How to do a staycation?

Sometimes it is very tiring to plan a vacation trip cause it often entails a lot of preparation and you also need to allot time for the planning itself.

I'm pretty good at doing anything at home when I'm free. If others think that it is boring to do a vacation at home, well, they are WRONG. It can be an option if you are not really fond of travelling.

These are things that are really nice to do at home (well it is what I do at home):

Watch movies, series or animes. Imagine if you have a list of movies you need to watch, you can watch it all in your free day. You can also invite friends over to your house and do a movie marathon, and when it is all done, stay up all night and chika chika with friends.

Read books. If you're a person who’s really into reading, this is your chance to read those books you bought that you have just stuck on the side because you have no time to open it. Reading is not boring. Especially, when you are reading a very nice one.

Learn to play instrument/s. There are things that we have been wanting to do, but the fact is, we don’t enough time to do it. So, maybe on your staycation, why not try to learn to play the guitar, piano or anything you've been wanting to learn since you were little?  It is easier now to look for video tutorials online and give that dream of yours a try.

Cook. Been wanting to cook the nicest recipe you've discovered? Start your kitchen battle. You can replace your mother or sister from cooking all the time and have them taste your recipe. I've discovered from a friend that cooking is also a way to relieve stress. So its basically 'hitting  two birds with one stone", you're making your tummy full at same time you are relieving yourself from stress.

Karaoke. A singer in the closet? Frustrated singer? Or either of it. Singing is definitely relieving. If you agree to what I'm sayin' then try doing this at home. It is so much fun with a group of friends when you fight over songs to sing. Having karaoke is better than spending 5 pesos in Karaoke machines. It is also a way to catch up with friends. 

Happy Staycation! :D

Shape up or ship out

Dear 'insecurity',

I'm writing for you to know that I have always wanted you to stay out of my mind. You don't have to be there, you're just ruining the positive vibes that I've been trying to establish.

I know that it is hard not to think about other people cause they affect you somehow. But please try to appreciate what you have and stop comparing yourself to other people, it won't do you good nor make them any lesser than you. Good things starts within yourself. Mind your business, cause it is where you'll have to focus on.

Might as well build your own character and confidence so you can beat the odds that will come your way.

There are times that it's tempting right? Why do people love to flaunt what they have? They make you think the what should be unthinkable and throw away appreciation you have for yourself. What are you going to do about this, are you just going to give up like that. Them overpowering you? Don't let them do it, you have more strength than them. They don't control you, you control yourself and you are free to get away from that uncomfortable feeling you are in.

You'll need to resist these kind of temptations more and more cause there are more to come, you still haven’t  met the worst. Always fasten yourself seat to overcome the rough ride.

Love,

Myself

Living in Bohol 101: Boholanos

Thinking of staying in Bohol for a long time? You might be a tourist who simply wanted to travel or a volunteer who has been assigned to make a social impact. Either of them, you still need to know Boholanos, apart from being very "Hospitable"  (known Filipino attitude) there are other things you might need to know about them.

Boholanos are…

1. Happy people. They find ways to make themselves contented to live a happy life. Regardless of the hardships.

2. Love to sing. Anywhere you go, you'll find karaoke or videoke machines. Most families even have it in their house. Boholanos are also great singers, I must say. I also think singing is in the Filipino blood, Filipinos also love to watch singing contest on TV or live so don’t tell them that singing contest on TV are cheap cause they definitely have high standards when it comes to singing.
3. Love to help other people. Bohol is a safe place for tourists. Ask a Boholano, and you'll know. They love it when they are able to help.

4. Receptive to foreigners. They very much welcome foreigners because they see them as cool, handsome and wealthy people (in general), this might be a disadvantage in some cases, but mostly foreign people are able to benefit from how they are treated. :D

5. They speak English, specifically American English. Yeah, for foreigners who don’t know, Philippines speak great English and Boholanos as well. I would like to emphasize this because I worked with a British youth when I was volunteering and he said that he didn’t expect people in Bohol to be speaking in English. So if you'll stay there for long, don’t worry, you won’t get lost cause you can ask people around.

6. Shy people. This is when they are around foreigners, they are shy to speak in English (though they can speak well or a bit), they are shy because they are conscious with their grammar not because they don't know how to speak English.

7. Love to dance. Attend to events and gatherings, and the most frequent talents are singing and dancing. Aside from singing, Filipinos also love to dance and most of them are not shy when you make them sing or dance.

8. Love to eat. Fiesta is part of the culture, and the height of fiesta is from April to May. You can see banderitas (hanging colorful streamers) in a series of towns you'll pass by. And when you say fiesta it is eating a lot of food - healthy diet is not an excuse.

9. Religious people. Bohol is known for a lot of old churches, and most of them are true-blue Roman  Catholics. Going to church is an important thing on Sundays, so if ever you are staying in a host home or Boholano family, it is a sign of respect if you agree to them taking you to church. They are not going to convert you or something, going once or twice is enough. Don't be surprised if they ask you your religion, it is  a normal thing, so be prepared to answer nicely.

10. Clean. They are mostly concerned about cleanliness, and house keeping is done if not everyday or during weekends. They do household chores frequently. Just don’t be too messy and you'll be fine. They would also appreciate if you'll try to help, (though most of them will try to tell you you don't have to, but  insist anyway) they are glad to teach you how to do chores like  washing  clothes with your own hands or cooking in wooden fire.
11. Taking a bath once or three times a day. Body odor is sometimes offensive, be sure to take a bath at least once everyday.

I'm sure I've got a lot of things missed. Most of them are just drawn from my volunteer experience with British people. So if someone out there would like to ask specific questions, I'd be glad to answer back in a Boholano perspective.

Baguio City: Chil Cheon Gak

Yes, this is when we visited Baguio. Our trip organizer gave me a chance to plan our lunch. And since I badly wanted to try Korean Food, I've decided to look for a Korean resto famous in Baguio. But I guess I didn’t research well huhuhu. A friend of mine told me that "Red Station" is better than "Chil Chun Gak". Anyway, though my colleagues resented eating in that Korean resto, because they weren't really satisfied considering also that it was their first time, all of us gave out a sigh and said that it was worth the try.  But I was glad that they didn't make me pay all of it knowing that I was the one who planned it all. Hahahaha

But since this is my first time eating all Korean food, I'm posting it though  it wasn't satisfying right after.

Yeah, we've ordered that much and those side dishes in small cups were free. I'm suppose to order samgyeopsal but they don’t serve unless you ordered two sets of it. And  I sensed that my company wouldn't want to order it wahahahaha. So I sticked to ramen instead. See that bowl with the soup, that is mine. It was even funny, we are eating in a Korean restaurant and all of them  wanted to eat Filipino food.  Hahahaha.

 We are a rice-eating country, and eating won't be  complete without rice. But honestly, the rice bowl was just small but I wasn't able to finish it, huhuhu, it didn’t go well with the ramen I ordered. :'(

But this is the most interesting part of our lunch, taking a picture of the chopsticks. Hahahaha

For documentation purposes, I took pictures of the resto as well.

 They' got a nice interior though.  And you get to choose whether you'll sit on a chair or on the floor. We decided to sat on the floor which is on the left side of the picture.

And that's the area we chose. :D

They've lots of tables to choose from if you'll go further right. This was that part.

CONCLUSION:

I seriously need to get used to the taste of Korean Food. But I was thinking it might be hard for me to do, since I so loved sweet food and, generally, the taste of Korean foods are way different. :( So maybe I'll just stick to being a fan of K-Pop, K-dramas and K-Culture yet excluding the food hahahaha. I guess I just went so bitter just because I didn't get to order the food that I wanted. Whooo.

But, I would still continue to look for great Korean restos, and order a different Korean dish, maybe I'll love some of them. Well, it takes time to get used to something you haven’t grown with.  Ajja!

How can signing up to websites ruin your email?

Have you tried signing up to almost all social networking sites? If you have, then you are one of those people who don't want to be left behind about anything new. That isn't a bad thing though as long as you are very much careful with all the information you have provided and that the site you are signing up to is guaranteed safe.

I'll share my experience, when I started creating an account in "friendster" (which is the most famous social site in the Phil before facebook), I've become really engrossed. And then I heard about My Space, Twitter and Facebook , Instagram - I can't stop trying out something new cause I don't want to be left behind. I just actually created an account on Facebook because of 'Farmville' and was never really fascinated with the look of my home page, that's why I don't normally post on it. I also have a Photobucket account since I love to collect pictures of my fave artist. I stopped using friendster, when it changed its interface, I can't get back to it since all of my pictures and list of friends were unrecoverable. I was really upset so I continued using Facebook which was increasing in  popularity then. But I didn't just stop there, google + plus came, and I signed up for its trial. I  also got hooked to Dropbox when I was working so I created an account. But it’s storage is really limited unless I invite some friends, so I decided to look for other cloud storage like Google Drive and Megacloud. I also started blogging, so I first signed up in Wordpress and then discovered Blogger, which offers  a lot of features I liked.  I signed up to lots of sites other than those I mentioned above and I haven't even used most of them.

What happened?

I use two emails when I sign up for something. Without realizing how many sites I signed up for, emails started flooding my email accounts. It was such a tiring job to delete all those unimportant emails and spams. So one by one, I started unsubscribing from the sites I got an account with. That was very time consuming but it freed me from having all those emails deleted. From a number of social accounts, I am now managing five (5) of them plus my two (2) email accounts. I just stick to the ones I really use often and it was much more convenient than handling more than what I can manage. :D

Try to use, only those that are relevant and useful to you, sites are meaningless unless they are used wisely. :D

PMA @Baguio City

Yep. Philippine Military Academy (PMA)  might sound overrated already for tourists but this is actually the first time I've visited the place. I think it is a must to visit the school when you are in Baguio. So what's to look forward to at PMA by first timers?

War tanks

The old war tanks was out first stop. If history really interests you, they have labels for each tank of when and where it was used (I think, but it surely has information on it just forgot to take a pic hehehe). And most of  these tanks dates back to World War I & II, I guess. 

Pine Trees

PMA is probably one of the best place to view Pine Trees, where trees looked like  it was planted uniformly.

This is one of old trees I've spotted. :D

Tree House

This tree house gives a really nice view from the top. :D

The Academy has got nice buildings where you can snap a shot.

Boodle Bar

Try to visit the Boodle Bar, we stopped here to have some snacks. They also sell souvenirs, mostly shirts and jackets with PMA imprints. 

And this is the simple clock that intrigued me, which is found inside the Boodle Bar. The hands of this clock moves counterclockwise, see the numbers are written from 12-1. According to the store manager, this clock can only be found in PMA and was purposely put there as a conversational piece. It does make a good conversation starter!

And so, what's the use of visiting PMA if you haven’t got a picture with the students. You might wonder, but those PMA cadet beside me are girls. They just need to maintain that kind of haircut.

Students here were really trained to be stiff, see there's only the three of us who cared to smile. Hehehehehehehe. But they were really nice to stay with us and bear a series of shots.

 Speaking of buildings, as I mentioned earlier, they've got really nice architectural designs. Like the one I posed on. The whole building looked like it can be found in other countries cause it has that Korean-sort-of appeal. :D

PMA Musuem

PMA Museum was just near the Boodle Bar. We only paid 40 pesos each for entrance fee. You probably know what to see in the museum so no need to describe what's inside. I'll write a separate post about it anyway. Hehehe

Others

 You'll appreciate the nice road they got there. As well as...

The view of the mountain with that thick clouds or fog (or might be a mix of both). :D

Tarlac City

Okay I'm writing now before procrastination hits me. We've visited Tarlac today and went on to this resto called "Isdaan". It was a really nice resto with lots of weird statues of Egyptian taste. But they aren't serving Egyptian food actually, they serve Filipino food. I'll write something about this resto as soon as I get the photos. Hehehehe

With the Gang. 

Then after lunch from Isdaan, we went to SM city Tarlac and I got broke from buying lots of stuff. Why do nice things are expensive?. Huhuhuhu. Yeah I was complaining for expending too much but I just can't help it, now I got a power bank. Huray! And bought clothes and a book about blogging. Yeah, I seriously considering blogging as my past time. :D

My day ended really great and I can't wait to post about it. :D

My way of using Facebook

Facebook has been my weekly routine . I never fail to check on it, post status and update my pictures. But it is also the site that I am very much careful of when it comes to posting and people. Here are few things that I'm very much particular about:

Adding people and confirming friend requests

Increasing the number of facebook friend's list, without normally screening it, is I think some people do. I' ve been like that, but then, I started receiving messages of foreign people I am not even familiar with. I've become very conscious that they might have been stalking my personal information that was so public then.  So I started to unfriend people I am not familiar with and I've become careful on confirming friend requests from people adding me as friend.

Posting

People I avoid

There are times that posts get out of the line and are not for public view. When I was in college, I often customize my posts about outing, get together with friends and all those teenage activities that might not be that much pleasing for people in the academe. I don't want them to caught me having videoke instead of doing my homework.. Hahahahahaha

Girl Things

A post about a crush usually creates  a topic of discussion within group of friends. Everything about my crush are posted in specific audience. When it comes to topics like this, I post it only to my close friends,  I don't want to be caught off-guard by just posting squeal moments.

Rants

Facebook is also where I thresh feelings out. When I'm so angry about a person or just wanted to rant about something, I post it. I would usually post an angry statement hoping that it would be addressed to the  person I hate to make him aware I don't like him. But at times, I really need to be careful about people who might think I'm over reacting, so what I normally do is post my status except from these people. :D

Managing settings

I consider some information in my account as personal and are not for public view, whether it be pictures, posts, personal information, and  friend's list, these can only be viewed by me, family and close friends. So customizing my Facebook settings to a particular audience is really important. I also change my password after a year or two to protect my account from potential hackers.

Start managing your own facebook account wisely! :D :D