November 2006 – garinungkadol

Our Siquijor Trip – Day 4: Kebab

Bye, Bye Siquijor, Thanks for the Memories

The gang says goodbye to Siquijor
More pics here

We enjoyed our last morning at Kiwi. Terai and myself took a walk along the beach (I picked up a few shells to bring as keepsakes for the trip). By 11 we were at the pier and waiting for our ferry ride. Once in Dumaguete we decided to get some lunch before our bus ride back to Bacolod. We chose Persian Palate while Terai and Jake went ahead to the terminal to see if they could get tickets in advanced.

Unfortunately, we could only get tickets on the bus and it was scheduled to leave around 1.30. By now it was a quarter to one and we were still waiting for our food. Terai, Jake and Annie volunteered to wait for the food while Rabang, Julius, Pia and myself went to the bus terminal with all the bags to get our seats.

Thankfully, the rest of our group made it time. As they got on the bus, the driver was announcing it was time to leave. There we were in an airconditioned bus with steaming styrofoam packets of Indian food that smelt heavenly 🙂 The trip from Dumaguete to Kabankalan was frought with winding turns and fast driving but from Kabankalan to Bacolod the driver decided to take his own sweet time. He was driving so slowly Julius remarked rather loudly, “A funeral car moves faster than we are”. The bus was going so slowly many TRICYCLES overtook us!

We arrived in Bacolod around 8 pm and we made our way to Mama Maria’s Pizza for dinner. They have HUGE pizzas there and at first we were thinking we would have a hard time finishing all the food we ordered. But we were so hungry we ate everything in record time!

We headed to Calea to get dessert but Pia and I had to go home ahead of time because we had work the next day.

I had a fantastic time in Siquijor with the best bunch of friends. Being broke until payday was worth the vacation we had.

Our Siquijor Trip – Day 3: Putikan

Pia, Me, Annie and Terai
More pics here

On Sunday, there were only two items on the itinerary: visit the marine sanctuary and go to Cantabon Caves. We had breakfast – some people had coffee and toast, while others felt the need for chocolate pancakes with ice cream. At 11 we were ready to go.

Since we were leaving at 11, we decided to head back into the water. Jake and Terai decided to explore the house reef which was 20m from the shore. They were saying that they wished that they had found out about it on the first day there!
Julius, Anne, Pia, Rabang and myself were content to stay closer to shore. Even there, there were lots of things to see and everyone got carried away with snorkelling.

While waiting for our ride, we met up with two British girls, Stef and Kirsty who were on a backpacker’s tour of Asia and were in Siquijor for one night. They were going to catch a ferry to Caticlan so we offered them a ride to Larena.
It was there in Larena where we had lunch – at Little Italy. We decided to have pizzas – 6 different kinds (I don’t know why but we were starving!). My personal favorite was the Island of Fire – really hot!!

After that we made our way to the Marine Sanctuary. Pia, Anne and I stayed on the shore while the others went into the sanctuary. Unfortunately it was low tide and Jake was saying that he felt guilty because he thought he had stepped on some corals.

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Our Siquijor Trip – Day 2: Tampisaw

Jacques Cousteau, Eat Your Heart Out
More pics here

It’s a lovely feeling to wake up to the sound of the waves lapping against the shoreline. We had a breakfast fit for kings – biscuits, bread and bangus pate. By 10 we were ready to go on our Easy Ride tour of the island. Rick and Alfred came to pick us up and show us the sites of Siquijor. We started beach hopping going from secluded beaches to more resort-y type beaches. The common theme of our morning…Making fun of each other and everyone going “Is Jake snorkelling back to Bacolod?” since he was snorkelling off on his own and going further and further!

Just past noon time we were at Coco Grove Beach Resort (there’s a P50 entrance fee for non-guests but it’s consumable). After snorkelling for a bit, we relaxed near the pool with fruit shakes and banana splits (very, very delicious). Jake was trying to show us how to tie a cherry stalk using your tongue. And indeed more double entendres and suggestive jokes abound! It’s on vacation that we decide to let our hair down and let our id take hold. No holds barred people! No holds barred!

The Ancient Balete Tree, Cambugahay Falls, Lazi

Note we still hadn’t had lunch. Next we headed inland to see the Balete tree which is hundreds of years old and said to be enchanted. There was a small fresh water pool that had talapia swimming around in it. Jake sat on the edge and put his feet in to enjoy the cool water until Rick mentioned that carabaos like to bathe in there, after which Jake hauled ass out of there.

You Shall Not Pass
More pics here

Next we went to Cambugahay Falls. Since it had rained slightly earlier in the day and the trip down to the falls was muddy and steep. Coming back up a cow stepped in my path and refused to move until its owner came to shoo it off. Then we were off to the town of Lazi that to visit the St. Isidore Labradore Church and Convent. The convent had an old and very beautiful church and convent, one of the largest in the Philippines. We stopped there for a bit of exploration and picture taking. By this time, Rabang, Pia and myself were feeling incredibly hungry and were wondering what was taking the others so long to tour the convent.

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Our Siquijor Trip – Day 1: Ratsada

Jake has been planning our trip to Siquijor for MONTHS and Thursday night we gathered at Rabang’s house for his birthday celebration and to kick off our vacation. We met Annie, Julius’ special friend, for the first time. At the beginning she was afraid that we might not like her. Perish the thought. Within minutes we were all gabbing like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in a long time.

Rabang’s Birthday

Now my friends (aside from Pia) are all in different occupations with hectic schedules. We have doctors, bankers, non-linear editors and we rarely have the opportunity to get together. So this trip was a welcome diversion to spend time and catch up. That evening at Rabang’s place was great – we had good food (Rabang had prepared lasagna, potato salad, barbecue, spring rolls and of course desert from Calea)

By 11, it was time to head back to Jake’s place to get our stuff and wait for our ride to the bus station. Our bus was due to depart before 3 am and we had a couple of hours to kill which we did by watching tv – We had a running commentary on ABS-CBN’s SOCO (Scene of the Crime Operatives – a RIP-OFF of CSI) and were dying with laughter while watching Borat on The Conan O’Brien Show. “Hi-Five” which such a Pinoy thing became our regular expression too!

DAY 1: Ratsada

Jake’s dad dropped us off at the Ceres terminal where we waited for about an hour for our bus to arrive. While waiting, Anne and Jake introduced our trademark phrase complete with choreographed movements…”I’m a flower, swaying in the wind”, a mantra for Type-A personalities (aka everyone in our group), who hate waiting, absolutely hate waiting.

Also Julius kept on singing “We’re All In This Together” from the High School Musical movie which we all thought was funny and became a running joke for our entire stay in Siquijor.

Since our trip was early in the morning, our bus was non-airconditioned. At first we thought this wouldn’t be a problem because –
a) it’s early morning so it’s not going to be hot
b) nobody travels that early in the morning so the bus won’t be crowded.

We were half right.

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Oh, the shame, the shame

I come out of hibernation to bring you…The Real Snakes on a Plane

The Bass mentioned at lunch time that a woman travelling to Thailand from Manila was found with snakes and other reptiles in her suitcase.

The shame of it all, she came from Bacolod!

From USA Today!!

An airport X-ray technician reported seeing the image of a snake inside one of two large suitcases allegedly belonging to a woman, who came from the central Philippine city of Bacolod on her way to Bangkok, Thailand, said customs officer Tessie Roque.

The two suitcases were later opened, revealing dozens of soft drink and water bottles and sacks containing 50 monitor lizards, 39 cobras, 21 vipers, 20 other smaller lizards and two iguanas.

Said Isidro Zayco, “Next time we may be traveling with crocodiles”

Oh, the shame, the shame…

* Pia hides under her desk *

And oh! The lizards were wearing diapers!

In a mood

The WordPress Codex lists some plugins for adding moods to posts

Moody: Enter your mood in the Custom Field section of your post entry and the plugin will display in your theme below the time.
Sounds good but the plugin doesn’t work with WordPress 2.0 and up. Plus you have to do your configuration in the php file.

Mood Quote: Let’s you assign a quote for your mood. Interesting plugin though it’s not what I need.

Cricket Moods: This plugin lets you assign moods with images so whenever you put a mood in your entry. What’s good about this plugin is that each user can customize their own mood list and you have the option to automatically show the mood or position it in your template.

MyMooMus: This is a three-for-one plugin, combining the display of moods, music and tv in your posts. However it only shows the text not images.

I’ve made my own plugin that lets you set the location of your mood directory and image extension. In the Write Post screen, select a mood from the drop-down list of moods. There’s also a template tag to display the mood in your template. It’s not available to the general public because I’m still testing and adding features but if you’d like to try it out, drop me a line and I’ll send you the file.