Balesin Active Trail Run

Maybe the Universe decided that after all the recent heartaches I've been through, I deserve to go to Balesin.

ICYMI, Balesin is a members-only island resort in the province of Quezon. One can only go there as a member or accompanied by a member. I'm not acquainted with any members so my chance of going there was zero to none. HAHA. Until Run Rio announced the Balesin Active Trail Run which was open to non-members. Hubby did the math and said that the registration fee was sulit for a 3D2N stay with accommodations and flights. 

We were able to persuade one of my classmates to go with us so we availed of triple sharing. At first though, we thought that the run will not push through because we did not get any details after registering. We were only told about our flight the day before, it was because there are no scheduled flights to the island, just chartered ones. Maybe they should have informed us that more clearly.

We flew from Clark which is nearer to our place. Twenty-five minutes after take-off, we landed in paradise. It was cloudy and rainy when we arrived but we could see that the place was beautiful.

 

Britney Spears: Piece of Me in Las Vegas

In light of Britney Spears' recent concert in the Philippines, I've decided to blog about the time I watched her concert in Las Vegas last year. Hubby, P and one of my sisters went there for our sister's wedding (which I'll try to blog about soon!)

Like anyone who was a teen-ager in the 90s, I'm no stranger to Britney Jean Spears. While her singing voice is not stellar, her dance moves and showmanship more than make up for her voice. Whether you like it or not, you are bound to know the words to her songs. (Toxic forever!!!)

Thanks to my new brother-in-law, my sisters and I watched Britney from the pit.

As a resident at The Axis, Planet Hollywood, she had performances two to three times a week. Hence, she lip-synced to her songs. Understandably, her dancing prowess was not the same as in the 90s but who cares, it's Britney, b*tch. She performed for almost two (2) hours straight.

Spring in CA 2016

This post is a year delayed, haha. From NYC, we made our way to visit hubby's relatives in California. While we were discussing the itinerary, the FIL made it sound like it was a short ride from LA to Visalia to San Francisco. And we were there for five days only, we spent most of the days driving aaak!

In LA, we visited the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Grauman's Chinese Theater, Beverly Hills (sign, haha), and Rodeo Drive.

We also tasted the famous In-N-Out burgers and fries for the first time. Yum!

We then drove for four (4) hours to hubby's relatives in Napa Valley and San Francisco. We made quick visits to a small vineyard and Fisherman's Wharf and a drive-through of the San Francisco traffic. We did not even see Lombard Street for super lack of time!

NYC 2016

From muggy Florida, our next trip was to New York City where the forecast was cold and rainy, waaa. This was one of our biggest challenges in our trip, the change in weather.

We were going to be in NYC for 4 days. Too short, we know. When we landed in Newark, it was raining. We were supposed to take one of the Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises as soon as we arrived but we were sure we won't be able to see anything with the rain. Hence, we decided to bond with hubby's uncle and aunt in Queens before checking into the Courtyard by Marriott-Chelsea.

We arrived at the hotel at around 6PM. After freshening up, we decided to go to the Empire State Building after checking Google Maps and seeing that it was a 15-minute walk. We were freezing though! We were there at past 9PM, it was windy and cooold. The upside is that there are no long lines but there were still people coming in even when we left close to midnight.

By the way, SIL bought us New York Passes so we can skip long lines.

Sooo cooold.

My shots are taken with my iPhone 6 only. 

With a heavy toddler, I no longer attempted to bring my own camera.

Kennedy Space Center

I'm devoting a separate post for this because we loved this place! Hubby and I are geeks but he's a bigger science nerd that I am. In fact, it was his idea to have "outer space" as theme for P's first birthday. Too bad I forgot to pack P's astronaut costume and hubby's NASA shirt. Sayang!

 Anyhoo, the Kennedy Space Center is a two-hour drive from BIL's house in Ocala. A two-hour drive in the USA, we've learned, is farrr, considering we took the Interstate.

We're heeeere!

Rocket Garden

Daddy inside a mock-up capsule. He enjoyed NASA more!

Florida 2016

From Narita, we flew around 12 hours to Chicago. Before the trip, I saw that while we will land in O' Hare's Terminal 5, we will be flying out from Terminal 1 to Tampa, Florida, with around two hours between the flights. However, that would mean going out of the airport and riding the airport train and once again go through Immigration and Customs. I was nervous about missing the flight to Florida.

The 12-hour flight to Chicago was pretty uneventful because I breastfed P during take-off and he just slept. The plane was not full so the two of us transferred to two vacant seats where I laid him on one seat as I tried to sleep. Before landing, I decided to go back to our seats, but, not to our original seats but on the adjacent row one seat away from a Caucasian couple. I figured we needed space to get the bags and rush out of the plane as hubby, me and MIL were crammed in one row. However, for the last five minutes of landing, P decided to bawl his eyes out, as in all-out wailing! And I suddenly got shy about popping out the boob infront of my seatmates. I was so mortified, huhu. Lesson learned: just pop out the boob!

It was raining in Chicago and this was the time when the Belgium airport bombings occurred so I guess security was extra tight. We barely made it to the gate in Terminal 1 and saw that the plane was delayed. We spent around two hours waiting then boarded another plane to Tampa. 

Tampa was an hour drive to my BIL's house in Ocala. I was expecting the kiddos to be tired after 19 hours of travel but they still had the energy to watch Disney Junior.

24 Hours in Japan

Hubby's kuya has been living in the US for around ten years now but his family has not seen his place. Thus last year, they decided it was time to visit kuya. Ate and hubby proceeded to compose this "ambitious" itinerary of flying to Japan, then to Chicago, then to Florida for 2 weeks, then New York for four days, then California for four days, then Japan, then Manila. And oh, they thought it would be fun to stay in Japan for 24 hours before flying to Chicago.

I was anxious about the trip because we will be traveling with a fifteen-month old toddler who still drinks milk from a bottle, sans yaya, and the weather will be alternately cold and hot. Two words: "packing nightmare". Like a true-blue excited Mommy though, I shopped more for P's stuff and just bought Uniqlo heattech tops for me.

Let's goooo, Daddy! P was learning to walk at this time.

First stop: Japan!

We arrived at Narita then boarded the Narita Express to Tokyo. It was already around 5:00 P.M. when we arrived at our hotel, Shinjuku Washington Hotel. After freshening up a bit, we went out to have dinner at Fuunji. Before the trip, I gave hubby a list of recommended places to eat in Shinjuku, and he chose this ramen place.

Apparently, the place is really popular because there was a line outside. I thought it was not a bad-looking line but then (1) it was freezing; and (2) it turns out that the inside of the place was just a long counter and while you're eating, there's still a line behind you. See this post for more photos.

Inside, you punch in your order on this machine. They have the ramen we all know and tsukemen - which is also ramen but the noodles and soup are in separate bowls. Since I was carrying P (which would be the story of my life for this trip) and the place was cramped, I opted for the regular ramen.

 

Lined up in the cold for this.

Unlike the ramen I've tasted in Manila, the broth was really rich and thick. I found it a bit salty though. P liked it and just kept slurping the soup I gave him. I would have enjoyed it more if I was not carrying P hehe. After dinner, we felt so tired we just decided to go back to the hotel. 

Fotogra Books

Our wedding photographers Mimi+Karl quoted Mike Yost: “The most photographed generation will have no pictures in 10 years.” So, they started printing small books of their children's photos. Since the quote resonated with many parents, people started inquiring if they offer such mini-books as a service, me included. Thus, Fotogra Books.

I have started having photos of baby P printed. I have bought a baby book/album. Putting the photos in the book is another story though.

Then I realized that I have boatloads of travel pictures hidden in hard drives. So one evening, I risked getting plugged ducts and stayed up to choose from our South Korea 2010 and Seoul 2011 photos.

 

Photo by Fotogra Books

Tada! Love how they turned out. The photos are printed on matte paper. The size is big enough that you can appreciate the details and small enough that they won't take up too much space. Now, all I have to do is find more time to sift through thousands of photos and set aside moolah for printing. Fotogra Books is offering a promo price of P450.00 for a 60-page book, regular price is P550.00. Go order na!

Bolinao 2014

Last Black Saturday, my side of the family went on a day trip to Bolinao. Although it's still in the same province, it took us three hours to travel from our city, hence, it still felt like an "out of town" trip. Pangasinan is such a huge province.

We arrived shortly before lunch, and stayed at the Treasures of Bolinao resort. For day tours, the resort usually offers tables and chairs in various shaded parts of the resort. However, hubby and my sisters managed to haggle their way into taking a room until 5pm. 

After lunch at their restaurant, we took pictures with the parentals who had no interest in swimming (hehe) and then swam in the coral-y, albeit very clear, waters.

HK-Macau 2013

We've been to our Asian neighbors which require visas yet we've never been to Hong Kong and Macau. As the day of our trip neared, Hong Kong lawmakers passed a bill or something requiring visas to Filipinos. We were so worried our trip would get cancelled. 

Upon arriving in Hong Kong, we immediately booked a ferry trip to Macau for an overnight stay. We lucked out on a good deal at the Venetian.

We arrived in Macau quite late in the afternoon so after a quick late lunch, we set out to explore the place. 

On our way to the Ruins of St. Paul's, we tried the famous egg tarts.

The Ruins of St. Paul's

Yummy jerky.

The spectacular Wynn fountain light show.

Early morning in Macau

Since we were leaving at lunch and the Venetian was so huge, we decided to just explore the hotel.

Singapore 2012 (Part II)

The trip to Singapore made me realize how much I've neglected photography. I found out that I've "forgotten" how to operate a DSLR, even my Olympus PEN, huhu. Must make time for taking pictures.

The rest of the photo dump:

Sentosa

Singapore 2012 (Part 1)

Spent the long week-end and a couple of vacation leaves in Singapore. We planned the trip partly so my aunt and sisters can have stamps in their passports before these expire haha. Although we booked our tickets awhile back, I was most unprepared for this trip. I forgot to bring our stash of medicines (then hubby suffered a massive headache), our travel adaptors (we had to buy) and our usual Snickers bars. Yet, this is our most tipid trip pocket money-wise because we stayed with my uncle and aunt and they sponsored  most of our meals. (Yay!)

They say Singapore is only as big as Quezon City yet we still missed a couple of spots despite being there for five days. We skipped the zoos and gardens and went to Orchard, Little India, Bugis, Arab Street, Marina Bay Sands, Sentosa and Universal Studios Singapore.

Be ready for a massive photo dump with a few captions. :P

Little India   

(We spent our first night in Orchard but I forgot my camera, boo.)