An escape like no other

Having lived in Manila since 2005, I was a solitary hungry “sole” out for adventure, looking to find people to explore the world with. I finally found "solemates" who share the same passion and vigor in seeking to make everyday exciting: we called ourselves the Wandersoles, aptly named because of our shared love for travel and adventure. Our group is composed of five headstrong career women: there’s me, an insurance adjuster, Lilliane who is a garments entrepreneur, Vangie, a civil engineer, Beth, an advertising maven, and Lu-Ann, a public relations director. As distinct as we may be individually, as a group, we are driven by each other’s zeal for finding the best places to get our feet wet and dirty. Between the five of us, there is literally never a dull moment.

Through the years, we have hopped on and off of our share of planes, buses, and ships, and it was just our good fortune that we were generously offered by Ford Philippines to road-test the Ford 2010 Escape on our next trip. Since we are all scuba divers, choosing Anilao, Batangas as our escape to test the Escape’s limits was a no-brainer. With four Manila drivers inside the car, we took turns in driving the Escape to Anilao. Being a lover of long drives myself, I quite enjoyed cruising the road while listening to my ipod playlist. Before we knew it, we arrived at Planet Dive Resort, very much excited for the adventure that tomorrow’s dive would bring.

Our first dive was at Beatrice where we spotted an octopus camouflaging at the wrong time. Our second dive was at Mainit and its reputation for strong currents did not disappoint us. Our last dive was at Twin Rocks, a marine sanctuary conveniently located infront of the resort and a guarantee for trigger fish sightings.

So what made this an escape like no other? Is it the ride? The company? The journey? The destination? It’s all of it and having the sense that this is just one day of more exciting adventures to come.

It’s not where you’ve been, it’s where you’re going.

that little small town in belgium called brugge...

brugge is a pretty small place where one can easily walk around town in 10 minutes... cobblestone roads... dutch people riding their bikes... the town square that had everything... my first realization that fries are actually called chips at this part of the world and that it's best eaten with mayo...


seriously... this house is too cute to describe... but i guess it's typical if you're from brugge... the dutch and their canals...

belgian mussels!!! i couldn't get enough... i think we got two orders of mussels provencial... i think i spelled it right... i think we finished it off... if i'm not mistaken one pot of mussels was about 20 euros... yes, i am willing to spend that much for a pot of mussels...

i really can't recall what his significance is in brugge... so sue me!


who hasn't heard of rin tin tin?!?!

yup! that's one side of the town square! i think that's the post office back there... i know, cause i sent a bunch of postcards to peeps!






i'm going to kick myself over this... but the most memorable experience for me in brugge was meeting a lesbian jewish prostitute from san francisco... and apparently... it cannot be denied... she had a thing for me... oh dear lord! now why can't she be a man... a manwhore!!!

back to 2005 quick recap.... let's go to amsterdam!

just want to make a quick recap of my travels on 2005... i guess i should just post my fave photos on each of the cities... might take a couple of entries before finishing... but hell! its my blog... my life!


ok... so ive posted london... moving on to amsterdam!!!





my fave food in europe by far!


its raw herring in a bread... i love fish... i like bread... can't ask for more... although i know that it wouldn't suit well with everyone's pallet, heck i still love it!





how can anyone go to amsterdam without drinking a heine... downed a couple of glasses at our hostel, hans brinker, where people smell like weed in the morning, afternoon and evening... people! there are other things in amsterdam besides weed... like um... er....


anne frank house!!! im really into the history of world war II but i never really appreciated reading her diary while i was in elementary until i visited their hiding place... i think everyone who has been there agrees with me when i say that it's one of the loneliest places on earth... to be in a cramped space with a lot of people and yet not being able to share a loud laugh and have a shouting fest with them...

for some culture... ofcourse i went to the van gogh museum... i think they were having an exhibition about egon shiel... erotica baby!!! very different from the subdued pieces at rijks musuem...



i'll leave you guessing about this last pic...

2007... that's soooo last year...

Just checked my blogspot account and realized that my last post was sometime on july 2007 and i was still writing about 2005... too late to catch up now... a lot has happened last year... and this will be my attempt to summarize all that i can remember at the top of my head...

went to egypt on april 2007... rekindled my romance with my travel shoes... i had travel withdrawal sypmtoms and made some horrible decisions after that... i should have learned from my first travel withdrawal on 2005... wtf?!?! somehow, i managed to screw things up both my professional and personal life... stupid stupid stupid...

well, here are some of my egypt photos...

i took the camel photo while going down mt. sinai... my knees were already starting to shake... the temperature was increasing minute by minute... and needed to take a piss soo bad... then all of the sudden... there was this huge camel parked on a post that caught my eye... the post had markings saying "may peace prevail on earth" and i just couldn't get over the fact that the camel was looking towards the sky as if it saw something bigger than itself... remarkable!

this is half of the egyptian group, aka younglings... thats (top) matt, pilar, dave, (bottom) me, van, taylor and marna... it was good times on our boat m/s melodie... we just had our second egyptian night i think and we were all drunk with our stellas... oh, i do miss stella!

i have way too many photos that couldn't possibly fit in this entry... well, here's one of my jumping photos at one of the temples at luxor... and another jumping photo with my official travel buddy van at the colossi of m????? oh dear lord, i need to research what the place is called again...

there you have it for now...

my happy snaps tales begins in the famous city of London, home of Princes William and Harry... our flight from Vancouver to London took 9 hours, it was the longest 9 hours of my life... we landed at Gatwick airport and we still had to take a 30 minute train to London Bridge station and from there we walked towards Borough High St. and reached our hostel, St. Christoper's Inn.

i've never been in a dorm type of setting place before, but this trip required me to be open minded and i could not afford to get a private room. as soon as we got settled, me and van rushed out to Borough High St. and ventured the city of London. As any crazy tourist would do on their first day, we took the Tube.

The London Underground, "The Tube", is so much better than the Skytrain at Vancouver. The stations were sometimes across each other and all the must-see places were quite accessible. We rode the tube all night long, no pun intended, so much so that we got into the wrong connection a couple of times. Hey, I think even Londoners get lost at their own Tube. We did pretty well for a first time Tube commuter.

As we were enjoying going round and round the Tube, we suddenly realized that we had not eaten anything since we landed at Gatwick airport. By this time, we had not eaten since we landed at Gatwick airport.

When we got back at our hostel, low and behold, it was cheap beer night at the pub below... ofcourse we can't pass on that. After seeing the very attractive advertising, we forgot our hunger and ordered a pint of beer. After several pints of beer, we realized that it karaoke night and weird guy came up to me and told me i was next. I must have been really drunk cause I found myself holding the mic and singing "Ironic" by Alanis Morisette. It was a blast though. A great prelude on what was to come.

the limbo and all that it entails...

Have you ever felt like you were born to follow a cobblestone pathway and just wanted to feel dirt in between your toes? Have you ever felt like waking up every morning and feeling like it was yesterday? Have you ever felt like dragging your feet to the same place every single minute?

That was me in 2004 during my last months in college. I was almost done with my program but I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life. I was in this deep limbo, neither wanting to be here nor there. No direction, nada.

Luckily, I wasn't alone with this dilemna. My high school friend, Van was sharing the same sentiments in life. We would always be talking about being some place different from Vancouver, or for me, different from the Philippines. We talked about it constantly and incessantly until we decided that travelling to Europe would be a great way to find our place in the world.

At this point, Van was already busy with her career as a Marketing person at company in Vancouver. On the other hand, I was busy with finishing with my school and working for a Physiotherapy clinic, doing all sorts of things. It was incredibly different from what I wanted my life to be. Nevertheless, I still sticked with it since I thought it was an easy way to earn money for our trip.

To make the long story short, we quit our jobs and left Vancouver on June 2005. Thus, the beginning of my happy snaps tales.

Finally... I found a home...

I've decided that blogger will be my online home to park my photos, comments, journal entries and my blah blah blahs in life...