Unfinished Monaco

Even if we were in Cebu on the 24th, we made sure we are able to watch the race. So after dinner, we immediately went back to our hotel to watch. We missed the first lap but 'twas okay since the start of the race is usually recapped during the Checkerd Flag. I miss seeing Vettel in the podium. Heck, it's been two races in a row! Sheesh! So sad Vettel wasn't even able to finish Monaco. The race would have been more surprising if he was there for me to watch. In the end Button won AGAIN! Hohum! As Alex Yoong said, this is starting to be a snorefest. Blech! I hope Red Bull drivers will win next race (Turkey) after having a feel of their newly installed double diffuser and KERS button. Although both weren't of help in Monaco. But dear hubby was happy Ferrari finished 3rd and 4th (yey finally a podium finish for them hehehe).

Vettel's car being lifted off the track after he crashed into the tire barrier


Photo credit: gpupdate.net

Microtel Mactan

We finally went on a vacation over the weekend - our destination Cebu/Bohol. Since I don't have all the photos yet, I just want to blog about the hotel we stayed in – Microtel Inn, Mactan. They have a summer promo - 4,400 per night on weekends and 3,700 per night on weekdays (with free island hopping on weekends and massage on weekdays) which is still valid until 30 June 2009. We stayed there from the 24th to the 26th. Our flight was early morning so we were at the hotel around 7am but we didn't have any problems checking in. Our rooms were ready and we had breakfast after we settled in. I specifically requested for a room that had a pool view and I'm very much surprised we had one because they earlier said that Standard rooms are the non-pool-view-rooms. Yey for that one. And I also requested that we have one of the free breakfasts on our first day since we won't be eating there the next day, they also granted my request. So let me tour you around the hotel.

Kyla at one of the customized seating for little girls. So cute!



Cobonpue seating at the dining area



The view of the sea from the dining area



Our beds..we slept on one bed the first night and slept on the other bed the second night.


Mirrors mirrors on the wall


The very clean shower and toilet.


View from our room..although we kept the curtains shut because all the guests will be able to see what's going on inside our room if we didn't.

Musings before Monaco

Another reason to be excited about this weekend is the Monaco Grand prix. I hope Vettel gets to go to the podium this time. If you haven't watched the Spanish Grand prix, the winners were Button, Barrichello and Webber getting the first to third finishes, respectively. I sense a bit of anger (?) from Barrichello when he had to do the 3-pit-stop strategy but his team went for the 2-pit-stop strategy for Button. If I were to speculate, I would think his thought bubble was "I'm always the second driver, it was like this with Schumacher and now this with Button!" I wish he'd get angry with Brawn and not win any more races for Brawn GP ahahaha!

Nyek! After writing this post my title should have been... Musings after Catalunya hehe.

My Own Place in the WWW

I have been blogging for a few years now but haven't really understood much about the web. Yes, I have a Friendster account (I still do!), a Multiply account, I am even on Facebook now (yes, peer pressure!). I signed up for some online forum although I don't really visit that often anymore but I found some really nice friends in those forum (hello, F4 sisters and diosas!). And then I have this blog. But I have so much to learn like HTML, RSS and even website hosting. The truth is I can't find the time to learn these things. Does it come with age? Am I getting old? Sometimes I feel that I should give this time because my generation is the techie generation. I'm thinking of having my own website and have now been researching on how to. If you want to have your own site, then you need a provider. Much like when you want internet access, then you need an internet provider. But which ones do you take as there are several to choose from. Fortunately for web hosting, there are sites that will give you a list of web hosting providers. They even review each one of them, this will help you more in your decision making. They also give different awards to the providers. If you're like me who knows nothing about these things, then you have to rely on what the experts say, right? I have to go back to reading more articles about web hosting. This is information overload, people!

Camiguin Ikaw Lang ang Iibigin*

I'm so so excited we're going on an out of town trip this weekend. Yey! I feel it's been ages since the last time we went on a trip. And we're going to a beach and someplace I've been to before but my husband hasn't been. So it will be a really fun trip for us. Just to add more excitement I want to blog about our trip to Camiguin a few years ago. I never really got to blog about that trip in detail.

When going to Camiguin, the usual drop-off point is Cagayan De Oro. So we booked ourselves a flight to CDO. It was raining when we arrived at CDO but we didn't let the rain dampen our spirits.

We rented out a van to take us to Balingoan Port, Misamis Oriental. When you get to Balingoan Port you can easily see Camiguin Island.

From the port we rode a ferry going to Camiguin and were picked up by a multicab from from the Camiguin port which brought us to Enigmata. Enigmata is basically a treehouse, we stayed at their Swing Garden Backpacker and paid P200/pax for our overnight stay there. After we settled in and ate a few sandwiches made by Mands, we were out of the door and went around Camiguin. We rented that multicab for P1,500 which brought us around the island.

Our first stop was Katibawasan Falls. We paid a minimal fee of P15 to get inside.

The water was freeeeezing! The locals rented out salbabidas for P10, I think.

Second stop was Walkway to the Old Volcano and Via Cruces. We passed by the different stations of the cross while walking up to the top of the volcano.

All smiles even if we were dead tired from all the hiking. This was the view from the 14th station.

Going down the volcano, we still stopped for some photo-op.

Sunken Cemetery was our third stop...we rode a small boat going to that cross. The cemetery sank in 1871 eruption of the Old Volcano. If it's low tide, another cross can be seen in the ocean...I think it's a cross in one of the tombstones in the sunken cemetery. It was a bit eery going to that cross. I remember being afraid that I might see skeletons popping under water hehehe.


Yahoo we're here.


We also stopped by the Ruins of Gul-ob church, the ruins is the remnant of the church when the volcano erupted.

Our tabing-ilog shot at the ruins.

We stopped by Sto Nino cold spring for another dip. And when they say cold they mean COLD. I remember there was also an entrance fee for this but again very minimal.

Then we went to White Island which is really a sandbar.

We were the only people there. We had a grand time!

After that we also went to Ardent Hot Spring where we had dinner and ate very suspicios looking and tasting viands. But we didn't care! It was our first full meal for the day ahahaha. We don't have pictures there because we were all exhausted, we just wanted to relax and enjoy the warm water of the spring.

The next day after waking up, Joema and I were able to see the other accommodations in Enigmata. Pardon our bagong gising looks heehee.




The next photos were shot at their waiting area before we checked out. There were lots to play with there, board games, sungka, musical instruments like xylophone and guitar.





Over all our Camiguin trip was one of my most memorable travels with the gang. Even if it was only for less than 24 hours, it seemed we had seen and done so much!


*cheesy title harhar but I remember a movie of Jomari Yllana and Gelli de Belen by the same title.

Apologize for being so Heartless

Hubby and I both haven't heard of Kanye's Heartless, which was sang by Kris Allen in the final 3 episode of AI, and according to Randy it was better than the original. Here's the video of Kanye's song.



Now here's another version of "Apologize" which is Kris' first song as the judge's choice for him.



Joema bets Kris has a chance of winning AI. The homecoming episode showed a lot of his supporters from Arkansas. And Kris knows how to choose a song. It's gonna be a real exciting finale next week.

Wow Our Home

The husband and I were watching The Wow Factor last night at the travel channel. The host spruced up the living room of two bachelors..she changed it from blah and bland to vavavoom, from beige and whites to orange and black pin stripes. It was actually really nice. So now I'm thinking of doing some redecorations in our unit. Although we have very limited space and budget, I'm thinking we could still make our home much cozier, put on some personal touches and give the space more personality. Tara Bernard, the host of the show, tackled the layout of the unit first and then from there she showed the guy some places for inspiration. And from there they chose the materials to be used and furniture. So for our space I guess we'll take on one corner or small space after the other. Add a little figurine there or a picture frame there, we'll do it slowly but surely. We won't be buying new furniture like pieces of rustic furniture because as it is we don't have enough space for that. Maybe for our dream vacation home, we can buy rustic pieces that will remind us of the country much like homes in Baguio City. I digress, I should be thinking about changes in our home now. Oh, Our Home is having a sale today until Sunday at SM Megamall, so I might make a little peek at the pieces they have. I might find some accessories for our place.

I Knew It!

Even though I'm pretty sure Adam Lambert will be the next American Idol, I'm so happy he was the one to go with Adam in the finals!

Gift for My Man

My husband's birthday passed and I haven't given him any material gifts. I know, my bad! Good thing he's a simple man with simple wants. He only requested that I cook him the barbeque ribs we bought from the supermarket last week. And then we bought cake for him which he finished all by himself although not in one sitting (I ate just a slice or two). Now I'm thinking if I should get him a present even if it's kind of late. It will definitely surprise him since he's not expecting a belated gift. Perfume or cologne perhaps? Someone I know is selling discounted cologne for men (I'm such a cheapskate) so maybe I should get one for him. Although we're both not perfume or even cologne users, since we both tend to sneeze a lot. Plus I love his natural scent haha. I should think of other things I can give him. Do you have any suggestions?

Wedding Planning All Over

Another wedding coming up for my friends! Yehey! I mentioned here somewhere that Mands and Weng got engaged and are planning for their May 2010 wedding. Now, Charline and Allan got engaged! So they will probably get married next year or the year after. It really excites me to know my friends are getting married, to know that they finally found someone to share the rest of their lives with, their successes, happiness and even their failures with. It gets me doubly excited to help them in their wedding preparations. Offer them some tips and how to go about the preparation itself. Some friends even tell me I should consider wedding planning as a second job. Which I think I will greatly enjoy.

I wouldn't want to go through it without any background or experience. Well, I have planned our own wedding but I would think I need more information about the industry. Did you know that there are schools who offer wedding planning courses? One of them is Sheffield School. Sheffield actually began as an interior design school but they have now included wedding and event planning course in their curriculum. They are located in the heart of Manhattan. Oh if only I live in New York like Grace. Their website will show you the topics covered in their wedding and event planning course. I would probably enroll in this course. Sheffield School's training will include "look book" supplements, virtual internship programs and your personal student advisor among other things. I'm itching to request for a free course catalog to know more about this course. Maybe I should start charging my friends for being their bridal consultanti.

Happy Birthday My Hubby!

and happy 6th monthsary! Mwah!

Pleasant Surprise

This is what I thought of Jo Anne's email to me yesterday. She sent me a link to our wedding album layout. Wanna see? Click click click. Beautiful, isn't it? But I still want some pages to be tweaked a little and some photos to be added and deleted all together.

Island Hopping in Krabi

Summer is all over too soon. I haven't even gone to the beach. Was not able to go to the beach last year as we were preparing for the wedding. Didn't want to get sun burnt before the big day hehe. But we hit the beach on our honeymoon. On our second day at Krabi, Joema and I were able to do some island hopping. We were picked up early at our hotel and proceeded to the port.


Most of the other tourists were Europeans. In our speedboat we were the only Asians. Funny the tourguide was speaking in English telling us about the tour, and then he walked up to us and started talking I think in Thai. Maybe he thought we didn't understand what he said in English. We just smiled at him and shook our heads telling him we do not understand. And then he started talking in another language, and we still don't understand him. He gestured his hands in surrender as if telling us that he's giving up and doesn't know how to communicate with us hahaha.

Our first stop was Pranang cave where we had a swim for a little while.

Next was Chicken island. See it really looks like a chicken.

Nearby this island we were able to snorkel and feed the fish.

We had two cameras during our honeymoon. I borrowed my parents' Olympus camera because I wanted to take underwater pictures. Here is the last picture it took. The camera died on us. Water started filling up the battery slot and it wouldn't turn on anymore. Sigh!

So Joema and I, a little bit disheartened, went back to the speedboat and rested for a while. Before we knew it, all the other tourists were back and we headed to Poda Island where we had our lunch and stayed for a bit to rest.

Kunyari I'm not worried about the camera.

This is the life.

Goodbye poda island.

Our tourguide next brought us to Tup island. It's actually connected by sand dunes to Chicken island, if I remember it correctly. But I was too chicken to walk going there since the tide was a bit high when we were there. So we enjoyed every bit of the sand dunes before heading home.