Monday, December 1, 2014
“Today is a good
day” was what I was thinking on the bus ride back to Cubao. It was
a day after Christmas when we took to Cubao terminal stations
(because a lot of bus stations going both Northern and Southern
Philippines can be found at Quezon City, Cubao) with a random plan:
take a bus to somewhere to, ultimately, find a beach and spend the
afternoon tanning in the warm December sea breeze.
We took the Bataan
Transit bus (found at Five Star Bus Terminal) bound for Mariveles,
Bataan. One of my friends says he’s been to Marivelez, at Aguawan
Beach, and that, since we’re on a budget, the place will be more
than worth our money for a day trip—not to mention the people there
are really nice and hospitable. Great then! Aguawan, here we come!
The bus trip cost
280PHP (6-7USD), one way. It’s a 3-4 hour ride from Manila; longer
if you take a bus that will have stopovers along the way. We had one
stopover but from what I heard, some buses make more, especially
tour-centric trips. The bus trip ended at the Mariveles Bus terminal
in the mainland and market district. Thereafter, we took a tricycle
ride to Aguawan Beach.
We got to Aguawan
Beach and stayed at Light Family (I assume this is the name of the
resort because of the titular “relief” that greeted us). The
beach wasn’t anything “dreamy,” like most other (more) popular
beach destinations in the Philippines but it wasn’t shabby, too. It
was… down to earth. The people were kind and helpful, to boot. It
was like staying with family more than it was a vacation trip. Sure,
the sand weren’t as white as Boracay’s or Puerto Princesa, but we
had the luxury of quiet time, privacy, and unadulterated waters.
The ocean was clean
on this part of the Philippines, very unlike the beaches in and
around Subic and Olongapo. The water is clear but if you kick the
sand a little too hard, it’ll murk up—which is natural. Any
deeper where you no longer could get the sand to block your vision,
all your left is just clear water and maybe a fish or two. Even
opening your eyes underwater doesn’t hurt. The water is less saline
on this beach.
Since it was a day
trip, we didn’t bother to ask for how much overnight accommodations
cost (sorry), but we did get a quaint cottage that could accommodate
at least 6 people. The cottage cost 200PHP (5-6USD) for a full 24
hours. The locals were even so generous as to provide us with cutlery
and free use of a grill since we brought raw fish and were asking how
much to rent a grill. We invited them over to have lunch with us.
After a hearty lunch
while sharing stories with the locals and fooling around at the
beach, we got together with two very energetic kids who were offering
to provide us with trekking assistance. To our surprise, the two kids
were trekkers themselves and they both didn’t look any older than
12!
Halfway through the
trek, as we were reaching higher ground, we found that the terrain
became much steeper and hard to climb. Funny thing was that, in our
“Calvary” suffering, the two kids didn’t seem to be phases at
all. I didn’t get the chance to watch closely but they seemed to
climb up ahead of us “without breaking a sweat” all too quite
literally. OK, so we thought the view from the beach was a little
average. Getting on the top of the mountain however was divine. You
could see almost the whole of the peninsula and a lot of townships.
Lucky for us, we got there just almost before sunset.
After trekking back
down to the beach, we took a quick bath and readied to go home, just
the same way we came. It was evening when we reached Manila but
throughout that 4 hour ride, “today is a good day” kept repeating
in my mind.
This article was brought to us by: Last Minute Travel Booking
Monday, November 17, 2014
Before we start talking about tropical Palawan destinations
or cheap Boracay packages, let’s first pay homage to the guy who inspired this
article…
 |
| suit and tie required |
Ok, now that’s over, let’s first get to what makes a beach
vacation legendary (*disclaimer: this is for party goers. If you guys want to
chill, watch out for the next installment). Two things make any beach party
legendary and those two are boozing and hooking-up so in 3 items, we’ll try to
sum up everything awesome to do around surf, sand, and celebration.
Getting your Booze On
If you’re out for a beach party, make sure you’re at a beach
well known for its night life. There are certain beaches where you go to for
ambiance (Palawan, Panglaw), and then there are beaches you go to to get
grinding. Two things you have to consider about a beach bar: 1. It has to have
a sweet deal on the drinks and 2. It has to have an amazing party vibe.
If you ever find yourself at Puerto Galera, that’s probably
the most night-lifey-est beach there is; booze doesn’t even need a discount,
it’s too damn cheap there—priced almost like your typical inuman back home but with free live entertainment. At Boracay, be
sure to check out Cocomangas Shooter Bar. They don’t give you discounted beer,
they hand you a free one! But only during their happy hour; still a pretty
rockin’ deal actually.
Get your Game On
Because summer is supposed to be legendary, you want to go
home with a hook-up. For chicks, it’s pretty easy—all the play you need
(according to Barney Stinson’s The Playbook) is to stare at a guy and hook up.
For guys, it’s much more complicated. For the benefit of the gentlemen out
there, here are a couple of plays you can, uhm… play to get a girl. Here are
some plays paraphrased from the actual The Playbook (Barney Stinson & Matt
Khun, Touchstone Publishing):
The “Don’t Drink That”
Very mindfully set
up camp near your target. When your target goes to the restroom and comes back,
just before she takes a drink say “don’t drink that!” and say how someone
slipped something in said drink. When asked who, say that they left or point to
a friend whom you want to play a prank on. Offer to buy her a drink and go
smooth sailing from there on.
The “Hot Dude”
The Playbook says
that this has a 100% chance of success. Only three steps are required: be a
dude, look hot (sport a swimmer’s body pr’olly), get the girl.
The “Shotgun”
Only for the
strong at heart, The Shotgun is about as straightforward as a dog humping your
guest’s leg: just approach your target, ask if she will have sex with you, and
repeat the cycle until you get a yes. .25% success rate but hey, you aren’t
playing lottery, your trying to hook up! Go for it!
Get your Booze AND
Game On!!
Because if there are two things in the world that can
combine boozing and hooking up, it’s parlor games! To break the ice, start a
game inside a beach bar. Most engrossing is the beer pong but that’s for
getting the attention. What you really want to get to is the game called Suck
and Blow. You just pass a card along using your mouth and just your mouth so
you’re either “sucking” it to not let if fall or “blowing” on it to pass it on.
If it falls, you have to kiss with the person you failed to do suck and blow
with. This is where you go for diskarte,
if you know what I mean.
How ‘bout you, how do you get you beach groove on?
This article was brought to you by: Last Minute Travel Booking
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
My friend recently just came from the Middle East, in and
around the desert regions of Dubai. According to him, the streets were
scorching during the mornings most especially in the height of the afternoon.
Houses had air-conditioning so you didn’t feel the difference indoors. During
the night, the air changes—everything becomes icy, almost as scalding as
afternoons but only with cold.
I however, in the most recent summer, availed a Boracay hotel package and went. It was hot (weather and ambience wise) at the beach;
hot sun, warm beach breach, hot bodies left and right—hot. Just, hot. It was,
as I’d imagine, not as hot as the desert; a sustainable kind of heat, that is.
Although, with the setting of the sun and the length the night, because Boracay
is all about the night life, the temperature never let up. Only around 4am but
only up to about 7am did the air become cool and I know this because we never
went to sleep.
Why is this? They’re both desert looking, right? Why do
their temperature patterns differ?
One key point is their definition. Beaches are places where
the sea meets the earth. Deserts, however are defined by barrenness and
dryness. Keyword: dryness.
Deserts have fluctuating and extreme temperatures because
there is very little water (precipitation) in the air as opposed to a beach.
Since water has a very high constant temperature, the lack of precipitation in
the air means that the temperature will rise or drop instantaneously from sun
heat or wind temperature alone. The heat in Boracay is constant because of the
water in the air; the heat only last as long as there’s a source. Even the
Arctic is called a desert because the precipitation has turned into unusable
ice.
So the next time you go to the beach and the heat gets to
you, don’t go for a second think that it’s like being in the desert.
This article was brought to you by: Last Minute Travel Booking
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Upon availing affordable Boracay packages, the things that
you get include going and returning tickets, hotel (and buffet) with the
hotel’s matching amenities, an island tour, and beach activities. Typically.
What you didn’t know though, is that you also get psychological trauma!
Just kidding. But you know the feeling, don’t you? After a
long day of swimming at the beach, by the time that you’re already sleeping,
you feel as if you’re still floating atop the cradle of waves although, all of
which feels almost too real but are actually happening in your brain as lucid
dreams.
This lucid dreaming and/or probably vivid hallucination
while in the state of half-sleep is called hypnagogia.
Hypnagogia may be characterized by being in a
half-asleep/half-awake state followed by cognitive re-experiencing of previous
activities in some instance. There are also other characterizations of
hypnagogia but we’ll focus on this one and this one is specifically called the
Tetris Effect.
 |
| Awesome
Originally, the effect happens because of repetition of a single monocyclic activity that re-manifests itself during half sleep as visions that are almost too real. It’s like playing tetris for too long that your start to see the world and everything in it as tetriminos that you eventually start to visualize moves and combos until you fall asleep and continue to dream about said moves and combos.
The effect is not however purely visual or rooted in monotonous and repetitive activities. Activities that powerfully stimulate the body and the mind may linger in nerve memory and manifest themselves during sleep thus the feeling for swimming albeit being asleep on a dry and otherwise moving bed.
And no, it isn’t something to worry about. It’s a perfectly normal nervous response. Much like feeling that you crashed onto something upon waking up because you were previously dreaming that you were falling. It happens and you don’t have brain trauma. Now go on ahead and enjoy the beach.
This article is brought to us by: Last Minute Travel Booking |
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Continuation of last week's post...
Awkward Faraway
Photos
Because there’s shade where the photographer is at and there
isn’t where the subject is. Plus, the zoom makes the picture look really, really bad.
 |
| Unlike this one |
Also, it could also be because the photographer either can’t
come to the water or the camera isn’t water proof. Or the photographer is in the shade still.
 |
And, since there are a number of nipples already
present in the photo…
|
Food and Fools Photos
And, yes, sometimes these could be the most awkward and yet
the most memorable ones because there are a lot of skin both from people and
from pork liempo AND it’s probably
happy drunk hour by then.
And although most of the above items, be it that they take
up most of the albums, are also some the ones you go through to look back on
and reminisce. Some outstanding photos that you grab to make as profile
pictures that merits a “ay! ang ganda
nito(whoa! this is nice)” will never compare to the memories and laughs a “mukha kang ewan dito(you look like a
fool on this one)” Kodak moment can dish out.
If you missed part 1, you can read it here.
This article is brought to us by: Last Minute Travel Booking
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Of course there will always be new trends when taking
pictures on vacation. Just very recently, the internet exploded from all the
GoPro monopad photographs here and about. But monopad perspectives, jump shots,
and very cool surfboarding photo aren’t the majority of the photos we end up
with after the whole trip. Actually, most of the photos that fall common on
almost every Facebook vacation album might include illustrations of
Travel Ticket Photos
Say you want to go and avail affordable Boracay packages, or
low Cebu airfares, what’s the initial thing you do after deciding and then
going for it? You take a photo, of course! And then caption the photo with
something introductory and semi-vague like “all ready for the long weekend!”
On The Way Photos
These photos mostly do not have captions, are sometimes
pretty “shakily” taken (especially those that shall be hence included in an
album), and could sometimes look like just general traveling instead of an
actual vacation photo. Single Instagram on-the-way photos, however, are
calculated and thus can be captioned with “excited to get on the plane” and
such.
…or who you’re staying with; if there’s a best time to take
photos of your friends being at their most vulnerable, it’s during their sleep.
To be continued...
This article was brought to you by: http://lastminutetravelbooking.com/
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
It's been 2 weeks when I last updated my blog. So today, I give you a continuation of the last post 10 Things to do in Boracay.
Top 6 to Top 1:
Top 6 to Top 1:
6. Mountain Biking
 |
| image source: junvillegas.blogspot.com |
Aside from
ATVs, one of the best ways to explore Boracay is through mountain biking.
Mountain biking is an activity which helps you to stay fit, helps the
environment and lessen the traffic congestions in Boracay. Renting a bike in
Boracay will cost you P150/hour.
In 2012, the
Boracay mountain club and rescue group were also formed in the island. Aside
from being bike hobbyists, they are also involved in different activities to
help the people, government and nature. Some of their involvements are tree
planting, medical missions, etc.
5. Kite Boarding
 |
| image source: mylifeinboracay.wordpress.com |
The best and
safest place to go kite boarding here in Boracay is in the Bahari. Owned by the
famous host and sports enthusiast Marc Nelson, Bahari is a boutique kite
boarding resort in the Union Bay, Boracay. A full course in Kite Boarding is
only 3-5 days of training.
According to
Marc, aside from needing a good wind and shallow water, the secret of kite
boarding is to understand the wind.
4. Go Karting
 |
| image source: global-drifter.blogspot.com |
Started in
2010, Go Karting is now one of the most exciting activities in the island. This
is perfect for speed lovers and driving enthusiasts. For a span of 15 minutes,
you can race with your friends on a 700m racetrack.
3. Mermaid Lessons
 |
| image source: www.taringa.net |
Did you ever
dreamed to be a mermaid? Worry not because dreams do come true. Located here in
Boracay is the Philippine Mermaid Swimming Academy. Here you can learn
different strokes, kicks that are used by mermaids. Trainings for adults will
be for 2 hours and 3-4 hours for kids. After training, you can wear your
mermaid costume and swim.
2. Crown Regency Water Park
 |
| image source: theislandexplorer.blogspot.com |
One of the
newest attractions in Crown Regency Resort is the Wave Pool and the Wave Rider.
Using the resort’s wave pool and wave rider, you can learn surfing, wake
boarding or even skim boarding in the safest way.
1.
Cliff
diving
 |
| image source: www.lifewaitsfornoone.com |
Probably the
most exciting activity here in Boracay is cliff diving at Ariel’s point. Built
in 2008, it offers fun activities to enjoy such as snorkeling, kayaking, hiking
and swimming. This comes in an affordable package that costs P1500 per person
with all the activities you can enjoy and all the drinks that you can have.
Thanks for reading! Follow my blog for more posts. Maybe this would be enough reason for you to try and visit Boracay.
If you're planning to visit Boracay, you can click here.
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