amazing. 4-year-old kids of Sta. Fe, Bantayan Island.Monday, May 05, 2008
Thursday, May 01, 2008
food galore
Here, as requested by iyaan, that I should take some shots of food. though she wasn't so specific of this special assignment, so here, ako nalang gihilugwayan tanan nindot man pud. i would have loved to do the food tasting with her, but i did not know there was this kind of food feast till i came that night. the invitation to come here in Mactan Shrine, it was in april 22, was received only a few hours before the event. and i was already in Hilton, which is just a walking distance from the place, so it was no problem going there. they were celebrating the Kadaugan sa Mactan, and the food festival was one of the many activities there. it was really a big event for food lovers like me. i've been to a number of food feasts already (festivals of mangoes, lechon, local delis, etc), but this one is different. there were so many choices, and they were prepared and served by big hotels like Hilton, Shangri-la, Plantation Bay, among many others. and priced at no more than P60 per meal. when we got there the place was already jampacked with people, and food was gone before the show closed at 9pm. the event was really for the food lovers. anyway, as promised, here are the photos, for your visual treats.
PS: special thanks to ms divine who lent me her N70 for these visual treats.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
coastal cleanup (april 23,'08)
The project was sponsored by Hilton Cebu Resort and Spa, and it was pure luck that this blogger was invited to this annual event, that she's been wanting to be a part of (char!). Environmentalist man kunuhay ni sya. haha!
But it wasn't all that. After our second dive, done in Talima Reef (that's in Olango Is, a few minute ride by speedy speed boat from Hilton), we visited the neighboring resorts to check their share of the coastal cleanup. Actually most of them were done with it by the time we got to their respective places. This photo shows Maribago Bluewater's man-made island. This island sort of surrounds the main resort. It was good seeing it, so clean and inviting. But if you knew its real story, you'd really feel sad of its existence. Refer to news stories, pls.
Hilton at early in the morning. All clean.
This is already outside of the real thing. Taken on the morning before I went down to work. You see the rest of the island of Mactan gleaming with its beauty complemented by the nice sunrise. It really feels soo good to be up so early sometimes. Yep, with such a grand view, who'd ever complain. =)
Sunset. Another view from room 1213, where I was.
Sunrise.
My tired feet. I left my slippers in a speed boat that took us to the dive spot, so here, I'm wearing Hilton-issued "sandals" on my way back to the city. lol! Seriously, this promdi, no matter where you put her, she'll always be what she is.
Sebu, Hilton's stuffed fish (sold for P500).
Like I said it was tiring, but fun nonetheless. Glad to share it with you. Till next adventure!
PS: some of the photos are courtesy of Miok Loyola of Hilton.
This is Hilton, taken from Manny O's Wine and Tapas.
Past 7Am, the group started the first dive. a few-minute ride by speed boat from the resort's shoreline is the resort's marine protected area that was unfortunately littered by trash.
For 20 minutes, the group collected several sacks of plastics, tube pipes, ropes (from boats), tin cans, papers (mostly boat tickets), et cetera. It was really taxing. I even had a hard time lifting my sack back to the boat cos it really became heavy.
But it wasn't all that. After our second dive, done in Talima Reef (that's in Olango Is, a few minute ride by speedy speed boat from Hilton), we visited the neighboring resorts to check their share of the coastal cleanup. Actually most of them were done with it by the time we got to their respective places. This photo shows Maribago Bluewater's man-made island. This island sort of surrounds the main resort. It was good seeing it, so clean and inviting. But if you knew its real story, you'd really feel sad of its existence. Refer to news stories, pls.
Hilton at early in the morning. All clean.
Shangri-La. Just adjacent to Hilton, which was my base for this activity. Just so glad they had me there ;)
Tambuli Beach Resort is next to the Shang. This photo was taken when we were moving out of the place to proceed to Maribago, our next stop.
Maribago. There is no photoshoping involved in here. I think I'm getting quite better with photography. Ha-ha-ha!
This is already outside of the real thing. Taken on the morning before I went down to work. You see the rest of the island of Mactan gleaming with its beauty complemented by the nice sunrise. It really feels soo good to be up so early sometimes. Yep, with such a grand view, who'd ever complain. =)
Sunset. Another view from room 1213, where I was.
Sunrise.
My tired feet. I left my slippers in a speed boat that took us to the dive spot, so here, I'm wearing Hilton-issued "sandals" on my way back to the city. lol! Seriously, this promdi, no matter where you put her, she'll always be what she is.
Sebu, Hilton's stuffed fish (sold for P500).
Like I said it was tiring, but fun nonetheless. Glad to share it with you. Till next adventure!
PS: some of the photos are courtesy of Miok Loyola of Hilton.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
what are you
It is difficult to gather friends who are already adults even if you live in the same place together. Work or the "more important things" in your life will always be among the top execuses not to attend a gathering hosted by a friend, for example. In my case, I'm always available, actually too available that I've become the group's icon. lol! I'm talking about my friends back home. Last time we finally got together as an almost complete group was last Sunday, a post birthday celebration of a friend who now works and lives outside our city. We did not try to remember the old times, of course, why would we waste our precious time for that. Instead, we ate and got a little drunk, and talked and laughed like kids. We were supposed to sing in the videoke, but forgot about that bec there was just too much to catch up on. These are my childhood friends. And below is a list of other friends, of which I have at least one of almost each kind.
I got this one from a website, and i'm posting it here (wa ko nananghid). The author posted 19 types of friends, which I cut, revised, made some comments (in italics) for this blog. Here goes...
The Best Friend: The gold standard of friendships. A best friend
listens but never judges, helps you out of a jam, tells it to you
straight, and often forgives a debt. Best friends resemble invisible
friends in that both are most common in childhood (and may not really exist).
I used to have a bestfriend before. And it's true that your bestfriend
always listens and never judges like what the author says. I remember those younger days, this bestfriend would never get tired of my telling her my problems and all. She would even cook my favorite food while i sit in their kitchen chair telling her all my present aches. And eveything would be over og mangaon na ming duha. It was at this stage of life that i weighed 56 kg while she 72, and we were both
teens then. Five years ago, she went abroad, and even with the distance, we've managed to keep our friendship, i think. And our weights as well.
The Old Friend: Ideally, a lifelong bond that stirs fond feelings and cherished memories...In reality, most old friendships are embedded in a complex economy of favors. President Bush rewrote the entire tax code for his old friends.
I am no president. But I'm almost always around for my friends. That sometimes they can become abusive of that benefit. Pero no worries, that is just a bit of a price to pay for keeping someone who is demanding, obnoxious, mean, annoying, and i can go on forever enumerating the bad side of me. :P
The Older Friend. Someone your senior who mentors you with wit and wisdom, as portrayed in the best-seller Tuesdays with Morrie.
I like this one. Good conversations, free coffee, and more freebies.
Because he/she earns more money than you do. Lol! Seriously, this type of
friend can also be an older sis/bro that you never had, minus the sugo. Hehe
The Wild Friend: The friend whose bad behavior never ceases to
entertain and may at times inspire you, for better or for worse. Though
wild friends get a bad rap, they save as many lives as they ruin.
Boring people—writers, for instance—desperately need wild friends.
I don't I have wild friends in my list. And godhelpme, I'm not a
boring person. Lol!
The Ex-Friend: Don't ask, but if you do, the answer may well involve money or sex. Or both.
Former but never enemies. That'd be fine.
The Scary Friend: Someone who never fails to nudge you out of your comfort zone—way out. Scary does not mean quirky. If a friend likes to spend his weekends re-enacting Civil War battles in period dress, that's quirky. If he shows up at your door in uniform late on a weeknight, that's scary.
I'm so glad that although most of my friends are crazy, none of them
is scary. Ako ra ngali. nyahahah...
The Boss Friend: A person higher on the org chart who thinks your
brittle smile and the startled look in your eye is an invitation to further terrorize you outside the workplace.
People, stay away from bossy people. That's an order!
The Confidant: Someone who wheedles more out of you than you planned
to share. Sadly, many confidants are also talented gossips who will soon be bartering your deepest secrets for someone else's.
Oh, never trade secrets to people not in your circle. Seriously, you
know even from the first encounter if the person is "it" or not.
Well, anyway, secrets are secrets, they should be kept where they are
safe. Keep them here! (points to self!) ;)
The Single-Modifier Friend: Any companion you proudly describe, if
only to yourself, with one word: for instance, "my gay friend" if you happen to be straight, and vice versa. You can train yourself out of the habit by slowly adding modifiers, as in "my neat gay friend" or, with practice, "my socially inept and secretly homophobic straight friend with a godawfully bad haircut."
...I'm already used to hearing my college friends (most of the time if not always) introduce me to another person as a "classmate from college." While my workmates, me their “workmate” or “officemate” or former workmate, for that matter. When it should have been workmate slash friend or a college friend. Yeah, I like it when the word friend should always come in the introduction, I don't mind if adjectives like sexy, voluptuous, talented, or anything else that is
also me will be omitted. Just being "your friend," it's fine. (LOL)
The E-mail Friend: A digital update on the kind of letter-writing
friendships that thrived in the era between the invention of ink and the arrival of cable. If the medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan claimed, then the message of most e-mail friendships is goofing off at work.
I think it's much better than textmates. Because you both get to exchange longer messages, and it's more fun than sending messages through SMS, which is bounded by characters and load. Emails give you more chance to say anything you want, and you know when a person is serious with your correspondence when he/she replies to your mails. Libre na bya ni, syaro moingun pa jud siya nga way load!
The Special-Interest Friend: Group friendships form around a shared
passion—for diving, food, movies, et cetera.
Because you share the same passion, this type of friend can actually make a very good company, bisag makadlawnan pa mog tabi.
The Friend-You-Only-Drink-With Friend: A subspecies of the
special-interest friend. In extreme cases you might not even recognize such people in the harsh light of day, having only seen them in the barroom glow—and from the side.
..I'm sorry I don't drink.
The Secondhand Friend: When someone introduces you to someone
else, supposedly because they think you'll hit it off, it could be a clever strategy to ditch you both. Which is good: Secondhand friends are a better deal than new friends, which, like cars, lose 20 percent of their value once they leave the showroom floor.
Secondhand or not, if you hit it off you hit it off. The value will always be there, granting it has been there since. Because a person is different from a thing of which value depreciates by the second!
The Dormant Friend: Every so often a dead friendship will spring back to life, bringing two people even closer together than they used to be. The reawakened friendship speaks to the mystery of friendship in general—especially
if you've forgotten why you drifted apart. But give it time; you will be reminded.
Basta ba, no bad words said during the hiatus.
The Friend with Benefits: Not the kid down the street with a
trampoline or a parrot that swears. We're talking sex buddies. Popularized in a lyric by singer Alanis Morissette, friends with benefits....
Hmmm...apart from that, there are also friends who only remember you when they need you. Ack!
The online Friend. The author forgot to add this. But this is self-explanatory...
I have a number of friends I only met online. And because I'm a bit of an internet freak, it feels good to have some familiar people in this new-age tambayan, too. I'm not talking about chatmates sa ym, bec I don't go there that often, and I don't enjoy chatting with strangers. I'm talking about fellow bloggers that have also become friends bisag di magkita.
So there, i thank the author for providing me a nice material for this blog that has been dormant for over a week already. Baboo!
I got this one from a website, and i'm posting it here (wa ko nananghid). The author posted 19 types of friends, which I cut, revised, made some comments (in italics) for this blog. Here goes...
The Best Friend: The gold standard of friendships. A best friend
listens but never judges, helps you out of a jam, tells it to you
straight, and often forgives a debt. Best friends resemble invisible
friends in that both are most common in childhood (and may not really exist).
I used to have a bestfriend before. And it's true that your bestfriend
always listens and never judges like what the author says. I remember those younger days, this bestfriend would never get tired of my telling her my problems and all. She would even cook my favorite food while i sit in their kitchen chair telling her all my present aches. And eveything would be over og mangaon na ming duha. It was at this stage of life that i weighed 56 kg while she 72, and we were both
teens then. Five years ago, she went abroad, and even with the distance, we've managed to keep our friendship, i think. And our weights as well.
The Old Friend: Ideally, a lifelong bond that stirs fond feelings and cherished memories...In reality, most old friendships are embedded in a complex economy of favors. President Bush rewrote the entire tax code for his old friends.
I am no president. But I'm almost always around for my friends. That sometimes they can become abusive of that benefit. Pero no worries, that is just a bit of a price to pay for keeping someone who is demanding, obnoxious, mean, annoying, and i can go on forever enumerating the bad side of me. :P
The Older Friend. Someone your senior who mentors you with wit and wisdom, as portrayed in the best-seller Tuesdays with Morrie.
I like this one. Good conversations, free coffee, and more freebies.
Because he/she earns more money than you do. Lol! Seriously, this type of
friend can also be an older sis/bro that you never had, minus the sugo. Hehe
The Wild Friend: The friend whose bad behavior never ceases to
entertain and may at times inspire you, for better or for worse. Though
wild friends get a bad rap, they save as many lives as they ruin.
Boring people—writers, for instance—desperately need wild friends.
I don't I have wild friends in my list. And godhelpme, I'm not a
boring person. Lol!
The Ex-Friend: Don't ask, but if you do, the answer may well involve money or sex. Or both.
Former but never enemies. That'd be fine.
The Scary Friend: Someone who never fails to nudge you out of your comfort zone—way out. Scary does not mean quirky. If a friend likes to spend his weekends re-enacting Civil War battles in period dress, that's quirky. If he shows up at your door in uniform late on a weeknight, that's scary.
I'm so glad that although most of my friends are crazy, none of them
is scary. Ako ra ngali. nyahahah...
The Boss Friend: A person higher on the org chart who thinks your
brittle smile and the startled look in your eye is an invitation to further terrorize you outside the workplace.
People, stay away from bossy people. That's an order!
The Confidant: Someone who wheedles more out of you than you planned
to share. Sadly, many confidants are also talented gossips who will soon be bartering your deepest secrets for someone else's.
Oh, never trade secrets to people not in your circle. Seriously, you
know even from the first encounter if the person is "it" or not.
Well, anyway, secrets are secrets, they should be kept where they are
safe. Keep them here! (points to self!) ;)
The Single-Modifier Friend: Any companion you proudly describe, if
only to yourself, with one word: for instance, "my gay friend" if you happen to be straight, and vice versa. You can train yourself out of the habit by slowly adding modifiers, as in "my neat gay friend" or, with practice, "my socially inept and secretly homophobic straight friend with a godawfully bad haircut."
...I'm already used to hearing my college friends (most of the time if not always) introduce me to another person as a "classmate from college." While my workmates, me their “workmate” or “officemate” or former workmate, for that matter. When it should have been workmate slash friend or a college friend. Yeah, I like it when the word friend should always come in the introduction, I don't mind if adjectives like sexy, voluptuous, talented, or anything else that is
also me will be omitted. Just being "your friend," it's fine. (LOL)
The E-mail Friend: A digital update on the kind of letter-writing
friendships that thrived in the era between the invention of ink and the arrival of cable. If the medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan claimed, then the message of most e-mail friendships is goofing off at work.
I think it's much better than textmates. Because you both get to exchange longer messages, and it's more fun than sending messages through SMS, which is bounded by characters and load. Emails give you more chance to say anything you want, and you know when a person is serious with your correspondence when he/she replies to your mails. Libre na bya ni, syaro moingun pa jud siya nga way load!
The Special-Interest Friend: Group friendships form around a shared
passion—for diving, food, movies, et cetera.
Because you share the same passion, this type of friend can actually make a very good company, bisag makadlawnan pa mog tabi.
The Friend-You-Only-Drink-With Friend: A subspecies of the
special-interest friend. In extreme cases you might not even recognize such people in the harsh light of day, having only seen them in the barroom glow—and from the side.
..I'm sorry I don't drink.
The Secondhand Friend: When someone introduces you to someone
else, supposedly because they think you'll hit it off, it could be a clever strategy to ditch you both. Which is good: Secondhand friends are a better deal than new friends, which, like cars, lose 20 percent of their value once they leave the showroom floor.
Secondhand or not, if you hit it off you hit it off. The value will always be there, granting it has been there since. Because a person is different from a thing of which value depreciates by the second!
The Dormant Friend: Every so often a dead friendship will spring back to life, bringing two people even closer together than they used to be. The reawakened friendship speaks to the mystery of friendship in general—especially
if you've forgotten why you drifted apart. But give it time; you will be reminded.
Basta ba, no bad words said during the hiatus.
The Friend with Benefits: Not the kid down the street with a
trampoline or a parrot that swears. We're talking sex buddies. Popularized in a lyric by singer Alanis Morissette, friends with benefits....
Hmmm...apart from that, there are also friends who only remember you when they need you. Ack!
The online Friend. The author forgot to add this. But this is self-explanatory...
I have a number of friends I only met online. And because I'm a bit of an internet freak, it feels good to have some familiar people in this new-age tambayan, too. I'm not talking about chatmates sa ym, bec I don't go there that often, and I don't enjoy chatting with strangers. I'm talking about fellow bloggers that have also become friends bisag di magkita.
So there, i thank the author for providing me a nice material for this blog that has been dormant for over a week already. Baboo!
Friday, April 11, 2008
seriously?
These are not song titles, but mails, spam mails! Gad, how I'd love to know those people who send them to me everyday!
"Fill her up right now"
"1day sale: P1/pill for ViagraPill, Cializ, SQMA..."
"Your device will make her shudder"
"Get the rod of your dreams"
"Do you want the biggest main organ?"
Thursday, April 10, 2008
my (small and big) dreams
At the moment, I can only dream to be this or that:
1. An Egyptologist. This is someone who studies the history of Egypt of which includes mummies!
2. A politician. This has been an old dream. Since grade school. And it's not coming true yet. buhuhu
3. A service crew member (at Jollibee). I like to do things quick, no dull moments. And I think I'm good at multi-tasking, and especially good at cleaning tables, mopping floors, and balancing food trays. Believe it or not! :P
4. A lab-asera. This is someone who sells fish at a public market's wet section. I so love shouting for customers. And counting the many crumpled paper bills in my apron's big kangaroo-like pouch, er, pocket after a long day at the merkado.
5. A surgeon. Someone who specializes in either (or both) brain or cardiothoracic surgery. I have a background in medicine, I've even been a part of several minor operations before. Circumcision and some suturing of open wounds just like that (winks). And everytime I did it, I'd always think, my hands are steadier than yours, doki. lol! During those 3 years, I did not want to be like that doctor. Hay, blame it on Grey's Anatomy!
6. A filmmaker. If you're a movie lover, what could be best than making your own movies?
7. A barista. At Starbucks! I know this is too much. Hehe
8. A travel reporter. This is really one of those jobs that, they say, offers "higher jolts" in one's lifetime. I wish I could really break into this. Fingers crossed! =)
9. A car racer. Racing at high speed, this is really more than what the word exciting means. But I know how expensive this is.
10. A private pilot. Just of a small plane that can go to unchartered places like Sagada. I was in an aerial tour last week, and learnt from our pilot that I need to have at least P1M to learn the flying course. I also gathered from him that there's a big demand for pilots worldwide. Each, if hired locally, is paid at least P100K per month, or at least US$25K abroad like in Qatar. We quite had an interesting conversation that day, that had I been rich to afford his 8-month flying course, I would not have gotten off Mactan airport without enrolling in his school first. Not for the money, but just for the love of going to places. But it's like, P1 million???
as of the time being though, this is all i can afford to do: watching the sea that separates cebu and bohol. it's like me here and my dreams there. hmmm.
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