Ageing gracefully

Meet Lola Nolly, she is the only living survivor amongst my late grandma's siblings from my mother side. I always make it a point to drop by her house and say a quick hello. I am always happy to see her. I used to "crash" in their house when I was job hunting in Manila some 16 years ago.

I was in elementary when during a family party I overheard one relative mentioned that the secret to her youthful look is due to religious usage of Chanel products. She reminds me of Japanese ladies who doesn't seem to have an inch of wrinkle showing at all. When we did our beso beso she still smelled fresh and that she still carry an air of elegance, which I think I don't stand the chance of gaining one. Would you believe that she is turning 90 next year? Our parting words were, that She hopes to still see me/us next time around when that would be I do not know.

Nice catch up

I had a chance to meet up with Gaylene, the last time we had a tete' a tete' was almost 4 years ago. We were classmates in high school. She is also a Nurse. What I admire about her is her dedication and work ethic. She has decided to stay in the Philippines and has made her mark in the Nursing field. We just basically discussed about life in general, reminisce about old times, about getting old err, rather mature and our hopes and aspirations for ourselves. We have so many things in common, could it be that because she is the same as me when it comes to Principles in life? We had to do the closing remarks at Red Ribbon, reluctantly got up we hoped

that the next time we see each other we shall be happily content in all corners of our life.

Something new

Now that I have tried such activities as ziplining and a bit of rock climbing, I kind of like the idea of being an adrenaline junkie. However, it also goes to show that I am indeed so unfit. When we finished venturing into the unknown crevices of the cave, I was panting and sweating like there was no tomorrow! I even had a bout of panic attack when at one point the guides told us we need to squeeze in to a tiny rugged hole in order to get through the other side and the other one was to go up stairless and use the rope as a handle. But boy did it feel good.

Now for the ziplining, I would say it is a 20 seconds of a free fall feeling. I was screaming from the word go till midpoint. It was a liberating experience!

Gem of Palawan

Meet Beth Gales, she was one of our tour guides when we explored Palawan. If only the rest of the Philippines promotes the way Puerto Princesa does it, perhaps we would have a better representation globally. Anyway going back to Beth, So I did a bit of enquiry about her, she has been doing this job for the past year, she used to be in the hotel business side. I could sense her passion and dedication and she truly believes in what they promote in Palawan, which is eco tourism. We met her on day one for the city tour, then again on day three for our Honda bay adventure. I was gobsmacked to find out that part of their job was to prepare our lunch at the beach. While we were busy snorkelling she was busy grilling pork barbeque, tuna fillets, king prawn and prepared salted eggs salad and aubergine, mum bought fresh blue crabs and requested for it to be steamed. We had a feast and everyone was happy with our picnic. I admired how they localised the system in order for each barangay to benefit from tourism industry. This is my first time to do this locally so I wonder if this kind of thing is also being done somewhere else. Next adventure: Bohol - TBA lol!

Nature at its best

last minute blip

So I went to Mac shop and had my password reset (Oo na umarya na naman ako!) when I got a call from my colleague who was getting nowhere in trying to find a missing client's folder. She was at her wits end. In the midst of our conversation regarding the missing folder, I had a sudden apparition and gut instinct that I must have had inadvertently picked it up amongst my folders and kept them in my locker( meaning it will be stuck there for a month and I will be totally screwed big time if I dont go back and try to find it myself!). I thought I bid farewell to work yesterday so I went back, Taddaah! Indeed I was right, the folder was merrily squeezed in amongst my belongings. I seriously need to chill, oh and that means when I arrive in Puerto Princessa by the beach, then could I really say I can truly have a proper sip of pina collada!

Now I can have a chillax! Well, Until OPODO ruined it BIG TIME!

It has been 18 months since I have been home. I am already anticipating the long haul cattle journey. This has been furtherly aggravated when Opodo texted me the other day saying there had been a major change with my flight details. As soon as I got home I immidiately tried to log-on to Macmate and see what this extremely vexing thing is all about. Surely there's a mistake somewher, well trying to convince myself. I must have been on "work mode" still because I tried logging on with my work password. And so, the battle begins in trying to get into my impenetrable fortress. For the nth time despite many attempts, my Mac turned its back on me, FFS it wouldnt let me in. I was so Frustrated and it was already almost 1 AM, I turned to Android, finally I saw that my connecting inbound flight from doha to heathrow will be over 12 and a half freaking HOURS. How the hell did this happen? I booked this as early as February. I thought I was going to have a burst aneurysm when I read this. I had to recheck, put my reading glasses on and then really stared at it for almost dunno 5 minutes. This is the most dreaded thing that I really really abhore! Ho ho ho Opodo hasn't heard the last of me yet, or is it Qatar Airways to blame?