In 2006, I learned...

This year...

1) I learned that things go beyond your control and sometimes you'll experience one bad luck after another that all you can do is watch each one unfold before you....and that the best way to deal with it is to make yourself as least affected as possible.

2) I learned that a priest is probably not the best person to give advise on marriage...well, at least not the priest from a certain church in Mindanao Ave. who tells the bride and groom that once married, you are not supposed to invoke the right to privacy, you have to be completely open to each other! Sure, spouses have to be open to each other but total loss of privacy? No way! I believe that even though married couples vowed to be "one", they don't really have to share everything. Privacy and having a part of you separate from each other makes the relationship healthier. Well, I can't really blame the priest, he's not married. I remember in one episode of Urban Living, Daphne was showing a Moroccan inspired house with a bathroom that has 2 lavatories opposite each other, and Daphne said "the secret to a happy marriage, separate sinks". If you can afford it, why not? In my case, I'm content with separate closets and separate areas in the dresser.

3) I learned that it's difficult to print a balloon or do any task that requires steady hands while listening to tambalang nicole and cris sa Love Radio. Similarly, ang hirap mag-emote na mataray sa jeep kapag sila ang pinakikinggan. Why? kailangan pa bang imemorize yan? :)

4) I learned that "papampam" means "papansin" and "dyunakis" means "anak", thanks to my dear HS friends.

5) I learned that a single text message can make or break your day.

6) I learned that children are so clever. Once, when Yuan and I are making iced tea, I said to him, "Let's not put ice anymore, malamig naman yung tubig eh"...and he replied "why? it's name is ice tea eh"..oo nga naman...

7) I learned that you have to conquer your fears for your children. The most that I've done to celebrate new year is play with watusi, now I'm lighting piccolos which yuan calls "pansabog". I have yet to gather the courage for theme park rides.

8) I learned that if you want only true friends in your wedding, hold it out-of-town and/or on a weekday! Only true friends will take the inconvenience just to celebrate with you that once-in-a-lifetime event in your life.

9) I learned that it's fun to receive forwarded sms jokes and it's fun to forward them, too as long as naka-unlimitxt ako syempre! :)

10) I learned that people change and I too have changed a lot but having said that, I realized I'm still me in so many ways! hehe, labo. So add ko na yun, I learned na malabo ako! haha

11) I learned that most of us live in the future, not the present. Well, then that's better naman than living in the past.

12) I learned that aging will really get to us sooner or later. Have you ever looked at people older than you and thought "ganyan din kaya itsura ko o katawan ko pag tanda?" Well, this year I've done that many times.

13) I learned that I don't like Shakey's anymore and that I still love the tacos in Pancake House.

14) I learned na kaya ko ring mag-two-piece, kapalan lang ng mukha yan! hehe

15) I learned that paradise is not a place but an experience. :)

Happy New Year! I hope it'll be a better one for all of us! :)

5 years..3 days...Part I

Last December 1, Paul and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. Every year we make it a point that we celebrate this special day in our lives. And so our first was a day trip in Hidden Valley and a night in Tagaytay; the second was a day trip in The Farm and a night in Makati Shangri-la; the third was a 2-day trip in Corregidor; and last year, we watched Harry Potter in Glorietta and had dinner in I can't remember where! hahaha! Anyway, this year we decided to make it extra special. By September we have booked our flights and planned our itinerary:
Day 1 - Dec.1
8am - ETA Tagbilaran, Bohol
8-4pm - Countryside tour
4 onwards - leisure time at Panglao
Day 2
6-10 am - dolphin watching/snorkeling in Balicasag
2:30 pm - ETA Cebu via ferry
3pm onwards - Cebu city tour
Day 3
10am onwards - day tour at Shangri-la Mactan
9:30 pm - ETD Cebu to Manila

A month before the trip, I have booked an aircon cottage in Bohol Divers Resort in Panglao and a room at Golden Peak Hotel in Cebu City. A week before the trip, I have booked a Bohol countryside tour with Mang Jun, the tour guide who's highly recommended by several PExers. Everything was well planned, except the arrival of typhoon Reming and many other not-so-good events that I have already told in my previous post. So instead of the above itinerary, we had this...

Day 1- December 1:

After having our Tagbilaran flight, Bohol tour and Panglao accomodation rebooked to Dec.2, Paul and I decided to spend the first of our 3-day celebration in Ayala Center. On the way to Glorietta from MSE (where we left our bags), Paul and I was thinking about where we would spend the night. At the foot of the Ayala center walkway, we had this conversation:

Beng: Sa VC na lang at least sure tayo na maayos at yung branch sa Cuneta, malapit na sa airport.
Paul: Hindi ko masabi kasi di pa naman tayo nakapunta dun.
Beng: Ano ka, nakapunta na kaya tayo dun! VIP room pa nga, na di na tayo umulit kasi sobra mahal.
Paul: Ah, yun ba yung may 2nd floor yung room?
Beng: Huh? Ano'ng second floor? Wala naman tayong napuntahan na may second floor ah. Hmmm...sino kasama mo dun sa may 2nd floor? Ikaw ha...

Oh di ba, ang ganda ng simula ng anniversary namin?! Buti na lang hindi ako selosa. hehehe...

Anyway, after having lunch at Shakey's we watched Borat. We have read very good reviews about this film sa clickthecity, so we expected that it would be good. Well, it was...hmm...ahh...I don't know how I would describe it. The dialogues were pretty vulgar but there were scenes that were REALLY FUNNY. It wasn't boring, but it's not that entertaining either. For me, not worth the P120 ticket. Pwede ka na lang makinood sa kapitbahay mong may pirated DVD, may kasama ka pang kakanta ng "Kazakhstan greatest country in the world, all other countries are run by little girls..." Aray ko! Paringgan ba ang Pilipinas? hehe...

Next movie we watched was Casino Royale, the new James Blonde, este James Bond movie. This one was really good kahit pa di ko type si Daniel Craig. Ang payat kasi tingnan, di tulad ni Pierce Brosnan na parang ang sarap sabihan ng "Hi Bond, let's bond!" hehe. The movie was quite long but there was no dragging moment. Eto, talagang sa sine dapat panoorin. Ganda! :)

After the movie, we bought dinner and headed back to MSE to get our bags. While waiting for a taxi to VC, I bought a stick of squid balls in Ayala Avenue...yummy! I missed that so much and I was so glad to have one again after more than 3 years! Actually, ordinary squid balls lang naman yun pero yung sauce sa Ayala masarap talaga. Ewan ko ba, baka may halong pinaglabhan ng medyas at tshirt na puro pawis ng "pana", kasi medyo maasim na maalat na maanghang! hehe, joke. Pero masarap talaga. :)

We were at VC around 7 pm. Nakakatuwa talaga mga boy sa VC, hindi tumitingin sa guest pag nakikipag-usap. Nung tinatanong ko yung rates, sa floor nakatingin. Gusto kong sabihan ng, "bosing, pwede mo kong tingnan kasi asawa ko naman kasama ko no, hindi ako nahihiyang pumunta dito!" hehe. Siguro iniisip nila lahat ng pumupunta sa ganun eh may ginagawang "bawal". Naalala ko tuloy yung nabasa ko sa isang forum na yung Anito sa Malate eh closed na, tapos may nakapost daw na "Closed for the glory of God!" hahaha!

Anyway, dito na nagtatapos ang kwento ko for Day 1. What happened after we arrived at VC and before we left for the airport is outside the scope of this blog. :)

5 years...3 days...Part II

Day 2 - December 2...Bohol

We met our tour guide Mang Jun outside of Tagbilaran domestic airport at around 9:45am. After stopping over at the pier to buy tickets for our next day ferry ride to Cebu, we were on our way for a countryside tour of Bohol.

People travel for differents reasons, and mine is to see and experience new things and be amazed in the process. I can only say that I enjoyed a trip if at least once during may stay I was able to say, 'wow!'. And on our tour of Bohol, I said that word many times...

First stop...the Blood Compact Site. It's just a statue of Sikatuna having blood compact with Legaspi, plus ilang miron. From here you can see Panglao Island and Pamicalan Island where you can see some migratory whales around May. We spent a couple of minutes taking pictures then left.


Next stop, Chocolate Hills. Although it's around 50km pa daw from Tagbilaran, Mang Jun said that we have to go there na kasi it usually rains there daw in the afternoon.
On the way, we passed by the man-made forest...wow! picturesque! Upon reaching the choco hills viewing deck, we learned that there are around 1,268 of these choco hills and that they may have been formed by the "uplift of coral deposits and the action of rain water and erosion"...It's amazing how nature works. It feels good to see a natural formation that can not be seen in any other part of the world. Wow!

After choco hills we went to the Loboc Cave. It's a newly opened cave, I think last October lang yata sila nag-open. It was a far cry from the underground river in Palawan, but what's good here is that you are so close to the formations that you could almost touch them, yun nga lang bawal kasi masisira sila.



From Loboc Cave, we went to a floating restaurant to have lunch while cruising the Loboc River. This to me was the best part of the tour. The buffet was okay but it was really the cruise in the river that got me. Ang gandang view at very serene ang river. Yung mga bata sa river, aakyat ng puno tapos magswiswing bago tuluyang magdive sa river. Amazing...wow! Habang nagcruicruise merong nagseserenade ... minsan mali-mali lyrics, pero pwede na..hehe
After the cruise, we went to the hanging bridge. Nothing special. Paul decided to cross it, I didn't bother. Actually, natakot lang ako. hehehe
Next stop was the tarsiers! This was Paul's fave part of the trip. Well, totoo namang ang cute-cute nung mga tarsiers. :)

After that, Clarin ancestral house naman. Well, since bobs ako sa history, di ko kilala sino si Clarin. Well, dati pala siyang senador and yung currently nag-occupy sa house is yung former mayor ng town nila. O di ba, as if I care! hehe, joke. Isang part nung tour of the house eh yung challenge sa pag-open nung door. Pinakita sa amin paano ilock. Supposedly, reverse lang para ma-open di ba, pero hindi...may trick pa pala yun...merong kailangang sundutin at natuwa ako kasi nasundot ko! hahaha, ang babaw ko. :)

After Clarin ancestral house, we visited 2 old churches in Bohol, one was the Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Parish Church in Baclayon and the other one was the Santa Monica Parish Church in Alburquerque. Then we bought pasalubongs and headed for Panglao Island.

Next post please, for our Panglao and Mactan Island experience...:)

5 years...3 days...Part III

Day 2 night: Alona Beach Panglao Island

After our enjoyable tour of Bohol, we headed for Panglao Island where we spent the 2nd night of our 3-day anniversary celebration.

We stayed at Bohol Divers Resort in Alona Beach. I chose this resort kasi eto lang yung may pinakamurang aircon cottage at pwedeng kong i-book through email. hehe. Alona Beach is about 1.5km long, lined with several resorts. The beach is better than Puerto Galera but not as good as Boracay. I guess the edge of Alona Beach over these two beaches is that tahimik sa beach pag gabi. Of course, if you want some nightlife at the beach then Alona is not for you.

After dinner, Paul and I sat by the beach in front of Alona Palm resort, pangit kasi dun sa harap ng Bohol Divers. For about two hours, nandun lang kami sa beach, nakaupo sa sand at nag-usap tungkol sa kung anu-ano..the sky, the beach, the tour, our travels,etc...In one of the restos by the beach, merong nagjajamming...oki naman, para na rin kaming may background music. :)

I love conversing with Paul kasi marami kaming napag-uusapan, at marami akong natututunan. That night in Alona Beach, we were like 2 friends na nagchichikahan. Actually, sa more than 5 years na naging mag-bf/gf kami plus 5 years of marriage, our friendship has been the most essential element of our relationship. As the song goes.."we're more than just lovers, we're good friends". hehehe. Pero seriously, napakaimportante ng friendship sa isang relationship. I remember yung advice nung isa naming ninang sa kasal, "just be each other's bestfriend". Totoo yun. Kasi di ba sa mga kaibigan natin, we can be so tolerant, forgiving, machika, sweet, thoughtful, trusting, honest, gusto natin lagi silang kasama, kagimik. If you have that kind of relationship with your partner, ang saya at ang gaan di ba? :) Hala, naiba na topic! hehe...After a good talk at the beach, we went back to our room. How we spent the rest of the night is again beyond the scope of this post. :)

Wala akong gaanong picture ng Panglao dito...yung iba nasa private pics sa profile ko..pero puro ako lang din yun, hehehe.

Early morning kami nagpicture taking. I remember naglalakad kami sa beach nang nagtext yung service namin papuntang pier na nasa parking lot na siya. Sinabi ko kay Paul and I started running towards the resort. Sabi ni Paul in a pasweet voice.."Honey, nasa akin susi. Bakit ka tumatakbo eh hindi mo rin naman mabubuksan yung room?". I turned, flashed him a cute smile and said.."kasi tatakbo ka rin!"...and he did! :)

Day 3: Shangri-la Mactan Island, Cebu

We arrived in Cebu a few minutes before 9am. We went straight to Magellan's cross para lang magpicture then off we go to Shangri-la Mactan Island. On the way, nadaanan namin yung convention center na tinayo for the ASEAN summit. Wala lang, nabanggit ko lang...hehe

Shangri-la has "A Day In Paradise" package which includes a buffet lunch at Tides and free use of amenities...pool, beach, towels, changing room. Sarap ng buffet lunch sa Tides and hanep sa presentation. Dito rin inorder ni Paul ang pinakamahal na calamansi juice na naorder niya sa buong buhay niya... P230! hehe. Sabi ko nga sa kanya "kasama daw yung baso sa price, pwede mo iuwi!" hehehe.

Shangri-la Mactan Island is beautiful and very relaxing, wala ganong tao at tahimik. It's good for a family vacation kasi meron silang mga play area for kids/toddlers and pwede pang magfish feeding dun mismo sa beach. Wala kaming ginawa dun kundi nagpakabusog sa Tides then nagrelax sa beach and later sa pool. It was a good way to end our 3-day trip. Napag-usapan namin ni Paul na someday babalik kami dun, kasama si Yuan. :)

At diyan na nga nagtatapos ang aming 3-day escapade. Sarap! :)

When it rains, it pours...

and in my case, it came in a torrent! Last week I have experienced a series of very unfortunate events.
It all started on Monday, Nov. 27 when Paul lost his phone and the finder decided to keep it. Come Wednesday, I learned that super typhoon Reming is bound to hit Manila over the weekend - and may affect the trip that Paul and I have planned several months ago. I was hopeful Reming will change course. Besides, it's only Wednesday night and Manila was already in signal #2. I was thinking that maybe by Friday the typhoon will be out of the country already. Of course we all know that that didn't happen. By early thursday, the typhoon was forecasted to hit Manila 5-8am friday morning, our flight to Tagbilaran was scheduled at 6:20am Friday! I kept praying for some good news and was so desperate that I even sent out a chain text message that promises a miracle will come the next day! haha! I have planned this vacation for 3 months, I would be very disappointed if this will not push through. By Thursday afternoon, the typhoon has changed course and will not directly hit Manila. I thought I got the miracle I was hoping for. I was wrong. By 1am Friday morning, I called Cebu Pacific to check if our flight was cancelled...it was. I asked if I could rebook a later flight, the customer service discouraged me as they weren't sure which flights will be cancelled on Friday. I almost cried in disappointment! But still the optimistic me ruled, I slept at 2am still hoping for a miracle when I wake up.

At 5am friday, I called the customer service again only the find out that all morning flights were cancelled. I asked if we could reroute to Cebu but was informed that only the six pm flight was open, if we want, we may go to the airport to take chances on the early afternoon flights. Still hopeful, we went to the airport. On the Cebu Pacific ticket counter, I was given a queue number of 597 and they're currently serving 044! It was 8am. Those with lower queue numbers have been there since 6am! Paul and I decided to just rebook through phone and we got the next day flight to Tagbilaran. So we left our baggage in Paul's office and spent our Friday in Makati...watched Borat and Casino Royale, and later spent the night at VC.

Skies were clear on Saturday morning, so I didn't expect any problems concerning our flight. But I guess, we were really so unfortunate because by 5:45am, we were advised that our 6:20am flight will be delayed by more than 2 hours due to aircraft servicing! Pissed off, Paul and I decided to have breakfast at Dulcinea. They say bad luck comes in three's - paul lost his phone, our flight cancelled, our new flight delayed- so I thought that would be that last of it.... I was wrong. After eating, we decided to go back to our seats and I turned on my mp3 player only to find out that the battery is empty and my extra battery was in the bag that we had already checked-in! Good thing Paul was busy reading a magazine that I was able to borrow the battery for his mp3 player. By 7am, the airport personnel announced that they'll be distributing meals to affected passengers! Great! Free meals when we've already paid for one! I wasn't in the mood to eat, and Paul said he was still full so he'll just eat later. By 7:40, Paul decided to eat the free tapsilog...after taking a few bites, the airline personnel announced that passengers can now board the aircraft! Hah! What a timing...well. at least we won't be delayed any longer.

Everything went smoothly the rest of the morning...we were enjoying our countryside trip of Bohol. By 1pm we went to the floating restaurant to have our late lunch while cruising the Loboc River. For the nth unfortunate time, the assigned boatman wasn't very good in maneuvering the boat that it took him more than 20 minutes just to park the boat properly! Lunch was served at 2pm! You should have seen the faces of the other passengers. One guy even said to the server, "Doblehin mo na yung serving spoon, para mabilis, umiikot na paningin ko eh!" haha! Good thing, the river cruise was great...very calming...just what we needed.

The rest of the afternoon went well, too. I'll write about beautiful Bohol in a separate post. By 4:30pm, after we've been to our last tour spot, Paul asked me "dala mo ba charger ng cam? one bar na lang battery". What?! One bar and we still haven't gone to the highlight of our trip. No, I didn't bring the charger, because I wasn't expecting the fully charged battery would be consumed that easily. Oh well, there's nothing we can do. Anyway, we have a disposable underwater cam, which we won't be able to use anyway as we wouldn't have time to snorkel in Balicasag anymore, since we lost 1 day from our itinerary when the flight was cancelled. Before 5pm we were on our way to Panglao Island. We were hoping we'll catch the sunset. But since we were very unfortunate, we didn't. We weren't sure if we arrived late or there wasn't much to see because of cloudy skies.

After checking in, we were escorted to our room. Just when the resort personnel has left, we discovered the flush wasn't working! So i had to go back to the reception and requested for us to be transferred to another room. Fortunately, there was one more available. So they transferred our things. The rest of the night was spent well, a massage for Paul, a good dinner at Trudis, a walk and good talk at the beach. By 9 pm, we went back to our room. I was arranging our things when we realized, we're missing our bag of pasalubongs! I can only shake my head in disbelief that we can be this unlucky! And so we requested the resort personnel to check the other cottage if we left it there. The new occupants were hesitant to allow us in, he said his wife is already sleeping, we can just check tomorrow. But apologetically, we requested to check on it that night because we're leaving early morning for Cebu. Thank God he gave in and the bag was there. Before retiring for the night, all i can hope for was that that would be the last of our misfortunes...it wasn't! I set the alarm on my phone to 4:00 am so we can at least catch sunrise at the beach before we leave Panglao at 6am to catch the 7am ferry to Cebu. Early dawn, I woke up to check the time on my phone...it's dead. Strangely, I didn't get any low batt alerts the night before. I got up to charge the phone, it was 4:20am. By 5:00am, we were ready to take pictures..the sun's not up yet and the beach was so dark. I was so disappointed thinking that i would leave Panglao without a single picture. For the second time, I almost cried. I have tried to contain my emotions for more than 48 hours as I didn't want our vacation to be affected by these things that are out of our control. I guess I was so focused on making the vacation a happy one that I was able to keep myself from crying. We decided to just take a shower, prepare our things, go to the beach then run back to the resort to check out, besides I have already settled the bill the night before. We'll just have breakfast at the ferry. By 5:30 we were ready and the sun is starting to rise, we were able to get a few good shots at the beach. :)

Did we catch the ferry on time?
Yes, we did. We've allotted ample travel time from Panglao to the pier that I would have snapped if we missed the ferry! On board, Paul ordered 2 instant cup noodles and was told they'll just be served in our seats. More than 30 minutes have past, no noodles yet. I noticed one passenger get up and returned a few minutes later carrying his cup noodles. I requested Paul to follow-up on our orders...and true enough, nalimutan ng server...All I can say at that time was, hindi pa tapos, then Paul and I thought of the worse things that could happen...mawala ang cam, walang daytour sa Shang, maglibot kami ng Cebu na may bitbit na gamit...buti naman walang nangyari sa isa sa mga yun.

We were able to arrive at Shangri-la Mactan Island without any more misfortunes. At Shang, Paul and I had a little misunderstanding about something and for the third time, I almost cried. Paul and I seldom quarrel, and this is certainly not the time that I would want to have an argument with him. Again, I was able to control my emotions and I am so happy with myself that I have done that. Of course as expected, our digital cam's battery run out and we've consumed all of the disposable cam's shots. But even without much pictures, we had a great time at Shangri-la..I'll write about it in a separate post.

By 7:30pm we have checked-in for our 9:30pm flight back to Manila. Boarding time was 9pm, so we still had time to have dinner. By 9:15 we still haven't boarded yet. We boarded the aircraft at 9:20, and after about 20 minutes and the fastest instructions I've heard from a flight attendant, we were airborne. We arrived in Manila before 11pm and was happy to be home few minutes before midnight.

And so the misfortunes were over...not!

Yesterday, was Yuan's last exam day. Instead of waiting for him outside of his classroom, I decided to go to a nearby bank. The queue was quite long and I overheard the teller saying the bank's connection goes on and off. By 10:50, I was next on the queue, then bank's connection went totally offline! We were given queue numbers as the bank personnel wasn't sure how long it will take before they go online again. My queue number was "1" but I have to give it back to the guard coz I have to run back to fetch Yuan from school.

And today I had the pictures from the disposable cam developed. There were less than 10 good shots! I guess that wasn't misfortune anymore...it's just that it's been a while since we last used a non-digital camera.

And so that was it...well, I hope that was it!:) Our experience has been a test of patience, and I guess, we passed, with flying colors, hehe! In spite of everything, we still enjoyed our vacation very much! Sure, it could have been better, but hey, it could have been worse, too. :)

One of these days, I'll share pics and write about our 3-day 5th wedding anniversary celebration...from Makati to Tagbilaran to Panglao Island to Cebu City and finally to Mactan Island. :)