Habagat in Boracay
November 5, 2009The past weekend was a stormy one for Manila, but I wasn’t around to witness yet another typhoon tear up Luzon. Instead, I was away on a holiday that had been booked since February of this year. (Talk about God’s perfect planning and timing.) Just like last year’s All Saints’ Weekend, we had planned our trip to fall sometime around the 31st of October so we could run around the island dressed as people other than ourselves.
No, this was not my costume.
Due to the rehabilitation of Caticlan airport, our original fights were rerouted to and from Kalibo. That meant tacking on an additional two hours’ travel time each way. Since we’d booked for October 30 to November 1, it meant we had considerably less time to spend on the island. What followed from the time we landed at Boracay’s jetty port until we left can only be described as cramming. If we weren’t sunning ourselves on the beach, we were stuffing our faces with food from our favorite places, or dancing it up wherever the music and drinks were good.
We pretty much had Boracay to ourselves on Friday — because tourists were still at work — up until Saturday afternoon. The habagat (southwest monsoon wind) had blown in a strong rain shower and chopped up the waters on Saturday morning, prompting the coast guard to suspend all incoming and outgoing boat trips. Come Saturday evening, however, parties on the island were in full swing, and we were able to feast our eyes on some pretty lavish costumes.
Ah, Lara Croft. A costume so simple, yet so recognizable.
The best part about dancing all night in Boracay is you can sleep out on the beach the next day. I didn’t have all day, but I did get some color on my skin. The habagat had also died out overnight, so I was also able to swim in beautiful, crystal-clear, warm water before I left.
stolen shot
We will definitely be back next year. We’ll probably book our flights on Seair, which is the only commercial airline to be allowed to fly into Caticlan airport. It might cost a bit more, but it just means we’ll have to plan and save up for our trips to the island better.
Happy Trails
November 4, 2009Over the past year I’ve had the opportunity to talk with people who are uber-enthusiastic about mountain biking. Their passion for it made me want to try for myself, so one sunny day after a very rainy week I headed out to La Mesa Dam to ride with the boys from Dan’s Bike Shop. They lent me a bike, helmet, and gloves, and after a preliminary spin in the parking lot, we were good to go for my first ever trail ride.
my bike and gear
It was amazing. Propelled by the power of my own legs magnified by the gears and wheels, we barreled through the first few kilometers. The adrenaline rush left me giddy and flushed. To be traveling at that kind of speed going downhill and uphill without a windshield or a car chassis to protect me was as hard-rock as I was going to get. (This is possibly the only extreme sport I would want to do over and over again.)
zoom!
Our trail wound through the forest, past a brook, and over gravel and mud before finally leading to our ultimate destination: the waters of La Mesa Dam. This was pre-Ondoy but it had been raining that week, so the lake above the dam was pretty high.
We chilled out for a while at a view deck, and I savored the silence around us. All we could hear aside from our voices was the rustle of leaves in the wind and the occasional plop! of fish in the water breaking through the surface.
It was then I was able to take stock of my appearance. I was bedraggled with sweat and spattered with mud. It was a good thing I was dressed in dark colors and was too hyped to care how I looked. But I took a photo for posterity anyway.
my pants were muddier.
I wrote about my bike ride in detail for the December issue of Action&Fitness Magazine, so watch out for that.:) Mmm I can’t wait to ride again…
Splashing with the Weekend Warriors
August 18, 2009So what do you get when you toss three guys and a girl into a car, make them drive all the way to Laguna, and then present them with a water park to cool off in?
Well, aside from the part where hilarity ensues, you get another episode of Weekend Warriors coming soon on Flippish.com. This time, Chris was away (preparing for the Asian Poker Tournament in Macau) and Jinno was available to shoot (with provisional script, to boot). Once again, I was the only girl they could get on short notice to be the Girlfriend of the Week. Thanks to Ton for inviting me during Amina’s party, I got to revisit a childhood wonderland, one I was last at when I was 13 years old.
Jinno, Al, and Ton didn’t offer to take my photo. Boo.
After banging on Al’s door to wake him up (dude needs an alarm clock, seriously), dropping Jinno’s car off to get his bumper re-attached, and sating five hungry bellies including our cameraman’s, we finally arrived at Splash Island around 12pm in our Ford Everest, on loan from the car company.
The park hasn’t changed from my childhood memories of it, except: the grass is longer, there are more dead leaves in the water, and there’s less water flowing at all since some of the slides were closed. It’s only open Saturdays and Sundays in the off-season, but open all days of the week during the summer.
What’s great about visiting parks with these guys is we get to ask for rides to open just for us so we can shoot on them.
“Get into the hot tub with me,” says spider Al.
One thing I forgot about Splash Island is you always have to climb several storeys up a tower to get onto a slide. But once I slid down our first ride, Magellan’s Drop, everything came rushing back at me: the long lines starting at the base of the tower, the anticipation building as you got nearer to the slide itself, and then finally those short ten to 15 seconds you slip and slide down to the water below.
Jinno took ass shots. Grrr.
I took my waterproof camera with me on the slides, so I took video which they might use for the episode. Aside from the video-taking distracting me from my acrophobia, my advancement in age took away the terror I used to feel getting into the King Pilipit body slide. When I was younger, that ride made me pray aloud.
I got to play while these guys worked.
There was one ride I sat out while the boys tried it out: the giant plastic balls in the wave pool. Aside from having only a limited supply of oxygen inside, I just didn’t want to be seen falling all over myself. Besides, I was afraid of any wardrobe malfunctions that might happen (or that they were counting on to happen, hahaha).
So I let them do their thing while I took photos! Wasn’t my job to sit still and look pretty anyway? Hahaha. And I was conserving my energy for the Kenny’s Open Urbanite Run I was participating in later that night.
Bubble Boys
Thanks again to the Weekend Warriors for taking me on the road trip to Splash Island. It was more fun than a barrelful of monkeys! Oh wait–
Update: The episode is out! Watch Weekend Warriors: Splash Island on Flippish.
Globe Run for Home
July 23, 2009I’m an on-again, off-again runner and I’ve never competed in a race, so I ponied up the cash and joined the Globe Run for Home race last July 19. It was a charity run to benefit Habitat for Humanity. Read about how I ran the race, and take a look at my official race results!
Crossposted from In My Pocket.
"Weekend Warriors: Surfing" on Flippish.com!
July 12, 2009Remember that surf trip to Club Manila East I went on last month? It was a shoot for “Weekend Warriors”, one of the many web-only shows featured on Flippish.com, the first online Pinoy video channel. My surfing episode is the second one, and now it’s up online! Check it out below, or head on over to Weekend Warriors: Surfing on Flippish.com.
Funny, I could swear I had better footage than that. LOL! 
