ELSEWHERE

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come rain or shine

Please welcome me back as I continue my series of summer-ish posts. xD Last May 8, we had our project summer outing at Virgin Beach Resort, Laiya, San Juan Batangas. It's exactly the week storm 'Bebeng' was here so it was raining almost non-stop that day. I was honestly pissed off because 1) I am a part of the organizing team and I was worried all our efforts to make it happen would go to waste. 2) Who would ever want a rainy summer outing, after all {member or not of the organizing team}?

As planned, the participants will be given 30 minutes to rest or freshen up and then we will proceed with the games. Obviously, what was intended to happen never did. We opted to let them stay in the dining parasols as we waited for our lunch. Some still chose to brave the rain, which by the way isn't so hard at that time, and went swimming. Personally, I chose to stay in our shelter.

me and my sister having the time of our lives in the cottage

and please don't mention our matching outfits

We requested for our lunch to be served early since most of us had nothing else to do but try to get ourselves out of boredom in the parasols.

On the brighter side, what was supposed to be just 'packed lunch' became a buffet. They didn't bother to explain why. But yeah, Virgin Beach, thanks a lot!

buuurrppp! :P

Heavens must have felt pity on us and soon the heavy rain turned into drizzle. In a moment, we found ourselves enjoying Laiya's big waves. What made the whole trip fun were those waves, actually. Everyone was acting silly playing with them.

While most of the time we'd ride the waves and let them bring us back to the shore, I experimented a bit and tried jumping over them. One time I made a mistake of jumping too early and I landed the water the exact moment the wave has come. Nagpagulong-gulong ako literally. And I have paparazzi shots to support my story. 

'twas a lot of work washing off the sand from my hair :|

Of course, there's no way we'd miss the 'pictorial' part of every trip. The credit goes to teh Pholet and her Bebe Glam {camera with a name, yet again}.

with my sis and teh Pholet's sis, Donna

Day trips btw is from 8am to 5pm only. So at around 5pm, we were ready to leave the place. Our official photographer, Jabey was finally in action to take our obligatory group shots.

my immediate team, ku-yu-ey
Jam.Apple.Pholet.Jabey.Jem.Ochie

the entire project

I'd say the summer outing wasn't an epic success, but it's not a total mess either. Some efforts may have been wasted {planning for games and all} but still we had fun and I guess that matters the most.

Now who's looking forward to next year's summer outing?

Virgin Beach Resort

http://www.virginbeachresort.com/

Day Tour Package, Inclusive of Lunch

Adults .................. P 850.00/day

Kids (2-10 years old). .. P 525.00/day
Dining Parasol .......... P 1350.00/day (capacity of 12, max 15, extra person, P130.00)

ELSEWHERE

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