'green' and bear with me

uhm.. this post is supposedly dedicated for our hk trip last week, but i am still so damn tired from all the walking and "hiking" we did that i literally cant think about it now.. ill write about our hk trip once my head clears up... anyway, i uploaded pics from the said trip here. enjoy!

okay... my heads all cleared up... so here goes. hongkong in a word is... exciting. their tourism boards catchline "live it, love it. honkong" is true.. you really do live it and love it in hongkong. everyday is an exciting day for us. and although i have been there before, we went to places that ive never been to before. so it really is worth it to be back. one thing new of course is that i was with my friend instead of my family, so we went out on our last night. which was fitting in a way. we were celebrating our last night and for the success of hk '07... haha..so what next guys? ny '08? haha.. uhmm.. we'll have to think about that.... hk disneyland wasnt even born yet when i first came in hk and it was fun to be a kid again. i was the oldest in the group and yet i was the one who did all the laughing, the jumping and pointing at all those characters i have loved as a kid. weird. anyway, we also went to oceanpark, the peak, watched the festival of lights. (which, by the way, is done every 8 and 10 pm nightly) how expensive is that! and how cool! hmm... where else did we go? oohhh, shopping.. for a trip that supposedly was on a tight budget, wherein we computed every singel dollar we should be bringing, we managed to shop alot. we went to mongkok, granville, tsim tsam po and all the usual haunts of shopping. haha.. weird right..

the peopl are cool! they dress up daily. you wont see a single person who dresses, should i say, normally. everyone is dressed to the nines. whether they're going to work, to school, or even just to shop, they look as if they're always going to a party. even the guys look good.. and they're always carrying a tote bag... while the girls carry purses... hmm.. role reversal? anyway, its all good.. they really carry themselves well. i was seriously considering buying a bag myself, but then to actually use it in the philippines... haha.. nevermind! i would never hear the end of it when i use a tote bag here.

hongkong '07 was a success... it couldnt have been any better. although the rain forced us to change our plans for the whole week, it was so worth it. we got so do so much more than what we originally planned. thanks to all those who made it memorable and to aissa's mom, thanks for letting us stay in your place.. haha... tita! we love you! aissa, rc, steph, martin where next? haha...

i have been at the top of the world and gone back. well, not really, just the top of probably one of the highest point in luzon, and believe me, it was unbelievable.all those adjectives and words other people use to describe a thing/place of beauty aren't enough to exactly depict and describe the grandness and beauty of the place. this is truly one of those things that you have to see to believe. the trip there, even though long and full of hardships (oh, the drama!), was sooooo worth it! and though it seemed like our luck ran out on us when we got to our resthouse, it turned it out for the better because we were offered a better one instead... better 'coz we were the only ones there (we practically lived off the living room and balcony which wrapped the house) and because of the better facilities/accomodations. the trek too was awesome, tiring but awesome nonetheless.... it was so worth the trek up and even more so down... we got an almost 360 view of the whole mountain/terraces and even went down on some of them... talk about a once in a lifetime moment. after a quick but much needed rest we went off to to the waterfalls, which, if you've got any sense of direction, would probably be at the foot of the mountains, so another trek downwards was in order and what a sight it was... the waterfalls was high and the water was freezing, enough to entice us, the weary travelers....it was a good swim, albeit the shivering wont stop long after you've gotten out of the water. the hike back up to our inn was through a different route as it ran through the village. it gave us a more clear-cut view into their lives and their daily activities.

the inn we lived in was another thing, the eight of us bonded over meals and the games we played to keep us awake at night. it also made us closer to some other people in the room. the view was excellent... we had a wraparound porch which had a great view of the rice terraces and of the mountains, which was almost always covered in fog.... we also had fun singing uber old songs... and drank rice wine on the last night of batad....

it was also the first time i rode on top of a jeepney and it wasnt really a big deal at all, except of course, the fact that there weren't any straps to hold us in, there six of us cramped up in a very tight space, and the road was very bumpy and full of potholes, so nope it wasnt a very big deal at all...

the banaue hotel was great. although our room had a lot of flaws (the phone wasnt working and our view was of the parking lot) we had a blast in it. isaiah, bryan, and i shared a room while the five girls shared another and we kept dashing to each others rooms to crash and have fun. the hiking group plus some other people were with us as we drank the night away. we talked about our lives and the problems were facing right now.

the trip was expensive to say the very least, what with almost all of our money going to food expenses and take home gifts, but it was all so worth it. the tour guide we made friends with, the basic accomodations inn, the trek, the hike, the cultural show, and even the bonding of friends, made this memorable trip, even more so.

video of batad... pointless video, i know.. but still it was a great sight to behold...batad/banaue pics.

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i also finished uploading pictures from mexico and las vegas so those folders are already complete.

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life. just when you thought everything is running smoothly, a problem comes in to make it rough.

last week, our class went to vigan and laoag for our humanities class, and what a trip it turned out to be. of course it was totally expected because our prof in that subject was totally weird and so out of it, the trip was bound to be disastrous. anyhow, the trip started out smoothly enough, with our class getting the lousiest bus ever (cramped seats, small compartments) and a driver who probably trained to be a formula one racecar driver. i swear, he overtakes at curves and blind spots and drives like crazy. the bus ride going to vigan/laoag was pretty okay. save for one too many stopovers at 30 minute intervals each. hello!?!? as if people our age need to go to the restroom very often.

from then on, it all started going downhill. our breakfast sucked. it consisted of overcooked tapa and sinangag and bland coffee, plus, we were there like 2 hours earlier than the scheduled time, and they still weren't able to feed us all. the hell, weren't they informed that we were coming? after that we went to a small weaving "factory" expecting to see women weaving cloth, unfortunately, nobody was there. oh we were able to see the cloths and all the machine used for weaving, but weren't we supposed to see people actually working? isn't that what we paid for? another thing that pissed me off that day was the way the "tour guide" talked or didn't talk. she didn't tell us anything about the place we were visiting, why its important, its significance, anything at all.

what was nice about the whole trip was that we get to visit a lot of the historical churches done during the spanish era. did you know that we have at least 8 heritage sites in the Philippines, while other countries have none, or at the very least one? cool noh?! architectural trivia that i bet, only a few people know. bu then again, if the only time alotted for each church was 15 minutes, then how can you savor it and really experience its glory?

okay, aside from soaking in all the spanish and ilocano culture, we were required (of course) to stage a fashion show. i of course am the director with my old friends acting as stage managers and production head. it was so cool, because we already knew each others strengths and weaknesses because of all the times we did this from way before and because we know that our ideas click. (good job aissa and cha!?!) we named it "HARANA sa AZOTEA" and it was grand. i think it was our grandest work ever. not counting of course our separate high school activities. we got 6 designers and 15 models. of course no show is perfect, but the hitches were so small it wasn't really seen by the audiences. and as part of our deal, the prof willingly gave us our well deserved 1.00, as she promised. after all the hard work, all of us went to the pool and drank the night away.

the next morning, the day we were supposed to go home, dawned bright and early ( awake at 3:30am). we got in the bus, went to some more historical sites for 15 minutes each and went on to the other sites... all in all, the time we spent visiting the sites and musuems totaled only about 2 and a half hours. our stay at the resort about 6 hours and the rest of the 72 hour trip was spent inside the bus. yep, the bus is where it all happened. that's were we ate, slept, drank, vomited, sang, laughed and bonded.

though the trip was not what most of us expected, i guess it was worth it, because the class bonded like it has never done before.