Travels

Hi there!

I have never met a soul who does not want to travel. A lot of people would want to see places and faces, experience cultures and norms, and most especially give one’s palate a whole lot of interesting treats. I myself love to travel. So if I really have the chance to see places, I take it and enjoy it. Whether visiting a local food joint at a nearby town, visiting relatives in the province, driving for about an hour for coffee and raisin bread, getting a massage two hours away from where I live, or just missing that coconut pie and driving back to my previous university – these things and more are travels for me. My mind travels with the scenic views outside my car window, my spirits travel with the clouds above my head, and my smiles fly in the air and hope any one of them will infect another soul. This is traveling for me. Smiling to a stranger, asking them to take your photo, trying a completely strange local food, stepping on its soil, observing the local faces, making a conversation with a by-stander, and ultimately, trying to be a local is the main purpose of my travels. The only thing that I like to be tagged as foreigner about when traveling is how a true foreign traveler can be really keen and interested in his strange surroundings. Having the heart and the mind open enough to accept another’s customs and traditions, having the discipline to respect these customs and traditions, being “game” in trying what the locals are actually having – music, food, clothing, and even sometimes their shelter. Traveling for me is trying to blend in. Traveling is amusing in everything that is coming your way. There is no bad experience in traveling – that’s what’s good about it. Everything becomes a fond memory you will miss or you might laugh about later on.

I particularly love local travels, not necessarily big trips but just simple, convenient visits and short drives. Why, there you go, I just mentioned why. It’s fast, convenient, and short. You don’t have to plan for it for a long time for it to materialize. It can be a spur-of-the-moment thing. You can just take the keys and drive south for a Sunday mass then have lunch or dinner in the vicinity. Simple. No frills, no calling-in-sick dramas, no fuss. Just drive and go. You don’t even have to prepare anything, not even a changing shirt if it’s just a one-day trip. It’s just like visiting a high-school friend and going back home later during the day. The best thing about short, local travels is that you can’t get enough of them. You go home and you feel like you need another day, and another day, and another day. It teases you and urges you to come back for some more. And you will come back for some more because first and foremost you didn’t feel bad losing a lot of money on it. Like I said, it’s just like a simple visit to an old friend. What you shelled out, if ever you did, did not do a lot of damage. Local travels end up being more fun because of the excitement you had on the way there – when you just woke up and you thought you wanted to take a swim in the ocean and bathe in the sand, and then you took some shirts, towel, sunscreen and your keys. Then you drove to your best bud’s house and woke him up too and told him you’re going to the beach. The lack of planning makes it really exciting. I have friends like that. Karen and I are like that. We live about 45 kilometers apart so what we do is meet in our favorite mall and then take one of our cars and just drive 65kilometers away for coffee, for snacks, or just for some pictures! Mike, Joel, and Rico would take you to a little bit farther than that. They will take you to a couple-day’s trip to a beach at least 100 kilometers away. My local travels with friends and family are always fun. I love taking my kids to nearby towns and cities for golf practice, for some halo-halo, lunch or dinner, or for a swim. They are a handful so short trips are always appropriate. ;-)
Travels abroad are also fun of course. There’s nothing like discovering for yourself places, cultures, food, and faces you just read in books or you just see on TV. There’s nothing like going home and be a living testimony of another’s customs and practices. Seeing for yourself what you just used to hear gives you a boost that is hard to describe in words. But whether you like it or not, you feel like you have gained some knowledge more than what books and blogs say. And you actually did gain true knowledge from your foreign experience. I believe I have already mentioned particularly liking (loving!) Shanghai. I love walking in the big streets of Shanghai. Jinxiu Lu will never be strange to my feet. I can also remember having a very short trip to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) a good while back. I love that place too. I like how simple but how exciting it could be in there. I love the scooters and checking out things riding one. You will never have an idle time in Saigon. There will always be things to do, food to eat, and streets to walk on. I have had other Asian trips but they are so long ago I don’t think they are still relevant. ;-p

Another kind of travel would be traveling from home – watching the travel channel! Oh how I love shows pertaining to travel and food. And for someone like me, the travel channel would be enough to satisfy my curiosity. And if fate and luck allow it, sooner or later perhaps I can see for it myself with my own loved ones too!

Shanghai Nostalgia

Hi there!

Since I have started updating this site I have just been on a roll! There are tons of things I want to post and just want to get out of my chest - and my mind. :-)

I just want to share my nostalgia of Shanghai for at least four weeks now. I was fortunate enough to make about four trips to Shanghai, China. One for about ten days, one for over a week, one for less than a week and another for a few days. My first Shanghai trip was in September 2007 i think. Or was it October? Anyway, I was enchanted by the place. You cannot even communicate decently but you definitely will not feel lost or even the possibility of it. And I felt like I want to get lost to the streets of Shanghai. The people were nice, the streets are wide and clean, food is neverending, massage is everywhere, supermarkets are abundant (i love supermarkets that's why i mentioned that), and the feeling of being there is just very warm for me. I have been to the Pudong area of Shanghai. And these things i have mentioned about the place may not strike any one of you but for me it does because I came from a place where the major roads are crammed up and don't even look like highways. Where even the Central Business District could be unsafe and not really clean and green. Where the people are selectively friendly - although my fellowmen are known to be hospitable people. But I guess nowadays they aren't anymore - except when you are a foreigner in our soil! I came from a place where food is abundant but are devoid of the "tastiness" or even the enthusiasm that should have went with it while it was prepared. You should go home to the province to your mom and pop or their old folks to be able to find a good meal that was prepared with love. It is just really disappointing sometimes because our race is not like that. Our culture is not like that. We are not only nice people, we have a lot of skills and talents that should be used correctly because we have so much potential. And all these frustrations were compensated to me by Shanghai, China. After my first trip, my heart was literally brokenhearted having to leave and head home. I liked Shanghai so much I wished me and my children could live there, even for just a few years. Now i have less or no chance at all in going back there, i even feel much brokenhearted.

I will miss walking for half an hour to buy some goodies at the supermarket, all the green tea ice cream I could have, all the green tea goodies - biscuits, candies, chips, gum, etc., the shopping, the haggling, the parks and kids. The spinach bun i love sooooo much, the KFC New Orleans sandwich, their egg flan at KFC or egg pie was it, the noodles and all the mushrooms you can find, the e-bikes, the mini-vans, the trees, the huge Century Park, the buildings, the apartment complex, the Spring Festival, and the winter. I really believe I can live in Shanghai.

Now, it just leaves me its memories - fond Shanghai memories and uncertainties of seeing it again.

*-* M E *-*

Hi there!

Here I am finally making time to "write" something on this webpage. If not for my Grad School Professor who required us to put up an own personal site, or something to that matter. She would have accepted a personal page on a social networking site, but i am not a member of any. Though I know it would have been easier setting up a membership on a social networking site, I just opted on updating this blog site and gladly thought of it as an opportunity for me to really be a part of the new generation. Keeping with the times can sometimes cost you some effort and time right?

So first of all, I would like to start this off by telling you who I am. Or let's make that What I Am. I am at least a 6-in-1 person. I am first and foremost a mother - I have two children, a boy and a girl who are 8 and 6, respectively. I am also a daughter - of course right? :-) but i am not exactly sure if I am playing this part convincingly. I must admit that I have a lot of baggage when it comes to being a daughter to my parents. Let's leave that for now I guess. One part of me is a Graduate School Student. I am now in my second year of taking up my MBA and I am truly enjoying it. I like all the learning experiences (literally), the discussions, the debates, the dilemma, and the breaks in between classes. Another role I actively (or so i think) play is being a friend. Like I mentioned before, I believe I am a very sociable person. I like being around people, seeing them, even just people-watching and reading their body gestures and what could any of those mean. I like meeting with my friends, having dinner with them, coffee, movies, karaoke, or even just hangin' out in their house and chat the whole day. I am also an employee. There's not much to say about that except that we all have to eat - so i also try to do my part in the employment economics of my country in the best way I know how. I also try my best in being a sensible big sister to my two other siblings. I don't exactly know how I am doing in that area. But i think i'm not doing so bad a job after all. So that's basically me - in six parts. I can sometimes be seven or eight - but playing one role is already too many. Well, that's what makes life looking forward to right?

Like Halo-Halo, life can only be exciting. It has a lot in store for us. There may be ingredients that does not suit our tastes, some we really really like, but at the end of the day - it's the whole package. Those stuff we didn't like if combined with the stuff we really liked wouldn't be so bad after all. Actually, sometimes, the whole Halo-Halo experience wouldn't have been better without the stuff we didn't like in there, correct? In this particular posting, Halo-halo is not just life in general, it's our individual selves - it's me in this particular matter. I am a big bowl of Halo-halo with six different sweet treats in there. It's just a matter of how much of each of the ingredients I want to have in this whole package. But for now, let's just enjoy and actually live life!