lunch and travelling

during the first sem, my brother and i have been going to our mother's office to have lunch. with lunches spent at mom's place, i get to a)save since transpo to her place is cheaper than the food i eat at school and b)to eat more delicious food.

these serve also as escape. i get a break from my blockmates and barkada at school but it's not that i don't want to be with them (though sometimes, i do... labo). i tend to forget my school works, except for the time when i went to see mom and research at an agency near her office, which drains every ounce of me (okay, drama).

so yesterday, i heard my brother on the phone with my mom telling her that he would be spending lunch with her again. since i was done with enlistment and bored, i told him that i would be going too.

can i just say that i like riding trains? ahaha anyway,i got off at katipunan to ride the train to recto. i feel like i'm really cool coz i was reading a book the whole time. okay, feeling intelligent.

fastforward... lunch was okay, had a burger which i have been craving for lately. my brother let my mom taste fro-yo. fastforward again. when we got to her office, i got really bored. so i decided to go somewhere.

and my feet brought me to makati business district.

i really like going to ayala center spontaneously. and my favorite time would be around 4:30pm onwards, when i get to see working boys and girls on their way home or rushing to be on time with their graveyard shift. along ayala ave., i get to see a good mix of people whom i shall be meeting someday when i work at makati business district.

besides the fort, i have a soft spot for greenbelt. it must be the "peaceful" environment when compared to other malls. so i spent almost two hours walking around and when i paused and sat down on a bench outside, i began to wonder, why is it that near our house, we don't have a park that's comparable to greenbelt. okay, maybe i'm just inspired by the favorite spot of tom (500 Days of Summer). ahahah

i also learned from this wandering that a bus ride from ayala to philcoa on a monday night rush hour will take you an a hour and a half. also, it's better to get a bus at edsa under the mrt station than at ayala since buses at the latter are mostly crowded.

first day in aussie

good day, mate. i'm here at wollemi college, somewhere in werrington, sydney australia. it's good that they have a computer so that i could blog what has been happening to me. just wanna say right away, Thank You to the parents and school facilitator of the school. hmm... here are some of the things i've noticed on my short trip around sydney. language. i learned from my australian studies class that a tourism advertisement of australia was banned in UK for including "bloody hell", a profane phrase. thus, it seems to them that australians are "vulgar" in using the term. however, i call it weird. or was it because i grew up on a country with american influence. i'm so used to seeing "please watch your step" signs on steps, but here it's different: "mind your step." also, another signage used the term "rubbish" in the line please "throw your rubbish in the trash can." weather it's really cold in here that i have to wear five clothes: undershirt, collared shirt, long-sleeves top, and two jackets. and i'm serious. ok fine, it's because climate in manila is really harsh, i mean hot. due to the weather, i don't mind walking for miles. i never got tired and exhausted from walking. it's cool here, i mean, i get to walk wearing a jacket and my very huge backpack. i've been to baguio and i know that relatively it's cool there but i haven't experienced having heater on my room, our (class)room. it's weird staying on a warm room and then going out on a very chilly and windy open space. transportation based on my first day here, it is either you walk or you take a train in going to different places. i have seen some buses they were close to getting empty. was it because today's a sunday, a rest day for them? i don't know. let's wait til tomorrow or world youth day festivities start. mr. paras, you are right. a secret to having a successful country is a good means of public transportation. and they have it here with their trains. as far as i can remember, i saw four or five lines, and almost all are connected. the train's fast too that having a trip of an hour and a half would mean like marikina to laguna, say 50 km. money i'm so used to not valuing coins because in the philippines, coins don't have that large value. here, the smaller your gold coins, the higher the value and it is very different when compared to manila. with your really small coins, say 3 gold coins, you can go as far as 50 km or you can have a big mac which reminds of my next topic. firsts it's my first time here in australia. first time to go out of the country. first time to see an extinct tree, the wollemi tree which my school where i'm staying is named after. first time to see bats hanging on the trees. first time to see the sydney opera house. first time to experience 5-12 degrees celcius but what could top off my firsts is to eat BIG MAC at mcdonalds. i'll just assume you know why it's that special. ehehe til the next time, arjay diño.

oh holy week

we spent our holy week at bicol, gubat, sorsogon to be exact. we departed last wednesday. luckily, the trip going to bicol was good. it was only on sto. tomas, batangas where we met a heavy traffic. there, i was able to participate in different religious activities like way of the cross and procession. on our first night, we watched a procession. upon entering the town proper of gubat, bright lights welcomed us, signaling a procession. luckily, we were not caught up in traffic because the procession was quite long. then, we had our dinner at our tito jan's place. it was the fortieth day of his father's death. there, i got the chance to meet the famous, roque. roque is, as most of the people would say, a crazy guy. the first time, i saw him wearing a black shirt, camouflage pants and combat boots - his daily get-up. the funny thing was that he would always wear his shades, even at night. then, this guy is so talkative. on our second day, which was holy thursday, we went to magallanes. magallanes is a town in sorsogon fronting the china sea. it is two towns away from our town. the view going to magalllens is one of the best because there's a nicely shaped mountain. it's better if you see it yourself. then on good friday, i joined the morning way of the cross where the stations are at the streets. it would look like a procession. i never knew that i would enjoy eating fish during lunch. then, as a panata of my father, we participated in the procession. one thing that i noticed is that today, there's so many people residing in our town as manifested by the very long procession. i really wish i had a good camera that day because i want to shoot the people going crazy on the santo entierro. the scene somehow reflected the quiapo fiesta for the people were rushing to get the ferns thrown. these ferns are used as charm in sabong, according to my father. on black saturday, we went to dangkalan beach. well, it's not comparable to the pristine beaches of boracay because the local gov't has not harnessed it. anyway, i had fun taking pictures of people who are trying to get away from the solemnity of holy week. unfortunately, we went there for only two hours because we have to visit a family friend. on our last day, easter sunday, we went to rizal beach. i was really frustrated that time because the weather was bad. it was cloudy and you could not sunbathe, which was one of my purpose of going to the beach. ahaha. a funny thing when rain started pouring, you would see two groups of people: people rushing to enjoy the warm seawater and people running for cover. i was also able to see the step-by-step process of how a pig becomes a lechon. it was fun yet disgusting. the lechon was for the dinner for the graduates at our compound. most of the families in the compound had graduates. gubatnons really loved sing because some of my relatives have on their pockets the number of songs they're planning to sing. and some would even memorize the combination. as i got bored, luckily, tito jan asked me to take a picture of the "meeting" of the mayor, it's like a meeting de avance. the trip back home was fun because we had two stops just to take pictures of mayon volcano. damn. guinobatan, albay is really freaky. mud, even boulders, is seen almost everywhere. to see pictures: www.arjayd.multiply.com