when less is more

parler pour ne rien dire

Speak for nothing. Such a meaningless speech.

I would rather be alone than waste my time listening to such empty wordiness.

putting off THE adrenaline rush

After basking in the sun for four days plus a dive under the sea for about 30 minutes, I feel the urge to level up I can feel my adrenaline rush running through my veins now. I need to get back to work and enough of vacation though. Must be calm and delay this craving. I think I will just have to slobber over this video made by my surfer enthusiast cousin for now. I will just have to dream about riding the waves one more time and enjoying the ride.

(video shot in Cloud 9, Siargao)

I get called an adrenaline junkie every other minute, and I'm just fine with that. - Steve Irwin

our marshmallow is way better

When it is May...

The end of the summer months and you are wanderlusting of more places to see and exciting moments to experience.

Then goes that place you call work handing you over NOT full seven hours of English classes BUT loads of fun, food and more fun and food. ;)

I work as an online English trainer to French learners and have only 15-minute breaks  in between my one-hour classes which I usually spend in prepping up for the next class, going to the bathroom, or occasionally making small talks with my colleagues just inches away from my work station. Hence, my work schedule rarely gives me the chance to rub shoulders with most of them, just a simple Hi and Hello and that's it, usually. 

But that weekend was un extraordinaire! I had the chance to get to know them a bit more through a rest and recreation activity organized by the company. I was not overly excited about it at first, but the idea appealed to me. :)


Somethin' Fishy.

For our first stop: buffet breakfast at Somethin' Fishy. We had to wake up EARLY to get there in time for brekky. But because I am such a sleepyhead, I woke up a bit late and got there a bit late, which kicked me out of the "early birds" list.  But I am glad I still made it and was not left behind. Yey!


 Anyway, not all colleagues could make it to the trip but they made an effort to still join us for brekky. They were indeed part of the send off band.  :)

 



Done eating puto bumbong and some other kakanin? Yes?
Time for some photos then!

Three truths and a lie



What is happening here? Everyone's so smiley.

Time to get on board means time to catch some sleep, right? Uhm, not exactly.

Phebe, our R&R facilitator, did not include that in her to-do list for the day. She kept us busy thinking, guessing and laughing.

She made us think of three truths and one lie about ourselves and make our colleagues guess which is which. This was one tough, puzzling task as my colleagues really gave such trivial statements. Nevertheless, it incited a lot of laugh out loud moments.

I tried to recall what my 3 truths and a lie were but to no avail. I have such a goldfish memory! ;)

 Attitude of gratitude: type and send!

In addition to that, she asked us to think of three things we are thankful for and send it via SMS to someone from the team. Uhm, mushy-senti thing to do but it was nevertheless one activity that got me reflect more and think of the things that I should indeed be thankful for -- (1) great people in my life: my family and friends (2) safe travels (3) formal education and life experiences.

From this activity, I realized that we perceive our life differently relative to numerous factors such as age group, lifestyle, dreams and goals, values, status, experiences and the list goes on. The things we are thankful for are influenced by these elements as well.

Are we there yet?

After a couple of "Are we there yet?"s and two hours and a bit more (because of sluggish traffic somewhere in the south expressway), we reached our destination -- Balai Isabel! 





I feel so dainty as Jed seems to be ready to rock & roll!



The complete team while freshening up before the next activity. One chill photo plus one goofy shot. Off topic: The watermelon and pineapple shakes served were really, uhm,  thirst quenching.:)

How to go speed Dating in uhm... less than 5 minutes?

1. Arrange seats in two rows, opposite each other.
2. Pair up the players and have them sit across each other.
3. Ask a "getting-to-know-you-better" question which should be discussed by the pair in 30 seconds.
4. The game master then signals everybody to stop discussing and move to the seat to their right as a new question is revealed.
5. Steps 3-4 are repeated until the players go back to their original seats.

What did this game do to us? Well, it was not exactly a speed date for us but it somehow gave a quick overview of our colleagues' personalities, preferences and experiences which we could just miss out of BUSY-NESS at work. It was fun doing it, think of upbeat music and time pressure. ;)

speedy-datey really?

Time to do some art

The following activities were more like art projects to me. I grabbed some crayons and a clean sheet of paper, drew the person next to me, which happened to be Bo. I imagined myself back when I was in pre-school, just started drawing and adding more colors. I didn't care much about what others think how my drawing would look like. I felt carefree and I liked it. :)

The other art stuff we did was to create different images out of the 30 little circles drawn on the paper. And again, there was time pressure. I think I drew about 16 images while some drew more. I felt a bit competitive so, the result was a heartbreak. hahaha

 The little artist's sketch (left) and what you make out of all the circles (right)

The Marshmallow Challenge

Then the challenge I love the most, the marshmallow challenge.

In a group, we had to build a marshmallow tower with the following materials: dry spaghetti, a yard of tape, a yard of yarn and a marshmallow.  Time limit: 18 minutes.
Oh my! Must plan before you build, right?

So our team focused on the foundation of our tower, must build a free-standing marshmallow tower, eh? And voila! We built a sturdy Eiffel tower-like one and we felt proud. Might not have been the tallest one, but no doubt, it was the last tower standing for the day. :)



the last tower standing! :)

Bo's math dance

When caught in the dance floor without any step in mind, try the math dance. Uhm, for the dance demo, just look at the photo. *wink*



Time for more food, water and fun! :)



we didn't know it is part of the menu. yumyum



water love ;)

jump the shot :)

Pinoy Henyo/Charades, our group was so competitive! hahaha



What can you do with two packs of oreo cookies? oreos as lipsticks? binoculars? 
Must be creative!

random snapshots! just like some family portraits :)



Credits to Abe, Timmy's hubby for the photos. :)

wonder:

wander:

Balay Isabel

Barangay Banga,Talisay, Batangas

How to get there? Check this out: http://www.balaiisabel.com/contact.php



fretful escape from the metro

My beach bud Janie and I have been wanderlusting this trip to Sagada the moment we started to create our bucket lists. Despite our forever love for the beach, we also would like to try out some mountain activities. Sagada is our top pick because it is quite near Manila (and so we thought) and we could tick one item in our bucket list because that “stuff” we want to try is available up there.

So we were all set. We marked December 16, 2011 as the BIG day! Which turned out to be a hell-of-a-busy day for me because (1) a cousin from my hometown came to visit us that I had to relieve my big sis from keeping an eye on him; and (2) a company Christmas party  I had to host. Good thing I have the skill to manage time but imagine the anxiety and stress plus the crazy traffic I had to go through. But good grief, I got over and done with them and I finally found myself waiting at the bus station with Janie. :)

Since our Plan A did not work because Victory liner buses Baguio-bound were all packed, we had to take our Plan B -- take a bus to La Union, then another bus from La Union to Baguio and one last bus ride from Baguio to Sagada.

Although it was a long roadtrip fo us, I did not feel so exhausted and just slept all night long except for when we had to get off in La Union and Baguio. The zigzaggy road did not at all disturb my sleep nor the uncomfy seats of the Sagada-bound bus. But I think the effect of the long ride came to me when we finally reached Sagada at lunch time. I was supposed to eat a big meal for lunch but suddenly felt nauseous and lost my appetite. So instead of digging into those mountain rice and yummy meat and veggies, I found myself looking for some meds to cure my headache. It is no fun whenever I feel this way.



I could have tried this fiery firey sauce but my headache was such a party pooper!




By the way, before my head started to spin like crazy,
I grabbed a pair of rubber slippers from here. So convenient!

 Anyway, there's no stopping us from this cave connection exploration! With my empty tummy, we pushed through with the cave hopping. I bought some crackers, the ever "pamatid-gutom" Skyflakes, to get me going. ;)

And off we went to the tourist information center to look for our guide. We did the caving adventure with two other people -- Choi and Marj. They were our seatmates in our bus ride to Sagada then eventually became our travel buddies.



Choi and Marj, our two new travel buddies we met on our bus-ride to Sagada






Janie et moi marching our way to the cave connection



our dear cave guides, prepping up

 


viewdeck and some more viewdeck

  


Trekking our way to the cave. "Aren't we there yet?"-posture

 


time for some caving tricks, thank you Skyflakes!



caving in the dark

 


view from down there, shot from up there

 


with one of the many sculptures of nature




what's there to see inside the cave? Uhm, lots of rock/cave formations



must hold on tight, or...?



"bitterly cold" water inside the cave

 


a bit slippery, must use some ropes





pulling the rope down ;)





Yey, we survived! :)





done caving, so what's next?

 
After the thrills of caving -- clinging to ropes, deciding which to go first  -- your butt or your head, testing whichever strategy would work best given the difficulty of getting out or getting in some rock formations, and surviving the three-hour cave exploration with only six pieces of crackers as my sole source of energy -- I survived! We survived the cave connection! Yay!





I'm not jumping off this cliff, alright?



On our way back to the guesthouse, voila! Some more photoshoots!

 We also got to see a very inviting native hut/coffee shop on our way back and we felt like having some hot drinks and chill. And so we met Gawani, a fellow graduate of UP who owns the place. Inside the shop, we saw some interesting books about travel, philosophy, and the like. She said she likes setting up this mini-library inside the shop so the young locals will be more exposed to reading. But I think it is a big delight to travellers too. I would really love to come back to her shop to relax, read a book with a cup of coffee or tea next to me.



After a quick break, back to walking...

Then finally to our guesthouse - Sagada Homestay. Time to rest our "a bit drained" bodies...



The wooden staircase, I like it. :)

After some hours of dozing off, Janie and I went to check the famous Yoghurt House and tried some of their dishes with mountain rice. (think full tummy here) And not to forget, their bestseller sweetie -- yogurt with banana, cereals and strawberry. Big serving it was for us!



It was freezing cold outside. No-glam night.hahaha



the famous yoghurt dessert!

After our big meal, we headed out of the resto either to check out the Bamboo Bar our guide recommended us or to get back to the guesthouse to tuck ourselves in because it was so so cold. Unfortunately, we chose the latter because we could not bear the cold temp. Too bad though, we could not try what must be tried in Sagada. *wink*

Anyway, the next day, we woke up early, this time with Marj and Choi to do some orange picking! Yey! We had brekky first and then headed to the information center to meet our guide. Soon after, we were off to Rock Inn. We paid 50 pesos for the entrance fee and went inside the orchard to have "all-you-can-eat" and "all-you-can-pick" oranges. We had much fun in the farm. We stuffed ourselves with lots of Vitamin C! :) However, all the oranges we picked were all weighed and priced at 50 pesos a kilo upon stepping out of the farm. Uhm, not bad I suppose. But I thought, I should have finished all of 'em earlier. hahaha *such a cheapskate*



Orange-picking. Check.

On our way back to the town proper, we peeked into the well-known Sagada Weaving. Luckily, the owner was there to show us around and further explained how the weaving is like. This artsy-craftsy job should be taken seriously, nobody in the workroom wanted to talk to us. They were so concentrated on their weaving!



Finally, we got back to the guesthouse to get our stuff - metro-bound.

 wonders:

"If you want it, you must will it. If you will it, it will be yours." - Rinaldo (Happy Feet 2)

This quote surely reflects what I have done to successfully take this trip -- from managing my busy schedule the day before the trip to tummy trouble before the cave adventure.  These were my little mishaps but my will to travel did not let me down. I made it to this trip and I satisfied my Sagada wanderlust. :)

wanders:

• Cave connection (Lumiang - Sumaguing caves)
• Orange-picking (The Rock Farm, Batalao, Sagada)
• Sagada Weaving