ilog, dagat, bundok, lawa

Oct. 26-31, 2008
Bohol-Dumaguete, Philippines


ako ay isang tunay na saksi! mayaman nga ang ating bansa sa kalikasan. naman, wala pang isang linggo nalibot ko ang iba't ibang anyo ng kalikasan. wahoo!



Loboc River, Loboc, Bohol
*kung sasakay at kakain ka sa kanilang floating restaurant, 300 ang bayad at lamon all you can na sa mga handa nila. Mga isang oras din ang paglakbay nyo sa ilog at pabalik sa tourist center. may mga madadaanan kayong mga booth sa may gilid ng ilog na may mga kumakanta at sumasayaw ng mga lokal na awit.



Bohol Beach Club
*eto ay isang pribadong resort pero maaring magbayad ng 250 para sa isang araw na pagpasyal, paligo sa dagat at sa pool. Maaring ibili ng pagkain ang 150 mula sa bayad na to. lalabas na 100 lang talaga ang entrance fee. Matatagpuan ito sa isla ng Panglao, mga 20 mins. mula sa Tagbilaran.




CUFAI Community, Calinawan, Sibulan, Negros Oriental
*hmmm, mga 2 oras mula sa Dumaguete paakyat ng bundok, tawid ng ilog, etc. Mabuti na lang may sasakyan kami. Dito nakilala namin ang isang forest ranger na ex-kainginero. Sila yung mga naninira pumuputol ng mga puno sa kagubatan bilang kabuhayan, di nagtagal napansin din nila ang sirang nagawa nila kaya naisipang bumaliktad at pangalagaan na ngayon ang kanilang mga kabundukan.






Twin Lakes, Balinsasayao, Sibulan, Negros Oriental
mga wala pang isang oras mula sa Dumaguete City, kailangan ng 4x4 na sasakyan at matagtag ang daan paakyat ng bundok. Kailangan maglakad ng mga 10 minutes papunta sa bukana ng lawa, at sasakay ng bangka patawid at mapuntahan ang view deck para makita ang lawa sa kabilang side nito. Maulan nung nagpunta kami pero bahagya din tumigil at sumilip ang araw. Ganda, ganda!

Kaya pala masakit ang buong katawan ko...haaay. hehe...

catch me if you can!

Oct. 26-28: Tagbilaran, Bohol
Oct. 28-31: Dumaguete

Nov. 3-5: Cebu
Nov. 5-7: Iloilo

Nov. 10-14: Batanes

Nov. 19-24: Macau-HK

Nov. 30: Tagaytay (office Christmas Party)

Dec. 3-6: Vigan

Dec. 10: Iligan (maybe)

tinatamad ako just looking at my sched...yeah it looks really exciting but the logistics is pretty much killing me. there are hotels to look for and book, schedules of contacts to fix, transpo routes to research for. sometimes i wish these were scattered all throught the year with ample intervals in between just for me to catch my breath, and yeah pack and unpack my bags.

what keeps me excited though are the people i will be interviewing in this project, yey! in bohol it will be the founder/trainer of the loboc boys choir. i've already played it my mind how we could let the boys sing while cruising along the loboc river. the visuals are just too good aww. and i'm expecting to cry once more hearing the stories of these little boys and most of all the their founder ala Alessandra de Rossi's Munting Tinig.

over in Dumaguete, we might have to scale the mountains again as the nominee is a forest ranger. i hope there's a ceasefire in those areas right now wehehe. the last time i went there a crossfire ensued among the militaries and some of our "friends" there that classes were suspended for days. good luck!

i'm no longer that excited with cebu really, it looks just like manila anyway. but we'll be meeting a young furniture designer who's been to australia for a while but came back and opened his business in the country. he's known to have trained and given jobs to most of his neighbors in the community, let's see, let's see.

i still dunno who i'm interviewing in iloilo, babasahin ko pa hehehe.

in batanes, i'm really just a salingketket...this is my officemate's area and i just "volunteered" to help him out wehehehe. it's my first time to go there, yey! i just hope the weather will permit us to go. the locals say it will soon be "winter" in batanes and that means it will be too cold and winds harsher that it could topple even the jeepneys that would be cruising the island. awooo!

as with Macau and Hongkong, i've actually prepared the itinerary already haha! i even have the budget estimates for each day. i'm that OC with my travels, i want each aspect covered, each destination researched. though i know so well that itineraries are rarely religiously followed, it at least makes me more secured especially when in some place for the first time. i'm expecting a lot of walking and sightseeing, at least for once i won't be working here.

then december will just breeze by pretty quickly. i still haven't decided whether i'll go home earlier except if there are still more activities that i'd need to go to here. i have to be back earlier this January as my sked is still full. oh well.

happy holidays in advance then haha!

did you know that...

there is such a thing as gourmet tuyo?

yes! i chanced upon this at some deli near my place and since i've been trying so hard to stay away from processed foods and anything salty or sweet or fatty i didn't bother to take a second look. but this morning when i dropped by the deli again i got too intrigued and read its ingredients, and oh, it's supposed to be swimming in olive oil naman pala so it should be healthy eh? best of all it has no more kaliskis anymore which i don't really like from any fish.

i tried one today and i've to say it is pretty good especially with rice and kamatis. yun nga lang napapadami ang kain ko haaay.

i've put on some weight the past days pero ok lang, next week na ako mgda-diet. hihihi.

current reviews

MOVIE: Harsh Times

this is quite a surprisingly absorbing film especially when i haven't really heard anything about it then. i sort of just picked it up off the shelves in Video City and wow, i'm impressed!

i'm never a fan of Christian Bale not even as Batman but he is indeed oh-so-good here! i'm actually googling for any awards or citation buts can't seem to find any. it is a bit similar to Training Day especially since it has the same creators but I have to say this film moved me more, even if that has Ethan Hawke in it hehehe...

oh yeah, Freddy Rodriguez (Havoc, A Walk in the Clouds) is as yummy anyway. add in teeny but ever gorgeous Eva Longoria as well.








BOOK: A Thousand Splendid Suns

i have to say it was a bit laborious reading this one. i had to stop in between chapters in order for me to breathe and most often shake off the negative images that never fails to make me cringe.

a thousand splendid suns is about two women finding their lives intertwined amidst the atrocities in Afghanistan. it spans almost 30 decades of the countries darkest years starting from the Soviet occupation, to the rise of the Mujahideen, and later the rule of the Talibans. i honestly could not tell which ones oppress them more. it seems that instead of being hopeful about seeing their current enemy falling, another more barbaric rule would later follow.

i saw myself taking notice of the timeline alongside my own and it breaks my heart realizing that while i was feeling high and mighty and rebellious supposedly battling teenage angst all of these oppressions were going on in their country.

what bothers me more is that the human drama, the violence was even more severe in the confines of their own homes. among husbands and wives, among sons and daughters. i would like to believe that indeed war could turn the sanest of men into the vilest of creatures.

it makes me wonder how could anyone ever gather enough strength to go on, where could anyone draw hope in ever seeing a better life again.

i so admire how the author could use the most beautiful words, the most awe-inspiring imageries in spite of the war torn background.

i love Kite Runner, and i love this one too. i really can't decide which one is better but i believe i don't really have to. just like with the former, i also cried, moped, and pondered on this one.

*sigh*




SONG ALBUM: Third by Portishead




portishead has always been my female radiohead.

definitely great for head-tripping. makes me feel fuzzy and heady and hazy and floaty with all those wonderfully dizzying colors everywhere.

should i get a blue ribbon already?

i can't put this on the recipes section because i just sort of put them together and dropped it on the pan but yeah, it went well naman.

i've been craving for chicken cordon bleu for sometime now and since i've gotten so kuripot about eating out already i decided to make my own. i googled the recipe and found so many ways of making it i just chose the simplest, most realistic for me to do.

for one, the chicken breast was supposed to be pounded by a mallet but i don't have one so used i the sides of my ceramic saucer hehe...

i sliced it in half leaving just some space for me to stuff ham and some cheese. i added a little mayonnaise just for some tangy taste. others suggest mustard but i don't really like its taste. using catsup would prove to be too tacky.

i dipped it in some beaten egg, and sprinkled it with ajinomoto crispy fry because i'm so tamad to mix my own breading. oh, i added parmesan cheese on my breading just for some effect.

i don't have a deep fryer so i just used my one and only non-stick pan and fried it in low heat just to make sure that the insides gets cooked as well.

i laid it on some paper towels just like what they do in those cooking shows to let excess oil drip. and voila, i had my very own chicken cordon bleu!!

i know there's supposed to be some sort of sauce for this but i dunno how to do it anymore. besides dagdag calories lang yan di ba?

nurturing my animus

i spent my Sunday night to early morning of Monday watching the Godfather trilogy.

wow, i knew those were good films but i've somehow forgotten how great they were. i have fallen in love with the Corleones all over again and though there were instances when i would flinch everytime those morbid killings where shown, i've to say i must have shed tears on countless scenes already.

and i just finished Donnie Brasco...and there's gonna be more as there's still Goodfellas, Scarface, and a few more in this dibidi hehehe.

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i finally got my file of Metallica's Death Magnetic, great thanks to Sef and to Karl.

i have yet to listen to it over and over again and let it grow on me but i have to say it's still the same Metallica i was crazy with years ago.

it's still the same blend of noise i remember from Enter Sandman, and hearing James Hetfield softly lament " How can I be lost? If I've got nowhere to go?" i know it's still the good old Metallica that's definitely back in circulation.

darn, i am missing my old Black album which is still in cassette tape haha!

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pretty crazy though, i tend to feel more nostalgic and teary-eyed than masculine having indulged in some things.

maybe i'm just really getting old and is only remembering my old interests and hobbies. or it's just that i'm still but every inch a girl after all wehehe...

the night the atenistas made lusong in the putikan

i didn't know i could make it. my flight from cdo was at about 4pm that day and i knew getting a cab from the airport late in the afternoon was a mean feat in itself. i was so much hoping i could make it to the 6pm mass at the gesu by i knew it was already futile.

oh well, i got home at past 6pm and rested a bit. of course i woke up at past 8pm already. i felt i was too tamad to go but i realized i need to go out for dinner anyway and i was so bent at getting the autographs.

what greeted me was the long line of cars from gate three and more throngs of people in blue from all ages. there were young boys and more young giggly girls everywhere. there were moms and dads even lolos and lolas and babies carried by their parents in blue too.

i wasn't expecting the putik, my gawd! i should have known that it has been raining in manila the past days that I've been away.


i was hungry so i looked for the food stalls first. there was a lot but there were queues in the booths too. i decided to go around a bit, take pictures and maybe look for some people that i know. a few friends that i was supposed to meet that night backed out because of the heavy traffic everywhere in the metro.

after grabbing spaghetti from some both and free mineral water from a sponsor i looked for a shirt, poster or anything i could have signed. then i started joining the ones in the already long line for the autograph signing. man, even the basketball players were still on stage making kwento about their recent win and yet we were already lining up for their autographs. yeah, i remember i did line up years ago when wes gonzales' team won too but i've forgotten it was that long! i started lining up at around 10pm. a friend of mine has arrived and was somewhere in some booth but i was determined in getting my autographs haha! yes, so many times over i did ask myself if i wanted to go on waiting. and i realized that i was already there, i didn't have anything else to do anyway. my feet was already dirty and muddy and i didn't want to go home empty handed.

i was still so tired and sleepy from my trip. everything was just so heady i felt like i was just in some dream. i know i can go home anytime but as i stood there in my queue amidst all these young girls and boys with their moms or yayas i knew i needed to go on.

through it all, some bands did play to cheer us on. there was spongecola, parokya ni edgar, miguel escueta, kjwan. bianca gonzales hosted and a few other celebrities showed up. even wes gonzales, doug kramer, rich alvarez could be found milling along with the crowd. i even saw jim paredes and boboy garovillo. too bad i got shy to take their pics as well. it was pretty hard to go around but everyone seemed to be enjoying walking around the putikan hehe.

at almost 1am i finally got inside the tent for my autographs, wow! just as well as the rain started pouring in. everything was a haze inside the booth, i didn't really know all of the players so i just handed them my stuff and took pics. i was actually more startstruck at yael yuson who joined us and lined with us for the autographs ahihihi.



it was a good thing that i had an extra poster with me to sheild me from the rain. i wasn't able to meet with my friend already, sorry crise! i stayed at the office a bit while i waited for the rain to stop. i was dead tired but i had to clean up my tsinelas and my feet. i think i still left some traces of mud back in the office.

oh well, i got what i wanted, i didn't care anymore what body pains i got from all that standing and waiting. and oh, i'll do it again, make my kids do it again, if they have to when the chance would come once again.

haaay, masarap talaga ang atenista...

ooops, masarap talaga maging atenista pala. wahehehe.