my first post for 2012!!

this year, 2012, hopefully i'll finally be able to fully indulge in my interest in photography. I'm planning to get my first SLR this year. yay! i'll update when i get it. that means, I can travel by myself again. excited just thinking about it and the pictures! and pictures i can edit like this haha (this one i just got using my phone). I have a Canon point-and-shoot that's supposedly a good cam to practice with prior to an SLR cos you can manually change its setting and it has served me well the past years but i want to really pursue photography as a hobby now. I guess that would count as a new year's resolution? lol 

Boracay - i love you forever part 2

Real Coffee
Boat Station 1
Boracay, Malay, Aklan

TBH i am most comfortable and happy hanging out in modest, humble, inexpensive places. and usually my criteria for a fool-proof fun hang out: quaint, small places where my friends and i can have a good long conversation. so i was most def happy when our friend Loyal, who works and live on the island (lucky her!) led us to this whimsical coffee shop, almost hidden and would be hard-to-find for non-locals. Real Coffee had been around for years and everything's freshly made - delicious muffins, good coffee. plus, we happened to be there on their anniv night so we got some complimentary muffins to boot. hurray for freebies!! ;p

with my friend Loyal

the table is adorned with pictures of past guests who obviously had good times at the cafe..

the muffins we got for free <3

Boracay - i love you forever!

I love water, i absolutely adore beaches, and it's almost always hard for me to turn down invites if the destination is to some faraway, hidden beaches. well, Boracay is not exactly hidden but you get the drift. maybe because my sign's Pisces, could be, but i don't really stop and try and figure it out. So anyway, i always try and head there whenever i get home to spend new year's in my hometown, and this year's not any different. Here are some places we were able to check out:

7 Stones Boracay Suites
Bulabog Beach, Boracay

the place is a haven for kite boarders, and i heard they're holding a festival sometime in  January. should be awesome

         -- and no, we didn't stay there. too expensive for us haha. we had lunch in their restarant, 7th Note, so my friend can take pictures of the resort :p

the resort's restaurant..

they had a buy one take one promo on their cocktails at the time so.. had some mojitos  <3

not really into green salads but this one's superb. 7 stone garden salad  think it was called. forgot na. loved the dressing.

it was hard to tell there was a marinara pasta underneath all the huge shells lol

as i've told my friend, i was not simply hungry, i was famished so i went for roast beef, forgot all about the mashed potato and ordered rice hehe

Chocolate Eruption - as chocolate goes, simply delish :))

I am having so much trouble organizing the pics so i'll just make a part 2 of this entry and post the remaining pictures there.

photo credit: Frencel Tingga. check out his blog here frenzfries.blogspot.com

unplanned spelunking: Pangihan Cave

     the original plan was just a day trip in Boracay, we almost decided not to push thru with the trip considering the bad weather. bad weather = bad pictures, but wth, there was no alternative and we were bored to tears so off we went, low pressure area and all. Then my good 'ole friend Frencel had this sudden (actually i KNEW it had been on his mind the whole 1 hour road trip) idea to go spelunking. Now, i was wearing a crisp, clean white shirt and I wasn't about to go crawling in some muddy caves before i even step on the island so after some pamimilit on his part, and an extra shirt, i gave in. unplanned spelunking is usually a bad idea cos that means not being dressed right, no gears, no lights but since it wasn't the first for the both of us, we asked all the right questions before we plunge into the dark abyss. is there water inside? how much? (none). is it a bat cave? how stinky it is ( yes - tolerable), do we have to do some crawling? (not really), how long is it ( less than an hour). okay, sounds easy enuf, and everything was just as we expected. it IS a bat cave but it wasn't as stinky as most other bat caves i've been to and it was spacey, there were really no tight ends nor difficult entrances plus there were concrete steps inside, which sort of took the fun out of spelunking but this cave is really ideal for first timers - nice and easy. the only bad part's the vandalism on some cave walls courtesy of high schoolers. :(

the trek to the cave - it was drizzling and cold

the cave's mouth - looks wide enuf

with my friend Frencel. and i thank the guide for the hardhat, otherwise dami ko sanang bukol  :p

the bats!!

more bats..

with our guide, Julius

figuring where to go next.. 

How to get there:

From Caticlan jetty port, about 20mins tricycle ride to Malay (P100?). Entrance fee to the cave is P50 per pax. Guide fee is P150 ( for locals i guess, not too sure about foreign visitors). This spot seems to be popular to Russian and Polish visitors when I checked on the logbook.

credit: none of the pics are mine, courtesy of my friend who has a blog here : http://frenzfries.blogspot.com/

reunited with hs friends!! :) @ Crustasia Thai Shrimp House then...

It has always been important to me to try and stay connected with friends through the years. I mean I won't stay single forever (uh, maybe lol) so once i have a family of my own, i won't be able to hang out with friends like I can do now. I mean I can but then a million things can come up at the last minute so nothing is guaranteed then, unlike now, things are more controllable lol. And so i always make it a point to meet up with them at least once a year. college friends and high school friends. i get to meet some of them maybe once or twice a year, thrice would be very lucky. some of them are based out of the country now so its rare that i get to meet them. some are also based here in PI but we all are busy with work and our personal activities on days off i.e. things-that-help-us-not-go-crazy lol So December is always a busy month for me since its time for mini-reunions and I just came from one of these last saturday 2011-12-10. ik late post again hehe. At my personal appeal, we decided to dine in an Asian restaurant and happily they obliged haha. my friend Francis was actually suggesting we go to an Italian place, a cellar/resto but I just had some a week ago and besides I wasn't in the mood for an Italian fare lol. Asian cuisine I am always in the mood for. I mean they're very flavourful and yet not heavy on the tummy so u really get to enjoy the food. Ahhh I'm not a foodie expert so it's hard to go into details but yea, I'm all for Asian food anytime, anywhere. We wanted to find a hole-in-the-wall sort of resto where we can stay forever and has good ambiance but everyone's famished so we just decided to eat in one of the restaurants inside the mall. Here are some pics from Crustasia Thai Shrimp House. and yes, i enjoyed the food very much. so oishi! lol idk how to say delicious in Thai language haha.

Francis, Eisyl, Marylou, Hannah <3 my HS friends! :)

Thai Spring Rolls

chicken satay

shrimp ala maritess.or smthng.lol can't remember but its got loads of garlic

Grilled Beef Tenderlion Medallions and Prawns

                                                   CRUSTASIA THAI SHRIMP HOUSE
                                                   6th floor Shangri-la Plaza Mall
                                                   EDSA cor Shaw Blvd, Mandaluyong
                                                   Tel. 910-4096

New York Supreme

Dear blog: sorry I have been neglecting you lately...

lol. but i'm really sorry I haven't been able to document a slice of my mundane life here, i really should be exerting more effort if i'd want to have something to look back to when i get older. even the last restaurant post, where i promised text are to follow, til now, it only has pictures to show haha. oh well, promises are made to be broken. even to blogs. :p

And so here we are again, another late post. This went down last 12/04 but I didn't have time to update my blog. same sob story - busy with work, busy with online activities etc etc. we had an early Christmas dinner and we checked out this new Italian restaurant. Honestly, I'm not really into Italian fares especially after one incident where i got food poisoned after eating a seafood pasta. we think it was the oyster. i love oysters. i eat them fresh, steamed, grilled. with spicy vinegar. but I won't be eating seafood pasta or marinara or whatever anytime soon lol. but since people love pasta so i just go with the flow. Here are some pics:

Baked Beef and Cheese Ravioli

Pasta Puttanesca

spare ribs? can't rmbr but i really enjoyed this. real spicy :p

Italian Sausage Parmigiana

NYS Special: Pepperoni. Italian sausage.bacon. mushrooms.green bell peppers. black  olives. 3 cheeses.

this one is not from NYS. it's from the coffee shop right next door, Coffee Academy

Happy Thanksgiving y'all!!

..just reposting an FB status lol been lazing arnd a lot lately. :p

" Thanksgiving day or not, I'm always thankful for my family and friends - old and new friends alike. and for little things that makes me happy, like Coldplay, n 2ne1, n FM, and kpop, and movies, and music, being a fangirl, haha from serious to kababawan. i guess am THANKFUL it doesnt take a lot for me to be happy, otherwise, i'd be one sad lonely earthling. just another tiny dot in the universe. in the US or not, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! :)


..... after some thought i realized sa dami ng tao at lawak ng mundo i am still a dot. but a happy dot. better a happy dot than a miserable one lol. long entry, haha sori mnsan lng mgblog dito :p"

some people can be sooo sick!!

..so I am innocently browsing the web doing research for my online job when I came about this product review. I'm writing descriptions of luxury watches and personal reviews from watch owners usually helps. This one shocked me however, so much so that I have to stop timekeeping (which i use to log in hours) to blog about this. I can't believe how some people can be so dense and uncaring about their fellow human beings. It's so sad really.

here's the link:
http://www.amazon.com/Roger-Dubuis-EX-45-9-71R/dp/B001CB1M4Y

He was contemplating whether to buy the watch or donating the money, and he said:
... I considered donating the money to save the lives of starving children. Still, I determined that the environmentally friendly thing to do is relieve mother earth of the excess population. I call this tough love. It is better that they die fast when they are young than slow when they are adults."..


Huh??!!! speechless. It is one thing not donating or helping out, but to actually wish them death?? What an insensitive prick!!!

Cafe Juanita

.. almost forgot blogging about this one. will update with description next time. I'll upload the pictures first. :)

Location:
#19 West Capitol Drive
Barrio Capitolyo, Pasig, Manila
Tel: +632 632-0357