Dapitan

(Late Post)

I'm sort of posting all at once since I haven't done so the time just after the trips happened.

Last August, we went somewhere down the country. What I loved about the place is that everything's cheap, the people are so accommodating and kind, it isn't polluted, the people are disciplined (eg. they don't smoke, they don't litter in the streets, etc), and it's a really very beautiful place!

Here are a few snaps from Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte:

Traveled with this girl. That mini structure behind (at the left of) her is the mini airport of Dipolog. Really cool!

Yes, rides have days off. Cool, right?

*craves* MARAAAANG. This is among what I miss the most. You can buy this there for very low prices. It's just difficult to transport this one because it's a very delicate fruit. I am so thankful I have lotsa free of this everyday I was there!

Flower power. Really very lovely sight in front of a local church there.

Halo-halove you! (They have really yummy halohalo's there!)

That's the way

Where to go

Locals in the afternoon

Monument of Dr. Rizal by the Dapitan beach. This is actually a very historical place bec this is where Dr. J. Rizal (Pinoy national hero) landed when he was exiled.

Looking for dinner (Yep! I asked him what he was doing)

Restless feet

Calm waters! Layers of waves. I am in love. (Writing this makes me drool for adventures!)

Portrait of a lone wanderer.

*cries* Make me lie here once more

Felt this under my feet while I was dipping my feet. The sun was setting at this time. So much love! Really.

Dapitan beach at its finest. It was surrounded by trees and mini mountains. I am just craving for it once more.

Kid enjoying her freedom. Just because... she should!

I am just so amazed at the vastness of wonders that one is bound and yet to discover. There is just one big planet to explore yet, and I am so happy and feeling free to be starting these adventures at this age. 

Thailand Roadside

(LATE POST)

It's been a while since I last posted travels/mini-travels. Recently, I've been, let's say, traveling for a cause and I am very much blessed and privileged to be seeing so much beauty under the skies, within this planet.

Here are a few photos from our Thailand visit last July. (This is in Chaam specifically. We stayed there for a week for a conference. We were allowed one afternoon to stroll, yay.)

HOTEL

Our side of the hotel

By the pool

SKIES AND SUN

Morning skies. (The hotel we stayed in is by the beach)

Another morning.

  STREET FOODS + MARKET + OTHER ROADSIDE STUFF

Market

Their own kind of a tri-wheeled ride

*craves*

Cotton candies

Fish & Pork barbecues. What I love best about these is that they have fruits!

Roads

Jeepie

*craves again*

Exotic!!

Yep, I tried it. I tasted one insect for each kind, and paid the vendor 5 baht for all of it (haha)

Massage from the little finned friends. It tickles at the first few minutes! Really fun.

Strolling like a lady (ehem)

Thailand is the first country I've visited beyond the Philippines, and we had a pleasant stay there. I wasn't able to take photos of the food (I can't understand why among the 7 days I spent there I didn't have the sense even for just a meal to do so), and I am so sorry I didn't because the favorite thing I've ever experienced from the Thailand culture is their food! Really. They had really very delicious and spicy recipes.

Hooray!!

An afternoon into space

via

And for another moment in my life, I crave again. For the saltwater kissing my feet, for the dirt and dust hugging me, for all the places and spaces I could run and walk along, I crave. There is this gentle impatience within my heart that wants and wants and screams for something else, for the things that are rather and the things that would be. I try to hush these screaming desires with the silence I pose in the surface. While the world talks and goes about, I contemplate my life and regulate the noise within my system. I have to shut it up right now or it would pain me to think of the things that are yet. I just want for things to happen, for them to really happen. In a way that everyday is a new set of skies, and every minute is an unfamiliar street. I want to see more and I want to go beyond beyond. 

All I am right now is another speck of a dreamer under the navy skies. All I can be sure of right now is that I am uncertain of what will be, and that I will never know what's about to conspire until it unfolds. All I can do is live in the moment and let myself take the minutes into slow and sure strides. Tomorrow is patiently waiting. And all I am doing is towards it. Patience has not always been all I am, but it's all I could be as of now. 

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Impatience is not all the source of my staring-into-nothing spree this afternoon. There is something that makes me think. Maybe it is the ghosts of the mistakes and failures, of the misses and wrongs, of all the things ugly and sad that I've ever encountered. I don't know, but I ended up too doped by these things unknown that I don't wanna delve into anything interesting. Is it cradling this uninteresting and boring feeling that I am currently having what I am doing right now? Unsure of anything really as of the moment. 

I don't even know if I want to pause the clock or speed by to the future awaiting. I understand nothing, and I can hardly translate to myself these weird, lapsing heartbeats. Why am I so up in the nothingness that I find no life in this afternoon? And right now, I am approaching midnight. And all these minutes I let pass without proper shepherding of the time. This is quite disturbing---the feeling of emptiness and nothingness---but what have I to do? It may be because I want a lot of things right now or may be because I am trying to keep myself at rest from all the chaos in the world, that I have to listen to my own chaos, tat which is within me. I don't know. Theories, theories, theories. We have so much of them I can't indulge the world with another set of theories. Anyway, I was hoping that writing these would help me somehow. As if I could vent the emotions into this writing machine. 

-------

What could I do? What could I hope for? My life is stuck in between. Between the feeling of too much life and blood and the feeling of emptiness and hunger, between the feeling of rage and music and the feeling of quiet and silence, between the feeling of pride and the feeling of insecurities, between the feeling of confidence and the feeling of uncertainty. I am a lot of things. And I am mostly unsettled. I hope in the One who has an eye for what has to come and an eye that reaches the depths of souls. I look up to Him to fill the emptiness and to still the raging desires. Because my humanness demands and demands and it is never filled enough. And in all these, I end up hoping. Praying. Trusting. It will soon be. It will be. Soon. 

A Note to the Restless

Dear Me, 

You are feeling excited for the things yet to come. I know that there's some kind of a craving deep within your soul. You want to see more of the world. You want to see more of the oceans. You want to drown and come out alive. 

You want to read more thoughts--thoughts from all these interesting people. You want to read all these ideas from the dead. You want to see the world that once was. You want to unravel the mysteries that will never unfold. 

You want to keep your feet busy. You want to hit the road. You want to hit the skies. You want to witness a series of sunsets and sunrises in front of your very eyes. You want to watch the world while you're moving. 

You want a lot of things. You want to smell the mixture of the sun and the rain. You want to feel midnight and high noon. You want to feel the sand melt with saltwater right under your body. 

Your dreams melt your pain. You forget the pain that has been lingering around your heart. You start to forget the uncertainties that wrapped your thoughts. You now want to break free. You are in awe of reaching the distant. 

And you just can't wait. You just can't breathe. You want it now. But you want it for later. You want to go now. But you are waiting for the right timing.

I tell you, despite all your longings and cravings, be still. 

Be still, my dear. Be still.

The pace is perfect. 

The road has been prepared. 

Be still while you're restless. 

Love, You.

A View From Above

Last 11th of March, our Abnormal Psychology class went to Bataan for a field trip. This is my first field trip with my Psych batchmates and here is how it went...

First, we went to Mt. Samat, because it was along the way, and I thought that if one must go Bataan, they shouldn't miss this mountain. Not just because of its natural and scenic experience, but also its vintage and historical feels. It is a not-so-high mountain that has an altar at some point of it, and then a cross at the most top. Here are some documents!

The class prepping to go up! :)

Mt. Samat was already constructed, so it has been a little touched away from its natural appearance, but still, you can feel your on top when you're climbing it.

The view of the cross from the lower part of the mountain

We're already at the altar! The history and I think that smaller frame somewhere in the middle is a map. I didn't read it though.

Posing with a friend, Wyngard. :) I don't know what that thing behind is. But it feels we're somewhere in the Great Wall. Haha

A mosaic glass art. This one is huge. Actually, three walls of the altar are composed of these glass arts.  It is visible on the latter pictures

Defying the heat with our smiles! We're about to go to the mini museum beside the altar, but it wasn't allowed to take pictures there. Sayang! The vintage pieces in the museum are really cool: rifles, soldier uniforms, US presidents' letters to some Filipino gov't officials, canons, old shoes, etc (stuffs during the Japanese occupation)

Way up!

That's the altar! :D View from halfway to the top

The view of the altar when we're almost at the top

The elevator within that giant cross is stuffed!

Scenic view. Romantiiiiic.

The sculptures are scaredovvvme. The weight of my appeal. Okay, I'm already haggard there from climbing all the way up. The wall behind me is a part of the giant cross.

We're inside the giant cross and we're going up to its arms! Cooool. 

We're in the arms of the giant cross! ITWASSSOOOCOOL UP THERE.

Scenic view from above

This round window (which was so in demand  to us for pictorials) is the other end of the cross' arms.

I'm enjoying the view and the really cool breeze! Mehe. The feels is like your in Eiffel Tower. I don't know tho, because never been to Paris. But the major effect of the giant cross is to be a place to view Bataan :)

Altar view from the cross' arm. This is how far we are from the a fourth from the top of the mountain

A monkey! I was surprised we'd find one, then I remembered we're on a mountain. I almost forgot because the place was already constructed in some way.

It's as if the leaves and branches are kissing the clouds and the skies. Wheeeew.

Beeeautiful. I wish that the regular roads I am walking onto are like this!

Hehe

We're on our way down. We took a different route from the ones we took to go up. That was a narrow zigzaggy staircase. This is a turny downward road

This is us! Abnormal Psychology class.

Trees. Lovely really. I was trying to suck the ambiance.

The cool road. I can imagine myself on a bike here, but that's impossible I don't know how to ride one. Ugggh. Romantiiiiic.

After the Mt. Samat stroll, we went to our real goal, to a mental hospital that accommodates patients from Central Luzon, the Mariveles Mental Hospital...

By the entrance.

It wasn't allowed to take pictures inside, so this is just one of the very few pictures we had there. It was cool there, not in the way, I'd want to be admitted there, but in a way that I've learned some things. I am a Psych major for some time now, but I'm still afraid of the possible violence from the mentally ill, but we found out that it wasn't like that. We had the opportunity to talk to some patients there, and it was pretty cool. :)

Yehey, another travel. Another place went to. Wow.