A lot of changes in my life this year and it kicked of at the first week of the year when I found out that the position I applied to in the organization, despite how far it is from my previous positions and also having zero background on the field, was offered to me. I was super excited and cannot believe it myself! I still am very happy and grateful 4 months after since I started last May though still on this crazy journey of being new to the position and to the workload.
But having said that, I would first like to thank my dearest blog friends for their support from my last couple of posts, and giving me the motivation and advises that I need and will treasure with me as I move forward. But this time, it's about looking back and sharing you some photos from my trips in the past months since the year started.
Kampong Glam, Singapore - January 2025
SINGAPORE - I was so happy when I found a promo fare going home to the Philippines with Singapore Airlines. Normally this airline is very expensive but after tracking cheap fares daily at the second half of the year last year, I stumbled upon this opportunity! Of course, just as I usually do on my layovers home, I looked for an itinerary that has a long layover so that I can visit the connecting city and that's how I end up on the Lion City for 12 hours!
Iloilo City, Philippines - February 2025
ILOILO, PHILIPPINES - I was home at the beginning of the year. Gratefully, I try to go home once every year to see my father. As much as I really feel that Spain is my home now, being able to have the opportunity to see my father and my family and also my childhood friends is deeply gratifying. For this trip, I took my father, my brother, and my cousin to an Island province 1 hour away from Manila by plane and we had a great time!
La Grotte de Choranche, France - March 2025
CHORANCHE, FRANCE - It was my very first Workshop for work just before I left my old team. So I was in Grenoble for a week and I stayed a few more days to spend time with my colleagues who live there who are also like family to me on this new life in Europe. My best friend and his wife and baby took me to this beautiful Cave in the Vercors mountains. It was so amazing and beautiful! I-m afraid of caves in the Philippines but this one it was lovely and dry when we visited.
Perpignan, France - April 2025
PERPIGNAN, FRANCE - This trip was a quickly planned weekend because it was Good Friday and I had nothing to do in Barcelona so I decided to buy a bus ticket just nights before the trip and it was great! Perpignan can be doable on a day trip from Barcelona but I stayed for a night just to make the most of the long weekend. Here you will see my VLOG Episode from my YouTube Channel that I filmed during my stay in Perpignan. You'll see more of me on this adventure and hope you enjoy the episode! WATCH IT ON 4K!
Bologna, Italy - June 2025
BOLOGNA, ITALY - To celebrate my birthday, I am so thankful to my best friend Ervis who is like a real brother to me. He was my teammate from my last position and even if we parted ways at work, he's always been there for me! He took me with him on his trip back home to Albania and we did the drive from France to Albania for 5 amazing days! This one was from our first stop in Bologna enjoying a giant cold beer (I asked him for just the smallest one!) in the plaza. Bologna was so beautiful!
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It has been so nice to share these memories and adventures to you and it was also shocking for me to look back and see how much places and journeys I have done in just this year and that still does not include the remainder of our trip through the Balkans and my adventure in Romania last month!
I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I was when writing it and I wish you all an amazing week ahead! Work starts again soon but I still have a few hours to enjoy the rest of Sunday and I hope I won't be able to think of work thoughts all the time before tomorrow morning!
I have been a way for so long, as per my friend Beatrice said, more than half the year that passed. I landed a new position which is a very big opportunity for me this June and all the months before that I was also busy preparing for it. I am very grateful because I did not expect at all that I will be chosen but I was, thanks to my new managers and director, and also with the ever support of my former manager who I always will be grateful for not just for her support but for being a really good friend and mentor up until now.
I have been struggling mentally with everything new, not just with process but of all the changes in general even my schedule which became a lot better versus my past 6 years on the Graveyard shift became a challenge for me. But slowly in the past couple of weeks, as I opened more about it to my closest friends, they offered beautiful advices and how it is normal and how I should not be hard on myself and put so much pressure especially I am new. I prayed so hard for this position like I have never prayed before, and I should always remember to go back to how much I wanted this and get that motivation whenever it gets hard for me.
I hope to be back to blogging again soon and visit all your wonderful windows and portals that take me home to your places on this planet. I'll keep doing my things and hopefully be back to my 200% energetic self to hopefully bring you back my signature enthusiasm and smiles!
I'll keep it short this time but I just took a few minutes on the beginning of my weekend to say a shout out to all of you my blog friends. I still remember you all and I apologize for being so absent again but I often thought of you all and pray for all my blog friends every time. Leaving you with this nice photo of my first ever horseback ride a couple of weeks ago by the beautiful mountains of Bukidnon in Southern Philippines.
Last Weekend, after almost a month of being locked at home, my high school friends plotted a day on our calendar to go plant shopping two cities away from ours. The Town of Silang is famous for it's plants for sale for decades now and with the past year's houseplant bandwagon, it just got back it's glory days, as lush as the foliage of the leafy babies waiting to be adopted on new homes.
Fun photo using my Ferdie's "Change the Sky" App
There's a wide variety of plants that welcomed us and we were so happy to be surrounded by all colors and shapes of leaves, both those that we can name and not! My friends Ferdie and Myrcel bought a lot of plants home which made their whole families happy! As per me, I only bought nice pots since it's time for me to repot a few Bromeliad babies in the garden.
Most of the plants on this stretch of shops that we visited are mostly ornamental garden plants that thrive in tropical climate such as ours, but inside the stalls are potted houseplants that are more expensive but still cheaper than those sold online, plus you can really get to see the plant for yourself before buying it.
Though in this time of the pandemic, shopping online still can win all its perks to avoid crowds, that's also why we went to Silang very early so we avoid the Sunday flocking. And of course, masks on!
Though I did not buy any plant, I was so happy to be there because I was surrounded with so much plants, truly relaxing and therapeutic to my senses, and of course, priceless to be with my best friends on a weekend after more than a month of not seeing each other.
Then we had lunch before we pushed our way home. We ate at Balinsasayaw restaurant where every group is assigned a specific Nipa hut which is perfect for social distancing! We had so much fun and of course, we had to have a photo of us taken for the books! Thank you to our waiter Sir Dan of Balinsasayaw for the awesome service!
Myrcel, Ferdie, Judy, RJay, and Me.
What a great end of January it was, we made the last day of the first month, truly timeless - together! May I send you all hugs and wishes of a great weekend to come! To all my friends up north, please stay warm on this Winter. And down under in Australia and New Zealand, keep yourselves hydrated this Summer (I'm already nervous with our upcoming Summer - I hate Summer - I don't melt literally but I have sleep problems when days hits 36-40C).
Sun's out, Masks on!
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I would love to welcome and invite everyone to join Timeless Thursdays.
Timeless Thursdays is open for anyone who wishes to share old photos or old thoughts that you would like to share as beautiful memories with everyone. This can be from yesterday, a year ago, or something from your grandma's treasure chest.
This runs every Thursday at 12 am (Manila/Perth Time) until Sunday at 11:59 pm (Manila/Perth Time)
It makes me so much at awe whenever I look at these pictures from 5 years ago with me having lots of hair! HAHA I started to have my hair declining in the past couple of years. It still gets longer but on a very slower pace but it's too thin that I just want to buzz it off again because it looks too thin and my scalp is already showing. But I'm not saying this because I feel depressed about my hair, it's just that I felt like a completely different person now without lots of it haha.
Here is a simple weekend I celebrated with my friends' family when they went on a Casino trip in Manila. I did not play but I had an amazing time seeing City of Dreams with my high school pals.
Me and my friend R-Jay, Lea, and Myrcel at City of Dreams Manila
Located at a 6.2 hectare area of the Entertainment City of Aseana Avenue, Paranñaque City is City of Dreams Manila, the first and only Philippine franchise of this multinational luxury resort and casino complex.
R-Jay, Me, and Myrcel at City of Dreams Manila
R-Jay, Me, Myrcel, and Lara at City of Dreams Manila
Lea, R-Jay and Myrcel are par of my Circle of friends. We have been classmates since Kindergarten up until High School. So we are literally like brothers and sisters and we stuck together up until now.
Me, Myrcel, and R-Jay at City of Dreams Manila
R-Jay, Myrcel, Me, and Lea holding her Mooncakes
Me, R-Jay, and the Legaspi's
Right after all the games and the winnings, the fun just never stops and sent us all the way to Army Navy at Blue Bay Walk in Macapagal Avenue in Pasay City. It was so much happiness and fun! I can't wait for our next Casino trip with this family.
Me with the Legaspi's on an Army Navy Dinner
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I would love to welcome and invite everyone to join Timeless Thursdays.
Timeless Thursdays is open for anyone who wishes to share old photos or old thoughts that you would like to share as beautiful memories with everyone. This can be from yesterday, a year ago, or something from your grandma's treasure chest.
This runs every Thursday at 12 am (Manila/Perth Time) until Sunday at 11:59 pm (Manila/Perth Time)
First of all, let me greet you all a Happy October, and thank you all so much for those who joined last week's Timeless Thursdays! it was the first time that more than 10 people joined and I am so grateful and happy.
I am an adventurous person in the sense that I am not afraid of getting lost on a place because I always believe that there are good people everywhere as much as there are bad. But when it comes to extremes, I usually fold and pass, but for this one, since it's on my bucket list, I braved myself and said yes to river rafting! Besides, I have my best friends with me to do it with.
Last 2015, we flew over to the southern island of Mindanao for a mini reunion trip with the gang. We chose Mindanao because it is one of the islands we all have never been to and we thought it's time we check it on our travel maps together. One of our highlights is white river rafting in the mighty Cagayan de Oro River (it is usually called Cagayan river but we also have a Cagayan River in the north which is the longest river in the country).
We were so excited and yes, I, a bit nervous. I do know how to swim but I am not so good at it. Especially seeing the rapids, it was a bit awakening to see the water crushing through the rocks and banks. But of course, we will be accompanied by trained boatmen or rafters (don't know how they are called) so I was quite confident in case I fall out. But I kept telling them "Kuya wag mo papataubin ah!" (Brother, please don't let us fall).
Look how brave (I look like), beside my cousin Judy in front
Yes, I was super nervous the whole time but don't get me wrong, it was so much fun! There were a few rapids that almost tipped us off but since boatmen know we are quite a fearful group, they did not let it happen as much as they can. Look how they are still smiling at the back of the boat when we all look so wacky!
Towards the end, our guides led us to the still waters before we enter the final stages of the rapids because they said we had to cool ourselves. The heat was quite unbearable for a cool January day so they asked us to dive in the waters so we can submerge ourselves because the life vests tend to be too warm and can lead to hyperthermia. So we did!
(Myrcel, Judy, Stevenson, Rjay, and Faith in front) 26 years of friendship.
You can see that the waters seem dirty but those are made of soil and sediments constantly mixed with the river water due to the rapids. Though we cannot see what's below, we were quite relaxed at these moments due to the stillness of the water, though we are still constantly moved by the tide.
But not for long, because the boatmen calmly told us, "Sirs and Maams, please don't panic. We'll slowly get each one of you back to the boat because there's a river snake just a few meters away from us". It was very good that all of us did not panic but I volunteered to be the last to be pulled on the rubber boats because I am a heavy weight! The boatmen and a few of my friends helped to pull me up HAHA.
Glad it's over, we had so much fun though!
It took us about an hour and a half of nerves and laughs! But in the end, we feel so happy and celebrated at the banks. Our guides made us strike some funny poses just like the one above. Nope, I did not pull back the heads of my two friends, I did not!
This experience was truly one for the books. I am proud of this adventure, that I have done it, and have done it here in my country. But it will not be as fun and as memorable without my dearest friends to do it with me. I miss them so so much in this pandemic especially the two that I did not pull heads on the photo because they can't just go home due to the situation (Dianne on my left lives in Paris and Lea on my right lives in Kuwait). But we never stop praying and communicating often, we believe we'll see each other again, as complete, very soon!
Stevenson the Rafter
Never stop paddling!
Stevenson
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I would love to welcome and invite everyone to join Timeless Thursdays.
Timeless Thursdays is open for anyone who wishes to share old photos or old thoughts that you would like to share as beautiful memories with everyone. This can be from yesterday, a year ago, or something from your grandma's treasure chest.
This runs every Thursday at 12 am (Manila/Perth Time) until Sunday at 11:59 pm (Manila/Perth Time)
It was a day after my Grad School orientation which was 4 hours of commute to and from my hometown. My High School friends have been bugging me all day and night to join them on their trek to the famous volcano, but how will I ever make it without much sleep? I arrived home at around 8 in the evening feeling sick and if I was about to join them, I have to get up at 1 in the morning - Yes, just barely 4 hours of sleep, to climb a volcano! But hey, I said, let's do this!
We left Cavite at around 2 in the morning and waited for other joiners in Quezon City by 4. We left when we were complete. By the way, our group joined an organized tour, TakeFive Outdoors, complete with guides and 4x4 rides that will take us to the jump off point of the trek. the mountain range where Pinatubo is part of stretches to multiple provinces so we arrived at the province of Tarlac to make our way by wheels and by foot to the province of Zambales where the crater is located.
Unusual Landscapes - Am I still in the Philippines?
We rode on our 4x4 vehicles about half an hour before day break. It was amazing because it really feels like a literal "adventure" because we are on the back of these huge jeeps! When the sun started to rise, we were at awe to be on a totally different world! Everything around us is like pictures of the moon! There's lahar in just everywhere! Our guide told us that just three decades ago, everything there were covered with lush greens and sadly, large communities of people who were buried alive by the massive eruption.
Four hours of sleep and a volcano to climb. Wore my 21K Finisher shirt as a driving force.
We crossed a lot of streams and huge rocky drifts but our energies and excitement are sky high due to the beauty of the unusual landscape that surrounded us. I have been to more than 40 of the Philippines' 81 provinces including amazing spots like Palawan and Boracay but personally, this is the most beautiful place in my country I have ever been to so far. But that's not yet it.
Strike a pose! (Photo by TakeFive Outdoors)
What we love about the tour group that we joined, TakeFive Outdoors, is that we also have a Photographer with us. One thing Filipinos love are pictures not just of landscapes but yes, of ourselves. Well I for one but especially my friends! It's not about being conceited or vanity, we just really treasure moments that much, especially me who admittedly is a very sentimental person.
Moving on, we stopped by this large patch of lahar and sand to take more pictures and interact with the locals that were there. It was a very heart-warming moment to be able to bond even for about a half-hour with the Aeta kids. The Aetas are one (and actually the first) of the three original tribes (Aetas or Aborigines, Indonesians, and Malay) that first came to the Philippines during the prehistoric times. With their interactions to travelers passing by, they speak good Tagalog and English aside from their native Kapampangan. They are very sweet kids and I really felt blessed at the beginning of this journey because of them.
Found new friends! God bless these sweet kids
I bid goodbye to my friends and we went back to the jeeps to bring us further into the jump off point. We had to go down and leave the jeeps behind because the streams are starting to get deeper, rocks much bigger, and entries become narrower.
Welcome to Mount Pinatubo
These might look like a welcome point but we already walked a good half an hour to reach this part. Imagine how far it would have taken the earlier travelers since the volcanic eruption of 1991 that displaced tons of lava and rocks around the area and even as far as 34 kilometres in the air and 480 kilometres across reaching our neighboring countries despite us being an archipelago.
After 500 years and more of being dormant, it killed a lot of families and burried cities and towns that were around it, including the US Military bases in Subic and Olongapo which was then left by the Americans after the eruption. Until now, when heavy rains and typhoons pass by Central Luzon, the lahar that was left still posts as a big danger to the nearby areas.
Who's excited to see the Crater? (Photo by TakeFive Outdoors)
From this signage that you see, it says that at my age, it will take us about 18 minutes more. But behold, me and my friends reached it after more than 30 minutes! HAHA We are even worse than the Senior Citizen rate that was posted on the signage! Well maybe if you are a triathlete and people like those, then really, it might be possible to reach it on the listed duration.
Path from the terrace park to the Crater Lake
Truly, the views will fill up all the efforts and sweat that one would take. It was a bit sad though because one of our friends twisted her ankle and she decided to just stay at a hut where people rest at along the way to the crater. The aeta family there were very nice and even gave her pain medicines. Look at that view! That very lake you see is the gateway to all the destructive materials from the earth's inside that killed and displaces families across our islands.
The gang! Me, my High School Friends, and their three nieces (Photo by TakeFive Outdoors)
It was a beautiful moment to be there in such an amazing spot on earth. I kept thanking the Lord every time I look at the crater lake not just for the beautiful view but for reminding us that His power through nature should never be underestimated. And of course, I thank my dear friends who I shared this amazing journey with! Always an amazing memory with these people. Cheers to 26 years of friendship, that's 85% of my life!
After about an hour of appreciating the views and taking pictures, we started our descent. It was a lot faster than the hike up of course but it's an amazing feel because even if we just used the same trail back, we discovered new things on the opposite direction of things, also because we passed it by on different times of the day.
At the lakeshore. (Photo by TakeFive Outdoors)
The eruption of the Mount Pinatubo has been devastating to millions of Filipinos at the beginning of the 90's. I just turned one year old and a few days that day when noontime turned into night. For me as a Filipino, it is a timeless memory of sadness and grief but also a timeless story of nature, of reality, and of hope. And for me as a citizen of this life, it is a living memorial of something so scary and something very beautiful at the same time, which makes me respect nature a million times more.
Watch the First Part of my Pinatubo VLOG
Pinatubo is a living memorial of what used to be and of what is now, and at the same time, a reminder that one that is dead can be given a new life again - a new beginning for a devoured society and also a wake-up to a sleeping, deadly volcano.
Never Stop Climbing!
Stevenson
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I would love to welcome and invite everyone to join Timeless Thursdays.
Timeless Thursdays is open for anyone who wishes to share old photos or old thoughts that you would like to share as beautiful memories with everyone. This can be from yesterday, a year ago, or something from your grandma's treasure chest.
This runs every Thursday at 12 am (Manila/Perth Time) until Sunday at 11:59 pm (Manila/Perth Time)
This Timeless Thursday, let me take you to a time five years ago, when all 8 of us best friends are still together at the same town and at the same country, travelling together on a beautiful southern island here in our island nation. If you have been a frequent on my blog, you'll remember my post about my best friends. You can read more about us here in Timeless Thursdays 4.
They have been my classmates since Kindergarten up until High School - R-Jay, Judy, Myrcel, Lea, Dianne, Ivy and Faith - at first you might think we all chose each other but just to think, we really had no say about us being friends because it was time and fate that let us stay together in the same classroom! But, kidding aside, we all love (and hate) each other so much, especially even now that we are all on our 30's. Yikes, I was the last of us 8 that turned 30 just a couple of weeks ago.
All eight of us went on a long and amazing journey together across the heart of Mindanao island, the second largest island in the country which is also the name of the region or islands tat includes all other smaller islands around it. Our first stop was the island province of Camiguin where the people are friendly, views are magical and beaches are phenomenal!
Just about a five to ten minute boat ride from the island's coast is White Island which is a sandbar lined up just across the Island born of Fire. It was truly a beautiful morning that day as we were the very first ones on that stretch of white sand in the middle of pristine blue waters. Here are some of our pictures taken at the Sandbar.
We were first at the island, no person to take our photo, glad my friend Rjay brought his GoPro
I asked them to wear something white so we can have good pictures but it turned out to be more than good! We can surely use these pictures to bring back millions of memories not just of this trip but the happiness and joy of our friendship that started since we all knew how to read and write.
I will forever be grateful to God for giving me these wonderful siblings. People who I will surely take with me until my final days.
Do you have best/long-time friends too? Where and when did you meet them?
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I would love to welcome and invite everyone to join this new Linky that I thought of starting - Timeless Thursdays. (Bear with me for any short-comings, this is my first link ever)
Timeless Thursdays is open for anyone who wishes to share old photos or old thoughts that you would like to share as beautiful memories with everyone. This can be from yesterday, a year ago, or something from your grandma's treasure chest.
This runs every Thursday at 12 am (Manila/Perth Time) until Monday the same time (12 am)
Lockdown has been semi-lifted here in the Philippines but yes, not because it's safe already but to prioritize the economy and the businesses. Sadly, this is not what most people take of it and they started to gather round outside even if it's clearly unsafe yet and the numbers are not getting any lower. So I still stay at home, for 66 days now to be exact, without leaving our gates. Thanks to my brother who gathers our supplies from the outside world. And with all this time, I surely miss a lot of people, especially my best friends.
I have been blessed to have a lot of friends that are true to me and very caring and tested through out the years. But the closest ones I have aside from my college friends are who I call my Life Long friends. because we literally are life-long friends since we have all been classmates since Kindergarten until High School. We are a group of 8, 7 classmates since kinder - RJay, Judy, Stevenson, Myrcel, Lea, Faith, and Ivy - then we were joined by our best friend Dianne who moved to our school after Elementary graduation.
2002 - A photo of us seven during 6th grade
They will probably kill me when they saw that photo. We all parted ways during college because we took different degrees and went to different universities but we still kept in touch at times but not as much as when we all graduated college when we started to spend more time together again.
2010 - Dinner at Tagaytay with our best friend Ferdie
When we all started working and had our own jobs, we usually get together every other weekend. We are usually joined by our best friend Ferdie who was our class Valedictorian and the best cook in our group. We are the kind of friends who are not into drinking or clubbing, we all just want to eat and eat and eat! And through the years we also started to travel together around the country.
2015 - Camiguin, Philippines
2017 - Notice how we maintain our positions :)
Two of the group have married already and started their families but that does not stop us from making time for each other as much as we can be complete. Ivy got married last 2015 and now lives in Mindanao, the largest island on the south of our country, with her husband and two daughter. Faith got married last 2018 and now lives in Cebu another major island in the central Philippines with her husband Marvin. Lea flew to the Middle East to work there as a nurse, and Dianne was relocated to Paris by her company.
Our 2019 Photoshoot
The one above was the last time we were altogether, January of last year. When Ivy was home from Mindanao, Lea was home from Kuwait, Faith has not yet moved to Cebu, and Dianne was still fixing her papers for Paris. My heart will always be happy whenever I think about all of us together again, they are my Home. We would have been this summer actually because Lea and Dianne were planning to get here in August if not for the virus and Faith can always fly here as long as we tell her in advance and all seven of us would have flown to Mindanao to complete our 8 at Ivy's.
It's very sad that I know, they all want to be home as well to be with their families here but they just can't. So last Monday, I thought of singing another song, this time dedicating it for all the Filipinos abroad who will trade anything just to be here and back home in our country they call home. I hope you all would like it, we all long for home.
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I would love to welcome and invite everyone to join this new Linky that I thought of starting - Timeless Thursdays. (Bear with me for any short-comings, this is my first link ever)
Timeless Thursdays is open for anyone who wishes to share old photos or old thoughts that you would like to share as beautiful memories with everyone. This can be from yesterday, a year ago, or something from your grandma's treasure chest.
This runs every Thursday at 12 am (Manila/Perth Time) until Wednesday the same time (12 am)
