02.27.08

road trip in pix

Posted in travel thoughts tagged , , , , at 11:58 PM by vetlongwalks

not fully recovered from my feb. 16-21 palawan trip, off i went to join a group of officemates for a road trip down south of good ‘ole cebu.  thanks to the promise of “no work, come EDSA day,” the whole bunch had a blast during the two-day road trip over the weekend, with monday set as rest day.

as indicated in the itinerary found in an earlier post, the group managed to visit most of the places on the list. unfortunately, my cam conked on me as i regrettably forgot to pack my extra batteries and charger. oh, sure i bought a pack of energizer batteries @PhP164 at the poblacion of barili – but bless their stocks – i was able to use it only to take a pitiful four pix…

first stop: carcar church 02-carcar-church.jpg

view of the church from the plaza 03-plaza.jpg

bata ivan and dennis lounging as they wait for the others to finish their shoot 01-ivan-cio.jpg

me supposed to be camwhoring but dennis was fast on his feet that he got into the picture; notice the guilty look on his face?? hehe!!! peace cio^^04-cio.jpg

something’s wrong with this pix… ah, jen – were you supposed to be in the picture? – hehehe, peace line^^ 05-jencioline.jpg

the road trip crew minus sean and line’s dad posing before the rented van 06-van.jpg

carcar rotunda 07-rotunda.jpg

leaving carcar for barili08-leaving.jpg

next stop: lunch stop – mantayupan falls – barili, cebu09-billboard.jpg

three mini falls 10-3-mini-falls.jpg

two little men and cute erin 11-ivanlexerin.jpg

me again!! 12-moi.jpg

the magnificent one12-falls.jpg

jen camwhoring; dennis in the background 13-jen-cio.jpg

dennis, jen, cel, and lex 14-ciojencellex.jpg

a scenic view; my cam has started to act up at this point 15-scenic-view.jpg

bata 16-bata.jpg

me and bata; mga artistahin 17-me-bata.jpg

another batch of artistahin: ley, jen, and line 18-lineleyjen.jpg

the last shot of the day :(

anyway, for more pix of the trip visit ley’s mycebuphotoblog and yam’s bored and crafty.

enjoy the pix!!!

02.26.08

macau: day 1

Posted in travel thoughts tagged , , , , at 11:46 AM by vetlongwalks

line and i arrived at the metropole hotel around 10 a.m.  of dec. 28, 2007 – 4 hours earlier than our scheduled arrival. upon the advice of the man at the front desk, we left our bags at the hotel baggage counter and decided to begin our exploration of macau.

we got guide books, pamphlets, and maps to help us explore the area. these materials were free and available at the hotel’s front desk counter. 01-macau-guide-book.jpg

pamphlet of macau churches 02-church-pamphlet.jpg

inside the above pamphlet: brief background of the churches [ex. the church of st. paul]03-st-paul.jpg

the chapel of st. francis xavier [location sa korean tv soap princess hours]. located in another island of macau; coloane village. 04-chapel-of-st-francis-xavier.jpg

a guide on what’s to be expected in macau for the whole month of december 2007. published by the macau government tourist office 05-whats-on.jpg

the exhibit that we missed!!!! 06-da-vinci.jpg

me with a street map of macau; darn – i misplaced the map. 11_me-on-to-senado.jpg

fully armed and ready, time to hit the road!

buildings galore. really, really,  nice buildings… 07-sky-scrapers.jpg

buildings and reflections 08-building-reflections.jpg

side view of the macau post office 09-sides-of-the-post-office.jpg

facade of macau post office building 10-facade-post-office.jpg

11-facade-post-office.jpg

santa casa da misericordia 12-santa-casa.jpg

senado square: love the place… the shops..13-senado-square.jpg

centro de turismo de negocios 14-macau-btc.jpg

macau btc: inside this building, there are two computer units where tourists can use the internet for 30 minutes free of charge [hehe, the guard on duty when we went there was a filipino] 14-macau-business-tourism-center.jpg

still at senado square [senado square is just 5-minute walk from where we stayed - metropole hotel]15-senado-square.jpg

vetlongwalks: haha, my trip isn’t complete without my mark 15-vetlongwalks.jpg

the best shop name: pretty [hehehe.. priming ang drama!!] 16-pretty.jpg

mannequins 16-mannequin.jpg

more shops 17-shops.jpg

line buying lunch 18-line-lunch.jpg

pork sandwich @ 8 pattacas [hehe, it's actually porkchop sandwich -- as in PORKCHOP! in between sandwich buns] 19-porkchop.jpg

drinks @ 10 pattacas each [line's green tea tastes like grass, hehe - she bought another iced choco and threw the green tea. my iced choco is quite okay. not impressive, though] 20-drinks.jpg

this is where we had our lunch before we decided to roam some more while enjoying our sandwiches 21-lunch-venue.jpg

macau’s wet market: inside this building 21-centro-commercial.jpg

nine west, mango, and more… 22-nine-west.jpg

 alleyways as we search for the ruins of st. paul 23-in-search-of-the-ruins.jpg

don’t know the names of these places. but it’s here that you’ll find interesting local products 24-china-town.jpg

macau’s dried products [from fish to nuts] 25-dried-products.jpg

weird flattened turkey 26-turkey.jpg

more meat products 27-meat-products.jpg

dried seahorse 28-seahorse.jpg

local shops 29-shop.jpg

after two hours of walking, line and i decided to hit back to our hotel 30.jpg

the sights we saw on our way to the hotel 31.jpg

yagit me 32.jpg

david beckham 33-beckham.jpg

little crocs 34-little-crocs.jpg

shop window  35-shop-windows.jpg

building 36.jpg

another one 37.jpg

line 37a.jpg

she took most of the pictures used here … mat salam line^^37b.jpg

wooh, this post has turned out to be a lengthy one. am not even finished with day 1…

will post more pix when i find the time… enjoy macau!

02.22.08

trip down south

Posted in travel plans, travel thoughts tagged , at 10:09 AM by vetlongwalks

upon learning that the 25th of february was declared a non-working holiday, a group of officemates went about planning a weekend trip down south.

without thinking about the dates, i readily advised the group to count me in. it was only later that yam pointed out that i’d only have one full day’s rest if i push with the plan. it didn’t sink in that i’d be a little tired after my feb. 16-21 palawan trip. but anyway there was the come on that was “kawasan falls”. hehe, i’ve been to different places in the luzvimin area, but hasn’t been to the famed “kawasan falls” of dear old cebu [my hometown]. i consider myself a disgrace to cebu for not prioritizing the many local destinations that cebu has to offer. yup, i’ve never been to camotes, bantayan, malapascua, and what have you… hopefully, that should change. the itinerary below should be a good start. itinerary1.jpg

02.12.08

see you el nido

Posted in travel thoughts at 3:54 PM by vetlongwalks

palawan.jpg

after writing the “palawan or no” entry, i decided to take a dive - to heck with only one day leave remaining for the year 2008. haha, crossing my fingers tight that nothing untoward would happen. four more nights to go…..

 [above photo was lifted from this site - thanks^^]

02.08.08

a taste of macau

Posted in travel thoughts tagged , , , at 7:17 PM by vetlongwalks

line and i left the hostel in hongkong december 28 at a little past 7 o’clock in the morning. from the chungking mansions along nathan road, we hopped on a cab headed for the hong kong/china ferry terminal.

location map: paid HK$20 for the cab fare [courtesy of this site]china-ferry-terminal.jpg

when we got to the china ferry terminal, the first boat that we saw bound for macau was sched to leave at 8:00 in the morning. thus, line and i readily went to the counter of First Ferry Macau to get a one-way ticket. the ticket cost us HK$133. click this for hk-macau ferry schedule and fare table of First Ferry Macau.

we then proceeded to their immigration to have our passports stamped. at this point, the events happened too fast. there were so many people at the terminal and at the immigration counter that we never had the time to take pictures of the area. besides, we were a bit cautious of being reprimanded again for taking pictures. we didn’t want what happened at the immigration line in hk to happen to us again. thus, we checked the premises for warnings against taking pictures. scanned the area and spotted several notices prohibiting the taking of pictures within the premises. anyway, as there were several people before us at the immigration counter, line and i practically had to run the stretch from the immigration counter to the passenger waiting lounge of first ferry in order not to miss the ferry’s boarding. if i’m not mistaken we barely had 5 minutes to reach the waiting lounge.

moi on a walkalator going to the boarding area 01_to-boarding.jpg

seat 40R [ferry is similar to our own ocean jet/supercat fastcraft] 02_boat.jpg

these are the seats that cushioned our butts for 60-75 minutes – the sailing time from hk to macau. 02_boatseats.jpg

had to make my mark – LOL!!01_first-step.jpg

vet: line, pwede guro ta picture dinhi oi!. dali wala may tawo. 03_arrival-hall.jpg

line: bitaw. pwede na guro take ug pictures dinhi. ako pud.03_arrival-hall_line.jpg

we headed again to the immigration counter to signify that we’ve entered macau and had permission to stay until january 27, 2008.  as soon as we were cleared by immigration, line had her dollars converted to pattacas – macau’s currency [MOP], then we left the airport for our hotel.

outside the macau ferry terminal 04_outside-terminal.jpg

macau snapshots….  05_bus-term.jpg

06.jpg

07_macau-grand-prix.jpg

08_trisikad.jpg

09_welcome2macau.jpg

10_bus-stop.jpg

as soon as line was satisfied with the shots she’d taken, we hopped on a cab to take us to the metropole hotel.

we booked an overnight stay at the metropole hotel via www.directrooms.com. we paid US$77 for the standard twin room accommodation.

check-in time at the hotel is 2 p.m. we arrived a little past ten in the morning, thus line asked if we could check-in earlier. the front desk, however,  advised us to just leave our bags free of charge and wait for the 2 pm check-in time. that way, we didn’t have to pay for extra charges.

with 4 hours to kill; line and i left the hotel and began exploring macau 11_me-on-to-senado.jpg

random shots again…  

at the hk airport, line had hello kitty noodles. now, hello kitty on a billboard..naglipana ang hello kitties sa hk ug macau… 12-hello-kitty.jpg

mc do in macau signage [the resto: a very small place within a building] 13_mc-do.jpg

a closer view of hello kitty… on the way to senado square 14_hello-kitty-up-close.jpg

more of our macau trip on the next entry….

photo credits: line

02.07.08

palawan or no

Posted in travel thoughts tagged , , at 4:57 AM by vetlongwalks

one thing is guaranteed. i will not be able to forgive myself if i pass up the opportunity to travel to palawan this feb 16. due to changes in the company, i only have 5 days leave this 2008. for only 2,900++, i’m sched to depart cebu for puerto princesa on feb. 16 and back on feb. 21. this entails that i use four days of my 5-day leave. i could take a dive, but at the expense of my december plans. taking a dive means i only have one day leave ’til december. it further means that for december, if i plan to travel at that time, i could only use the said leave for december 29. granted that i reserve it for december 29, it means that i only have 4 days to travel to wherever it is we [line and hopefully some others] plan to go to because we have to report back to work on december 31. furthermore, it means i have no right to be sick, tired, or whatsover from feb. 21 until december 29 because i no longer have available leave credits to fall back on.

tough.

has to change plans.

i thought about taking the feb. 16 sched and then returning on feb. 19, earlier than the others. in fact, i filed for leaves on feb. 18 and feb. 19. the problem now is that on our itinerary, we depart from puerto princesa on the 17th to el nido. from pp to el nido, travel time is roughly 8 hours regardless of whether you go by land or by sea. it wouldn’t be advisable for me to take this because i just learned that buses from el nido to puerto princesa leave at either 6 a.m. or 8:30 a.m., no night buses. taking this means that my whole stay in palawan will all be moving from point A to point B minus the pleasure of actually experiencing the beauty that palawan promises. this is because i would need to leave on the 18th and take the morning bus in order that i would reach puerto princesa and be there in time for the 12 pm-flight back to cebu on the 19th. i couldn’t very well leave el nido on the 19th because then i would miss my 12 pm-flight. there’s no available flight on the 20th. i couldn’t take other transportation arrangements also because the fees are rather exorbitant to which i’m not willing to pay, much more afford.

option 3.

i could take the safe side and just remain in puerto princesa. however, this defeats the purpose of going with a group. coz then i would have no one to share expenses and experiences with. although it’s not something new [i've traveled on my own before], it’s something that i don’t like to do primarily because i’ll be departing with a group. i have this thing about “if you begin your travel as a group, then return home with the group” mentality. plus i don’t want to be a party pooper. palawan is meant to be experienced with a group.

 option 4.

forego the plan. wait for a refund within the next two years from cebu pacific. then, torture oneself for letting go of something that i truly love: exploringthe philippines - the one thing that enlivens my otherwise mundane existence.

 p.s. hey universe! if you were in my shoes, what would you do?