Bottled Sky

I’ve had bad luck with summer outings before. For the longest time it seemed like I was doomed to never set foot on a sunny beach again, but last weekend the weather gods finally decided to cut me some slack and gave me two full days of fun in the sun.

I traveled to Puerto Galera, a popular beach destination in the Philippines, with seven of my college friends. It was easily the best vacation I’ve been on in quite a while. The synopsis: We lounged on the beach, swam in the clear sea, got drunk on bonded over a pitcher of Mindoro Sling, hiked through a mountain, took a dip in a waterfall, and went parasailing! If you want the whole tale and the boat load of pictures that come with it, keep reading

Continue reading Beach Trip: Now with Real Sun! »

My college friends and I hung out at Eugene’s condo this weekend. It had been months since I last saw some of them — Tin! Nas! Albert! — so I was really excited. We went swimming, had dinner at Pancake House, played PS2 (they played; I just randomly pressed buttons), (re)watched Golden Boy, drank, slept a little, then woke up and had leftover alcohol with our breakfast. Good times. Check out the photos from Chrissa’s camera.

Of course there was gift giving, too. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I didn’t have much money to spend on gifts this year, so I did a lot of DIYing. This time I drew cartoon alter egos of the girls, had them printed, and found matching desktop frames for each drawing:

Check out my illustration portfolio for the bigger versions.

They loved it! Seeing their reactions to the cartoons got me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. The guys pretend-pouted and asked why I didn’t do the same for them, so I mock-complained about how hard they were to draw because they all looked alike, hehe. I did try, but unfortunately I can’t draw boys as well as I can girls. I got them uber-geeky squeeze flashlights instead. Maybe next year.

Happy holidays, everyone! And thanks to Rose for being extra cool

Kathy is a special breed of awesome. My weekend rocked something fierce, thanks to her love for Seventeen Magazine and her penchant for joining their contests. They sent Kathy, Ivy, Phin, Chrissa and me on an overnight stay at Taal View Heights and took care of everything so we didn’t have to pay a single centavo. We were chauffeured, overfed, and generally pampered. We even got new tankinis from SPF, “Filipinas” flip-flops from Havaianas, and loads of Freeman beauty products. I can’t speak for the others, but I for one had never been spoiled so rotten in all my life.

The best part was I finally got to spend several hours swimming under the sun. My sunny swim in TVH’s Zen-inspired infinity pool was no doubt a far cry from my freezing foray into the stormy seas of Subic. It still wasn’t enough to bronze me, but at least I’m slightly darker than I used to be.

Swimming wasn’t all we did, though. We played badminton and billiards, rode horses, and briefly visited the lakeside where we met the friendliest little dachshund. On Sunday morning Chrissa somehow managed to make jogging up and down the hilly venue seem like a good idea, but after only 10 minutes of wheezing and panting, Kathy and I realized that it really wasn’t. We also made our very own scary movie using the night vision setting of Kathy’s Handycam, squeezed under a single comforter while bonding under the stars, and consumed too many glasses of mais con yelo. Oh, and we took lots of pictures.

The only downside was that we missed Nas and Tin and wished they could have come, too. Other than that, I can definitely say it was the most fun I’ve had of late. Hugs for Kathy!

This week has been quite interesting so far, at least for me. I got to try a lot of new things, including riding a bike (I never learned as a kid) and getting a big ol’ shot in my thigh. Here’s a rundown of my week:

Continue reading Of Bikes and Bites »

It’s been a pretty good and decidedly lazy semestral break. Most days I just loaf around the house watching TV, reading books, and surfing the net. Others I spend hanging out with friends and making headway with my Christmas shopping. I’ve pretty much been having the same amount of physical activity as a pampered house cat.

However, I did get a bit of exercise this week when I went wall-climbing with my college barkada all Thursday afternoon. It was so much fun! We climbed until it got dark, and we wanted to keep on climbing but most of us could barely move our arms by then. While it certainly was fulfilling to reach the top of a wall, my favorite part was hanging high up in the air and getting belayed down. When I kept failing at my attempts to finish one of the more challenging walls, my friends accused me of falling on purpose just so I could swing around in my harness. I suppose they were partly right. While I’m still waiting for my chance to bungee jump, to learn trapeze, and to float around in a free fall tube, I have to get my thrills wherever I can!

Afterwards we headed to Chrissa’s condo to waste all of the exercise we had just gotten by eating like construction workers. We had been in the middle of our movie marathon at 2 a.m. when we suddenly had a hankering for some ice cream. God bless the genius who invented the 24-hour convenience store. Because of him we were able to enjoy a half-gallon can of Selecta ice cream even on that ungodly hour.

The rest of Friday went pretty much the same way: movies, kulitan, food, more kulitan, more food, and endless picture-taking. When you’re friends with someone like Kathy there will always be a camera documenting your every move. We don’t mind most of the time

I uploaded a bunch of the snapshots we took. We got very creative with some of the shots, but we’ve decided to keep those pictures to ourselves so they won’t later be used for blackmail.