Getting around

This is a re-post from RobotKaBa? Posted Mar 13, 2011


“Robot ka ba?  Robot ka ba?  Robot ba kayo?  Robot ba kayo? Ako hinde...” -Aizo

This might inspire you to consider spending a portion of your savings to travel.  Most of these trips didn’t cost that much.  I made use of promo fares, a little research and a few favors from relatives and friends.   I’ll be grading places with asterisk, * being the lowest and *** as highly recommended.

November 2010: Singapore***, my Aunt needed to get out of the country so we accompanied her to Singapore.    A cousin offered us a place to stay and we availed of the 50% discount promo of Cebu Pacific plane fare.  We met with a number of our friends that treated us to chow thus minimizing food cost.  Here are places that we went to; you might want to visit them when in Singapore.
Universal Studios at Sentosa*** would bring out the child in you.
Siloso Beach at Sentosa*, there is nothing much to do here unless you want to hit the water. 
Luge and Skyride at Sentosa*** was a surprise, I didn’t expect that I’ll enjoy carting downhill that much, but the tagline was really true, once is never enough!
Bugis Street Singapore** is a place where you can shop with lesser guilt.  It offers about anything that is cheap.
Esplanade and the Merlion Park**, you wouldn’t want to miss taking a photo with the Merlion here.   It brings luck and business to the country, positioned according to feng shui as I recalled during a city tour I joined years back.
Flyer at Singapore* is a gigantic Ferry’s wheel located at the city.  The ride cost a lot but in fairness you’ll see the city on a different perspective, accompanied by a personal radio guide that discusses historical events and facts about places and buildings around the metro.
Suntec  City* and any other malls that surrounds the city looks typically the same to me.  They each have their own gimmicks because almost all of the train stations have its own mini mall you can go and explore.  Suntec City has a Koi garden and the Fountain of Wealth where it is believed that’ll give you luck when circled three times while touching the water.
Makansutra Gluttons Bay, Singapore*** offers the local cuisine I’ve been craving for.  Bing Mayores a former team mate in PTC brought us here and treated us to the local Satay (skewered meats) and cereal prawn.  A two thumbs up for us foreigners.
Clarke Quay** is where the night life is.  A couple of local beer, a Filipino waitress, crowded path ways and watching people riding the reverse bungee G-MAX resulted to a good night indeed.
Lau Pa Sat*** is a market street that we went to with RJ Juan a former PTC employee.  He treated us to local dinner ordering my wife’s favorite spicy crabs.  On a side note, Tapa King has a stall here in Lau Pa Sat.
Somerset Area**, former PTC employees Ann Yamat and Basil Damaso treated me and my wife to Indian food and coffee at this area.  It was not the place, but the company that made the afternoon great.

December 2010: Amana Water Park **, Pandi, Bulacan was our destination for our 9th anniversary.  My wife and I make it a habit to celebrate our anniversary either spending a night at a hotel or a resort.  Amana was under renovation that time in preparation for summer so most of the facilities are still in the works.  The Water Park is full of statues (famous cartoon characters) so we enjoyed touring the resort.  Nothing beats a relaxing place with good service to celebrate an occasion with family.

Mt Pinatubo**, a college buddy invited me to join a trip with hisbrothers  that requires riding a 4x4 vehicle for less than an hour and trekking for an hour and a half.  I’m fat and an amateur when it comes to outdoor activities like these so imagine my effort.  All I can say is “kinaya naman”.  The destination is worth all the panting and back aches I might say.  Don't believe the excessive price on the internet, as a baseline it cost me 1.5k for everything excluding the travel fare going to Tarlac.

Tagaytay Food Trip** I won’t bother discussing this.  I think most of you have been there and done the food trip thing.  We spent Christmas and New Year celebrating in Canyon Woods with our “balikbayan” cousins so food was really overflowing and free.

January 2011: Boracay***, my Filipino-Australian friend called me up and we formulated this trip late 2010.  We missed out on Cebu Pacific’s promo since we have a fixed date, although I manage to catch a cheap hotel reservation so I can call it quits.  Bora is a place of new experiences for us, we did helmet diving, Jet Ski, Para-gliding, island hoping and beach bumming at its best.  An advice is to avoid peak seasons and search for reasonable priced hotels and restaurants.

March 2011: Over a couple of beers and a lousy order of nachos, my office friends and I decided to take a break from work and go on a trip outside the metro.  I haven’t visited our province for quite some time now so I suggested we go to Marinduque***.
Malbog Sulfur Hot Springs* has skin healing powers as locals promote it.  The smell of sulfur is unpleasant and the water that came from the volcanic Malindig was not clean nor clear at all.  Just for the heck of it we went on and swam the pool.  You won’t notice the smell if you get accustomed to it, not!
Marinduque Hot Springs***, we went here after our Malbog adventure.  The resort doesn’t really differ to any Pansol hot spring resort, but compared to Malbog this is way much cooler (or hotter).  
Bulusukan falls* in Buenavista, Marinduque was not really what I expected it to be.  From Dalahican port you’ll see tourism posters about it so we pursued to go there.  For me the falls was not worth the hour hike yet the experience was all about nature tripping so we just made the best out of the experience.
Tres Reyes**, from afar the island looks promising but when we got there the beach is covered with white corals and not fine sand.  Maybe it would need a century more for the coral to be fine as sand.  We discovered an area where opposite waves come to meet, I guess this is the best place within the island.  The view of the Marinduque island from Tres Reyes was breath taking, seeing the mountains as if it was living, a wow view on my book.
Boac City** offered my companions products that are unique to Marinduque.  They enjoyed shopping at the public dry market for arrowroot cookies, pastillas, bibinka, puto, suman and other rice products.  Visited the old church and fancied products from souvenir shops around the city. 
Not that great if you’d sum it all up.  The locations perhaps, but if you’d consider the clear skies, fresh air, early morning walks on the beach, silence during the night (beyond 7pm) and the carefree feeling for the whole day that would be more than great if you ask me.

Hope you learned a thing or two from my write-up, so start packing those bags and try to explore Philippine provinces and neighboring Asian countries.  “Tara na, robot ka ba?”