I Leave All My Worries at Tingloy Island

Day 1 :  Feb. 6, 2010

Even if I had a good seven hours sleep, I still got irritated because my clogged nose wake me up very early today. Yesterday, that mindless tricycle driver keeps on closely tailing another tricycle not minding the thick diesel smoke and dust it is belching directly at me, activating my nasal allergy again – this allergy is my punishment since childhood, activated by a certain kind of smoke and dust. 

Therefore, I wake up today, my throat as rough as sandpaper, head spinning and eyes red and watery. But hell no, this damn sinusitis can’t ruin my weekend, so I force myself up, grab my backpack and take few stuff for a two days trip to Tingloy Island in Batangas City.

         
We meet at the Araneta Center – Cubao around 9:00 am, take a three hours bus ride going to the City of Batangas and another half hour for the motor banca ride going to Tingloy Island – giving me a bit of the Boracay trip nostalgia. It’s a refreshing country side trip, like escaping the prison-like life in the damned City of Metro Manila.

Tingloy Island - The Island Of Dreams

After an hour of riding the motorized banca, the jovial high-tide waves smoothly rocking us as if sensing our enthusiasm, the picturesque Island of Tingloy serenely welcomes us. With its soft curves and slightly steep mountains, it is like a radish, romantically half-submerged in blue water.   

Tingloy is a municipality in the province of Batangas, Philippines. I learned that about 20 percent of the 18, 000+ residents are seafarers. Because Tingloy is a small island, the place is surrounded with beaches and dive points and known for its white sand and beautiful sunset at the beach's tip of the coast.

We had our sumptuous lunch at the Garcia’s residence, our island host, before we go to our first destination, the Olypic Point Island Resort, which is another ten-minute banca ride on the other side of the island. 

My runny nose didn’t stopped me from enjoying the water and we stayed at the resort until eight in the evening. It was a fun evening with friends, with lots of beers, grilled tilapia and pancit while talking about relationships, work realities, seafaring (because most of our buddies are seafarers), and of course our favorite topic – sex.

On our way back to the Garcia’s, while on the banca, I caught a glimpse of the bioluminescence planktons giving specks of silver light like small fireflies as the dark water was disturbed by our passing banca. It caught my interest because I just finished reading Dan Brown’s “Deception Point” where the conspiracy and government fraud, which is the novel’s main theme, was discovered because of those bioluminescence flagellates.

We continued our drinking session at the Garcia’s terrace overlooking the bay with more foods, more beers, videoke, and more random talks, until all of us finally dozed off.

Day 2: February 7, 2010

I am awake but I still keep my eyes closed for a few minutes, the morning sunrays intruding the room from the open window, temporarily blinds me. I thought I am in my room in Mindoro but when my eyes finally adjusted, I remembered that I’m at the Garcia’s. Effects of beer I guess. Well, I love houses with big open windows, it reminds me of my grandparents’ old Spanish house where natural light and air can enter the rooms giving you a light feeling and carefree ambience. You can seldom find houses with wide windows in the city nowadays – having it is like luxury and a threat. 

After breakfast, we decided to visit the other side of the island, the side where you can see my beloved home island of Mindoro. We trekked for about an hour, passed by steep mountain paths and dried rice fields until we reached the scenic beach. We immediately plunge ourselves in the crystal-clear water, eager and excited like children on the first heavy rain of May. We enjoyed the beach for about an hour before heading back to the town, trying a longer and steeper route back under a burning afternoon sun. We came back at the house exhausted and half-baked but enjoying the memories of that new experience.

The Heartwarming Tingloy Hospitality

The other thing we will remember, aside from the island’s beauty, is the hospitality of the Tingloyans, especially Jeoff’s parents and relatives. We are welcomed not like a first time strangers but like a long lost visiting relatives. We are given the best foods, best rooms in the house, warm smiles and excited reception – making this short trip truly memorable.

Heartwarming classic Filipino hospitality is still very much evident in Tingloy. After we received all the best in the house, we were given two boxes of bibingka (rice cakes) as pabaon (parting gifts) 

While writing this blogpost, I am enjoying that rice bibingka while sipping hot coffee, occasionally staring at the shells and stones I brought with me as island souvenir.

And yes, I feel like the island washed away all my worries about everything. 

HACUNA MATATA! 

MORE PICTURES CLICK HERE

The Crazy Side of Me - Livin' la Vida Loca

We made this cool video during one of our barkada trip at Enchanted Kingdom. On the left is me, my friend Bar (center) and Stup.

This is my way of telling you people that, yeah, I can be funny and crazy sometimes.

Sometimes the only way to have a life is to commit to it like crazy.

How to kill fastfood boredom while waiting for the liars

Fastfoods are everywhere in the metro and oftentimes it becomes the favorite meeting place or a place to stay while waiting for somebody. Of course you have to order something while waiting – or else you will look like a “patay-gutom” (totally broke professional) or you will get that get-out-of-here look from the guard.

Most of the time the long wait is oh-so-deadly boring. Most people are so insensitive and don’t even respect other people’s time. These people are liars – saying “Just stay there, I’m on my way” while in fact they just get up from bed.

I admire those who can just stare blankly at nothing while waiting, like a psychotic addict who can see dead people. But I can’t do that, I have to do something.

Here are the things I do to kill boredom at a fastfood while waiting for those liars:

• Forward text messages (the forward-this-or-you-will-die type), quotes and jokes to my contacts – I love annoying them.
• Escape the noise by turning my ipod full volume – and swing my head like that silly puppy in a car dashboard. (in jeepneys it is often place beside that gold feng-shui cat, forever waving. – I hate those stuff.)
• Make an ice barbeque – place all those remaining ice tubes on the straw, hang it between cups and watch it melt.
• Play straw pop -  trap the air at the center of the straw by simultaneously rolling both ends and let your friend pop it. (maybe I should make a video sometime)

• And of course the classic – Play-with-the-leftovers. Like the following pictures. I admire the one who made this:
  

  

  

 

 

 

Any other cool ideas how to kill boredom in a fastfood? I'll appreciate if you can share it in the comments section!

Happy weekend!

Weekend Insanity

Some quick notes on what happened to me this weekend.
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Friday Night
7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Another videoke-barkada gig at Cuba Libre. We sang the same songs, same food, same beer, a few new faces, same room and same place, same talk: new gig – same shit. Haven’t you noticed? The picture is almost the same with the picture on my Jan. 13, 09 blog entry? But it’s fun, and its free anyway.


Saturday Morning
6:00 a.m.
Woke up early to attend baby Althea’s baptismal, Che and Lynard’s second baby – another addition to my very few and selected inaanak, naks! The priest, who reminds me of my activist senior brod during my college days, said that baptism marks the end of an old way of life, and the start of a new life. Hmm, people should be baptized more often I guess. I don’t know but somehow the ceremony gives me creeps not because we are asked to repent all our sins and denounce all evils, and I gave a silent “a-huh” for an answer, but because the priest reminded me of my obligations as a Catholic. He also mentioned the famous “KBL Catholics.” I admit that I'm a member of that. (Note: KBL or those Catholics who only enters the church during Kasal, Binyag and Libing). The good thing is, at least I know where I stand and doesn’t pretend to be a sarado-katoliko.
9:00 a.m. Reception at Chowking – SM Bacoor. Foods, foods, foods

10:30 a.m. Hurriedly go to STI College - Bacoor, for our Artificial Intelligence class activity. Thank heavens, the schedule and venue favored me because the college was just across SM Bacoor. We are tasked to give some A.I. training to their students as part of our subject requirement, instead of developing some A.I. system or application. We prepared some short lab training about animation, Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Authorware.

I realized that the best way to learn something is to teach it.

My A.I. Classmates

Saturday afternoon to I don’t know

4:00 p.m.

Attended Atty. Rhesa’s birthday celebration, also in Cavite – the best part of my weekend. Tired, lots of food, lots of booze – a perfect day to get drunk. And so, I got drunk – no – I got totally wasted. I throw-up; I lost consciousness, lost memory, lost my sanity.

To all my officemates, who instantly became caregivers during my troubled times, thank you.. I owe you my dignity...we he he.

(I will try to post some videos later)


2:00 p.m. Sunday –

Gara’s residence, also in Cavite: We end up hanging in Aratiles tree, somewhere in the barrio part of Cavite.

Then I realized that I needed to go home to do some laundry – the sad part of my perfect weekend.

Huh, Watta weekend...

Temporarily Losing My Soul

To escape with our daily routine during weekends, (that is eat-tambay-wash clothes-eat-tambay), me and my office buddies decided to have a little gig at E.K. Our aim is to defrost our sleeping nerves - frozen by work stress and boredom - via Enchanted Kingdom's nerve-wracking rides. It is an unplanned trip but well organized - hmmm I noticed that unplanned barkada trip is usually a hassle-free one. We decided renting an FX and bring our own food because stomach stuff inside the park can eat up your whole two-month's budget.

Weather is a little bit crazy that morning. While we are on our way to E.K., dark clouds hung above us, a rain-whole-day omen. It started pouring while we are on our way to the park and we are already discussing some alternatives like going to Tagaytay instead. We are willing to do a space shuttle ride even if it’s raining – which is of course a little bit life threatening – thus, we decided to go and take our chances. We think that, perhaps we can perform a little stop-the-rain tribal ritual dance for some ethnic rain-god so as not to ruin our plans.

But, yeah since the weather is a little bit crazy and confused that day, it decided to just leave us alone before we do some nasty tribal dance. I think the rain-god prefers to just leave us than see us perform the ritual dance or else she will give us a super-typhoon.

We had our lunch in the parking area and immediately started our spree. We are all frantic and excited. A ride-all-you-can ticket gives us the adrenaline rush which is evident in our faces. There’s no stopping us… even the rain-god.

And there comes the nerve wracking, soul splitting space shuttle ride. My physical body badly wants that ride, but I felt my soul is angrily refusing it. Despite that, I took the ride - three times. In the first two rides, my soul just temporarily left me. During the third space shuttle ride, I felt like I totally lost my soul.

We end up drained and exhausted but there’s that lingering smile in all of us .I got a dreamless sleep that night and woke up still wearing that wolfish grin . Overjoyed as Jo-ann puts it.

To my soul… I’m sorry.