Home and Away

When the sun is up and the cool breeze whistling down on your face, it would most probably be a good day to take a breather and drive up to the mountains. A couple of weeks ago, my closest friends and I drove up to the cold mountains around the outskirts of the city where our buddy's rest house lay. The one and a half hour drive to the mountain did not feel like it was a long drive because when you have friends that mock around and make fun of all the weird unusual things you pass by during the trip, they tend to make the long hour drive a hell of a laugh trip. 

When we thought that everything would work out alright as planned, the unexpected happened. The car that I was riding broke down and lost its acceleration as we were starting to drive up the mountain. We really did not know what caused the damage but our theories have concluded that we might have been jinxed by our girl buddy - she's being a paranoid since the time we took off and she was actually riding in the car where we were all comfortably seating at. I still love her though she's actually like that (laughs). Fortunately, our buddy's mom drove by coincidence and switched cars with her - she is so sweet and apparently she owns the car we were using as well. Even though we went through all of that trouble, we were still in smiling faces, calm and happy - I really don't know what our paranoid-ish friend felt all through that trouble (evil laugh).

Basically, this breather can be be but to simpler words that can actually describe the whole trip. A Buffet. For snacks, we got bags and bags of Lays, buns, bread chocolates, assorted chips, name it! 

Dinner: 

Crabs

grilled tuna belly and squid

chicken soup

Whole medium sized roast pig

Pork on tofu

Breakfast:

Scrambled Eggs

Tocino

Sausage

Corned Beef

LEFT OVERS

Lunch:

Crabs

Grilled Shrimps

Sautéed Roast Pig

Grilled Marinated Boneless Milf Fish

Adobo - Filipino Dish

Its like a the whole restaurant's menu. Don't even get me started with the desserts.

There are really cool sights and places near the rest house around the mountains. Like this piece of "Art" created by Davao's most famous artist... Kublai. 

There's this one rest house where in you can actually pay to take a dip in their swimming pool which unfortunately was recently drained when we went in. Whoever the owner of that house is surely a fan of spongebob's.

And lastly, as the afternoon was slowly setting down, we cooled off by drinking freshly made strawberry shakes at "Nowhere Diner and Cafe". I literally don't know where the place was located over in the mountains, so I guess I can say that Diner can nowhere to be found. Actually, their shakes were really good and has fresh strawberries mixed up together for a very economic price. This "Nowhere Diner" has a cowboy theme and that is why all the boys had their cowboy hats on and I was their damsel in distress, as seen in the picture below.

It was really a weekend getaway to remember. Away from all the harmful smogs and busyness of the city, it sure was a fattening yet unforgettable time with friends.

We had a smooth ride all the way back home and didn't had any bumps along the road. We counted a total of more than 15 horses back and forth and majority of them were female horses. Just a random thought. 

This poor buddy of ours must be sleep deprived. I wonder why.

Mile High

"Travel the world freely!" - someone who is anonymously insane, because traveling is expensive

Are you a jet-setter? If you are, get ready to take on the world! - How I wish I could just take my bags and leave in an instant, and fly somewhere in the world.

I'm actually just bumming the whole afternoon and thought of posts that might interest you. I came to realize a very interesting topic when someone told me that I should keep writing and traveling. I love to travel. I've made this point back in my older post. If you haven't read it, I suggest you click on this link: Child's Dream Gone Flying.

I want to share to you the places I've been to. First, let me share with you the places I've been to in the Philippines.

Baguio City with my ESA friends.















San Juan, La Union.
Surf Spot of Northern Luzon.
Surfing with my ESA friends.

Upper Left picture - My high school friends are on the way to Marbel

Me Standing Outside a very old Church - Church of Santo Nino, Cebu City.



Middle Left Picture - In our high school buddie's house in Marbel

Lower Left Picture - My cousin's mountain restaurant in General Santo's city.








I love the highlands.

Tagaytay City with my buddies.












Mountain Haven Resort
Eden, Toril, Davao City











Camp Sabros Zipline
Kapatagan, Digos City

                






   I Love the Big City, Manila!


















I've been to as up far as La Union in Northern Luzon and way down to Zamboangga in West Mindanao. I've been to cities like Bohol, Ilo-Ilo, Albay, Cagayan de Oro, and so much more. I don't have pictures of them though.

Let me share with you the International travelling I made, but this is all from my trip to Australia.

Upper Pictures:

This is where I stayed most often during my visit. Mackay.



Lower half pictures:

This is in Melbourne. South east part of Australia. The coldest place to be in OZ.

Daydream Island, Whitsunday Islands
2hour drive from Mackay










Townsville, Austraila






The Gold Coast
a.k.a. Sin City, the party capital etc
This is where you party in OZ

Brisbane City, Queensland
Australia


The most comfortable place to live, personally for me.
It's climate is as nearly the same in Davao's.
I love this City.
I love everything about Brisbane.



I'll try Kite surfing one day. Afraid to be stung by the stingers in OZ.
Its how Steve Erwin died. Tragic death.




Brisbane High rise.






Stuffed Koala. Never had a chance to hold them, even kangaroos.

Back when I was in OZ, I haven't tried visiting Sydney, Alice Springs(Big Rock trademark) and the West Australia such as Perth and Adelaide. I'll definitely try to go there when I come back. Just a few months more of waiting. I'll try to hit Sydney first because the Rotaract Conference will he held there this November. I hope I make it in time.

One thing...

Whether your at the airport waiting...





or when you are driving somewhere...







Don't forget to try to eat things you haven't ate before.

I love to eat. I make sure I do that on my trip.

Eat



Live

&


Laugh



My next stops are:

Hong Kong -I've been there when I was kid
Singapore
Malaysia
Macau
Beijing
China
and the rest of Europe

I'll deal with the U.S. cities later...

A Lil' bit of Everything

"Key to Happiness is doing what you love..." - Larry Daley of Night at the Museum 2

I'm quite sure I understood what He meant. I love doing things and I love to do stuff. Something that tires and bores me is the least that I like. Say for instance, I don't like to take a bath. It bores me whenever I stand in the bathroom waiting to feel like I've been rejuvenated and refreshed from all the water flowing down from the top of my head down to the toes of my flat-footed feet... and I am just kidding. Who doesn't like a nice cold, or hot, shower? I bet the cat outside of our house doesn't.

My top 5 shallow things that make me a one-less-sad boy.

Number 5 - The Internet.

IT HAS EVERYTHING. I wouldn't survive without having to open any in a week. My emails are just as important to like waking up in the morning. Its a habit. Its informative, reliable, user-friendly, user-friendly when you have projects, user-friendly when you need to copy and paste infos from references, and most of all, it has everything you need to survive. I'm just saying.

Imagine life without the internet... see what I mean?!



Number 4 - El Gitara or The Guitar

Music is in my soul. It lives in my mind and heart and in my body. Passion for music action.

They say, to make music is like expressing your emotions. Its like when you compose music, you construct how you truly feel subconsciously. When I play my music, its like the whole world stops to hear the beautiful noise that comes out of the instrument that I am using. My life is accompanied by music that portrays the drama, comedy and action. The songs I play, I play it with all of my heart.




Number 3 - Food

Its a given. If I stereo type, who can live without it? But seriously, I love Food.

"I eat when I'm upset" - Po from Kung Fu Panda; We are practically the same.

Melancholic issues are cured by the consumption of food, most especially sweets. There is a scientific explanation for that, but I'll leave that out now.

I could not explain much further. Let the idea consume your imagination for food.






Number 2 - specifically, Halo-Halo from Aling Fopings

Oh the finely crushed ice, topped with the delicacies like pinipig, sago, pearls, leche flan, ube, and many to mention toppings, and a 2 scoops of ube ice cream. Combine all together, mix it up... Its HALO-HALO. For an english translation, its Mix-Mix. Forgive me if I could not find anymore spontaneous and unique words that I can say.

Whenever I place my eyes on the sign that says "Aling Fopings Halo-Halo", my heart is filled with joy and happyness overflows from this very heart of mine, located at Matina Town Square Davao, a stall at the end of the piazza.

Its nice to have Halo-Halo with your buddies.



Numero Uno - My Bed

Its where I take off to dreamland... and its also where I make too much noise, snoring.

Ah yes, the point of laying down is the time where my body says, "shut up and relax!". Sleeping is rejuvenating. Say if you have colds, the best way to defeat is boost your immune system and drink that Vitamin C, and of course sleep. Ample amount of sleep.

Before sleeping, lots of stuff pop into my head. Ideas, problems, daydreams, you name it. I found out that medically, based on research, people who find a hard time to sleep is most probably because they use their beds a lot. Our body recognizes the bed as a bed. So when we lay down on the bed, our body must switch to sleeping mode. Thus, if we use the bed as a commonly ground, our body may not recognize the bed as a sleeping material. Therefore may cause a hard time sleeping. I still remember this because I tried to trick my body to sleep even though it wasn't the actual sleeping time.

The bed is amazing. No sexual explicit intentions intended. Please refrain from imagining things that I wasn't suppose to let you imagine. Good.