Last Christmas

This is so late, but last Christmas, these are a few of the gifts we got.

Marks & Spencer decaf instant coffee. Sadly, I don't drink instant coffee anymore so I'll let my dad have this.

Beansprout. This is a locally-made eco bag that my sister got.

I've been trying to minimize my carbon footprint. Whenever I buy something from CD-R King or if I buy something small, I ask the clerk not to use plastic bags anymore. I just stuff the items inside my bag. I've been forcing my parents to use green bags as well whenever they are buying groceries or tiangge-shopping. So this gift is a welcome one.

And this is one of the gifts I gave myself:

I don't really buy anything that costs more than a thousand bucks aside from electronic gadgets like my iPod nano or my digital camera. So it was really hard for me to buy this one but what the heck, I needed a new bag.

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Saying goodbye

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Happy New Year

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Jealous

Our family has been on a recent travel frenzy, following our trip to Boracay. It was actually our first complete holiday. My dad and I once went to Hong Kong and China, my sister and mom once went to Singapore, and my brother went twice to Thailand. We went to Pearl Farm three years ago, minus our mom. Of course, we were complete last year, when we went to Eagle Point, but that was just in Batangas.

Anyway, we've been planning on taking more trips this year, and even planning our trips for next year. My parents and my sister just booked their flights to Hong Kong today, and I'm jealous. I also wanted to go, but I can't. You see the last time we went there, Disneyland was not open yet. And due to bad weather, we weren't able to go to Ocean Park as well.

I'll just have to content myself with the upcoming trip back to Boracay. Oh Lord please let that push through. It's highly unlikely though, but I'm still hoping! I like bumming around the beach than entering some childish theme parks anyway. No, I am not bitter.

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Our last hurrah

It has been almost three weeks since my friends and I dashed to Splash Island for our last hurrah.

The date was May 22nd, a day before our school year's first day of classes. This "trip" was planned weeks before, yet as expected, only five of us were able to make it.

To be honest, I wasn't keen on joining as well - I'm more of a beach bum than a pool person. Good thing I joined them. It was one of the most fun days of my life.

The main attraction of course are the slides. We raced at the Magellan's Drop, which sadly I never won.

Magellan's Drop from philip_v on Vimeo

This is my favorite slide, the Rio Montanosa.

And this is us screaming our hearts out having fun at the slide.

Rio Montañosa from philip_v on Vimeo

This is us being the epitome of ultra-uber-extreme-super camwhores.

Water and slides will not stop us from taking photos of ourselves.

Even when your friend (i.e. David) goes berserk and tries to strangle you underwater.

Although taking photos while on a slide doesn't guarantee you wholesome pictures.

Summer wouldn't be summer without yummy fruit smoothies.

We played dominos

and had a few games of cards.

Tanning was also a must, especially for Baldo.

We had fun playing frisbee, and even more fun taking that perfect frisbee shot.

A few more photos and we were done for the day. I never expected to have that much fun. We had smiles like these all day.

Splash Island, you will be terribly missed. The next day, classes had begun. Boo.

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Left behind

Puerto Galera
Originally uploaded by joshbousel.

My high-school friends are leaving for Puerto Galera tomorrow, and naturally, I cannot join. I have summer classes on Engineering Economy, which I cannot totally understand. Reminds me why I took up Engineering and not Accounting.

Even though they are not really my closest friends, I still wanted to go. I haven't seen those guys, in what, 3 years? Since our high-school reunion actually, which was held less than five months since we graduated.

They say we'd have our getaway at Boracay next year. Uhm, is anyone willing to pay for that trip?

Sigh. To quote Sandwich, I just wanna be on the beach.

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This was the post I almost ended up not finishing

This is a very long and overly-late vacation post. Proceed with caution.

After the University Week and a couple of quizzes sucked the life out of me, my body desperately needed some R&R. So the family vacation came at the perfect time.

We headed off to Eagle Point Resort at Anilao, Batangas. Our (new-found) German friend Birgit came with us. She is in the country to work for a couple of months and is currently renting our condo unit. Birgit naturally wanted to check out the beaches (if possible, every week she said), so she tagged along.

The trip was a long and bumpy one. We were following detailed instruction on how to get to the resort. Unfortunately, it was innacurate.

I was getting restless, but after a good three-hour trip, we finally arrived.

Our loft was simple yet clean and spacious.

The balcony offered a magnificent view that I would never grow tired looking at.

We quickly unloaded our bags and took a boat ride to have lunch at Sepoc Island.

Sepoc Island was beautiful.

Being the overly-active family that we are, we hiked to the top of Sepoc Island. It barely took five minutes to reach the top.

We played frisbee,

snorkeled and kayaked as well.

But I made sure that I had some time to relax and enjoy the sun. After all, this is the part of the trip I was looking forward to the most.

Fun at Sepoc ended and we headed back to the main core. This beautiful sunset welcomed us.

There were several power outages during the night. The total darkness and eerily quiet atmosphere was really freaky. Good thing the power was back by the time Pinoy Big Brother was on. Yes, I'm a fan.

As we are leaving by noon, we had breakfast really early the next day.

I love how the restaurant offers a panoramic view of the sea. Such a sight to behold while dining.

We swam with baby sharks in the saltwater pool. It was pretty scary as the baby sharks were not so "baby" at all - they were big! But once you get the hang of it, it was a pretty memorable experience.

The swimming pools were very inviting and we obliged to the invitations.

Soon enough, we had to painfully say goodbye to this little resort we grew to love in under 24 hours.

Coming back to Manila, I was greeted with a lot of work to do. Doing this entry along took me around three weeks. And doing this blog entry made me relive the memories all over again.

I miss Eagle Point. I know I'll be back.

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