As many of my friends know, I’m a big fan of Kpop. Put in all their aegyo and sexiness and I’ll literally die. But I’m also a big fan of rock-slash-alternative and sometimes indie music. So earlier, I tried looking for a mix of both Kpop and rock/alternative/indie music and I found Nia.
I don’t really know much about them yet since there are minimal information regarding them on the web. Just a couple of sites with articles about them, a Facebook fan page, and a Youtube page. But as I was listening to their songs, I instantly fell in love with them.
The lead vocalist’s voice is really awesome. Her voice brings back memories of my elementary days when I used to listen to Jpop thru Channel V and MTV Asia. Well put in a beautiful face on that voice and it’s really perfect. You guys be the judge on this one but for me, I highly recommend listening to these talented girls.
Below’s an MV from them. The song’s title I think is “Remember the Forest”. I would’ve wanted to know the meaning behind the lyrics of their songs but I can’t find translations. Sad. 😐
We all have issues. And I’m no exception. I know I’ve got issues and I know I’ve got a lot. Really.
And one of them, is being a quitter.
In my life there are so many things that I could’ve done and accomplished. But due to being a quitter, those things were left unaccomplished. During my days in the university, I managed to practically “lessen” this mainly because of the books I’ve read regarding dreams and inspirations. What I just don’t get is that I can’t seem to quit being a quitter. Around 2 or 3 years ago, I started doing things that I really like. A good example would be photography. I also became more of a risk taker and followed my intuition every now and then. But there are just moments, wherein I start to think about quitting a specific endeavor again.
Just like earlier. I was at Greenbelt, hearing Mass when suddenly I thought about quitting something which I’ve been doing for quite a while now. I started to think negatively regarding that specific activity / endeavor that pushed me to really plan on how I would quit. After a few minutes I realized and felt that what I’m doing is, well it’s kinda not right. It felt wrong because I tried to find negative things about that activity and dwelled on it. But in reality, if you really think it through, there are more positive things revolving that compared to negative things.
The only question is, why do I keep on having moments like these wherein I just dwell on the negative and forget all the positive things?
Well, I’m kinda glad I’ve had time to vent this through blogging though I can’t really be specific on the topic since it’s a bit sensitive. Also I find it nice that I can now control these negative thoughts and reflect on them after having those specific “moments”.
They say that the darkest part of the night is during the moment when the darkness and light mix before the sun rises at dawn. I guess this is just one of those dark moments in my everyday life. I expect to see light, soon.
There are several reasons why I chose to talk about this topic and mainly, it is because everyone has an opinion regarding this one.
Well, as for me, I think every single thing that happens in your life has a reason. Things that happen, good or bad, are either results/consequences or signs that the universe is giving each and everyone of us. All around the world, people have different interpretations regarding this. Some call it Karma if it’s a consequence, some call it Divine Intervention or luck if it’s something positive, some others call it coincidence and some signs.
In anyway you look at it, I think these things that happen in our life are controlled by us. People may say that they have no control over a particular situation but if you think it through that really is not the situation. We have and should have control over things regarding our lives. This maybe a bit difficult to comprehend and to do but if we can do this, then I think people would be happier. There would be less miserable people around us and no one will be forced to do things they don’t really want.
So in the end, everything really happens for a reason and it’s up to us to realize what these reasons are. And if we already know what these reasons are then it’s up to us to make use of these reasons, hopefully for the fulfillment of our own dreams.
Well as I’ve said in my previous post, I’ll be having a separate post about my recent trip dooooown south in Puerto Prinsesa, Palawan.
This will mainly be a photo dump (with a couple of captions) of selected photos of my friends who were with me. For other photos such as IR and HDRs please visit my Multiply page.
By the way before moving on and reading this post I suggest you load the video I’ve included below. It’s the same song as the one in Invincible Youth. If you watch the show, you’ll know why I wanted you to load the music while reading this blog, if not, well just load it. It’s just music so it’ll stream real quick.
Day 1.
Off to my main post. So as you know, me and my friends decided to open 2011 with a trip away from the busy city of Manila. We wanted to go somewhere where we can relax and have a good time without spending much. There were many options but we chose Palawan since, well, it was the one which had a plane seat sale. Haha!
Here’s Butch sleeping (or maybe pretending to sleep) in the plane. We rode Air Phil Express.
Arbu and Em
We left Manila sometime past 1PM. Originally our flight was supposed to be 12:50PM (I think?) but it got delayed due to some reason I don’t even care about. Haha!
When we reached Puerto Prinsesa city, we went to the agency and paid some stuff including the tours and the van rentals. After, we went to the Crocodile Farm.
Entrance fee to the Crocodile Farm was only 40 pesos and it includes a 15-20 min tour of their area. There you can see different kinds of crocodiles (small ones and really big ones!). Here’s a photo of Kevo wanting to eat a baby crocodile.
By the way, the tours in the Crocodile Farm have time slots so while waiting for our turn we had had some pictures taken. Below is the usual “jump shot” photo that is always present in any outing or out of town trip album.
Next stop was the Baker’s Hill. Here we had our afternoon snack since we were already hungry because of everyone’s excitement. Haha! The hopiang monggo and hopian baboy is definitely a must try (imho).
For dinner, we ate at Kinabuchs. It was a kind of bar/grill resto similar to Gerry’s grill here in Manila. Their crispy pata is really awesome. Also some other dishes that tourists must try are their pork sisig, gising gising, and kare kare. Out of all those dishes, their gising gising and kare kare were my favorite.
Day 2.
On our 2nd day, we were scheduled to go to the famous Underground River which is one of the finalists for the New 7 Wonders of the World. (Side note: If you’re a Filipino or maybe someone who’ve already visited this awesome place please vote for it here. Thanks!)
Getting to the Underground River, one must travel a 2 hour trip from Puerto Prinsesa to Sabang Beach. Then from Sabang Beach, a boat will take you the the cove where the Underground River is located. By the way, for future visitors of the Underground River, I personally think its better if you book it as a package so that your tour guide will be the one to facilitate your permits since you need one to enter this tourist attraction. Also booking a package includes a buffet lunch at the Sabang Beach so you won’t need to worry about food.
Before going to the Sabang Beach, we stopped by the Sabang Mangrove River/Park. For and entrance fee of 200 pesos you’ll have a 30 minute paddle boat ride along a river with mangroves on both sides. It’s kinda awesome coz here you’ll be able to see not only mangroves but also some wild animals such as monkeys(!), snakes, bayawak, and some exotic looking birds.
Here’s Silver, Star and Zen getting ready for the paddle boat tour.
Photos of our boatman who was also our tour guide along the Mangrove River/Park
Also, there exists in Palawan a dish called tamilok. Here’s the wikipedia entry for this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipworm.
Since it was a dish, me and my friends tried it. Some of my friends didn’t like it though but as for me, I loved it. It literally tastes just like Oysters. Actually I think it’s just an Oyster with a different shape. Haha!
See the elongated thing Zen’s holding in the picture below? That’s the tamilok! Nomnomnom!
That photo was also taken while we were having lunch at the Sabang Beach. Following photos are of my friends swimming in the beach after eating. We had time since we were still waiting for our turn to go to the Underground River.
Well basically that’s the bulk of our Day 2 in Palawan. I didn’t have much photos from the Underground River since its really dark inside. Here’s a last photo of my friends while we were waiting at the cove for our boat back to Sabang Beach.
As for our dinner that day, we ate at Kalui. Here the food is opposite of what we ate the previous night since all we had here were seafoods. I enjoyed eating here more than Kinabuchs since I’m really a seafood lover. I highly recommend this place for seafood lovers out there. Also when you come visit this resto, try out their Sashimi. It’s awesome and fresh.
Day 3.
As for the third day, I really don’t have much pictures of my friends since I focused on taking IR shots this day. You can view them here.
On our third day we went island hopping in the morning until around 12NN since our flight was 1:50PM. We went to some reef which name I can’t remember, Snake Island and Pandan Island. We didn’t have much time so we had lunch at Snake Island then went to Pandan Island to shower. Personally, I think we should’ve had our lunch at Pandan Island since the beach there is better than the one in Snake Island. So for future tourists and visitors, I suggest you spend the bulk of your time here if you can.
Well that’s it. A couple of photos more and I shall say goodbye for now.
Overall I think our Palawan trip was worht it (including the leave I filed for work! Haha). Puerto Prinsesa is really a good place to visit if you’re into tourists spots and nature. The beaches are okay though I prefer Boracay and the one I visited in Zambales last summer. What’s really good about Puerto Prinsesa is their government. The government protects the image of the city since tourism is really a big part of the city’s income. That’s what I really loved about the place. You can feel that they really welcome you to their place. Also, I learned that the government required the tour guides to have seminars and the agencies to have uniform vans for their costumers. That’s freakin’ awesome (for Philippine standard setting. Haha).
Anyway that’s all. I hope that if you’ve come across this post because you searched “Palawan” or “Puerto Prinsesa” in Google, it’ll convince you to come visit this awesome place in my country.
It’s just the second week of January and I’m glad to be writing again. It feels good to be able to have time to write and edit photos. Anyway I wanted to write about my recent trip to Puerto Prinsesa, Palawan Philippines but I guess I’ll reserve that for another post. I’ll just write about today’s topic at The Daily Post at WordPress.com .
So the topic is as what this post’s title says, “What do you want to be remembered for?” Well as for me, I love answering these kinds of questions since I’m a bit self centered myself. Usually I talk a lot about myself and all the things that happens around me. But don’t get me wrong though, I still believe I’m one of the few good listeners around (see what I’m talking about? LOL).
Anyway as for the main point of this post, I want people to remember me as the “photographer”. Well it’s kinda obvious for those who know me since I really am the photographer in the group. But I also want to be remembered not just a simple photographer but one who have taken wonderful pictures of priceless moments in my life as well as in the lives of my friends. I find it amazing that recently during the first part of my trip in Palawan, I already thought about this topic. So I vowed to take good pictures of my friends who were with me. I want those pictures to be part of our memories since somehow, we are all starting to grow apart due to work and all those adult stuff (thank God there IS Facebook!). Well that’s it. I don’t wanna go sentimental on this post. I’ll just include an awesome photo of my friends below which I took during our trip last weekend.
Well since I’ve decided to join “The Daily Post @ WordPress.com” I’ll be doing my first post today. I may not be able to do it daily so I’ll just use the title “Daily/Weekly” and choose from the topics that are posted within the week (if its just a post for the whole week).
For the first post I’d like to talk about the top 3 countries I’d like to visit. I won’t be including those I’ve visited like Singapore, Canada, U.S. and Hong Kong. I’ll just list the one’s I haven’t visited yet.
First up, South Korea.
For those who already know me I’m sure you’ve already guessed which country will come first. Of course its Korea. Last year I started to love everything about South Korea thanks to the influence of my cousin. He was the one who introduced me to KPOP and from then on the interest (and obsession? haha) followed thru.
There are a number of reasons why I’d love to visit this place. Of course KPOP and SNSD are the top reasons why I’d like to visit this lovely country. I’d love to go and watch an SNSD concert there. A performance would also do as well as a guesting on a variety show. Seeing them in person and performing live has become one of my biggest dreams since I became a fan. (Side note: I’m listening to SNSD’s Into The New World Live Album right now. Kekeke ^^)
Other reasons include the culture and food. I’m a person who is very interested in different cultures as well as histories of countries. I’d like to visit Korea to study their history and culture. As for the food, I guess it’s self explanatory. Your visit of a certain country will never be complete if you don’t eat native dishes from that specific country.
Anyway I don’t want to post pictures of South Korea since it’s easy to look for it using google so I’ll be posting this video instead. It’s a collaboration video about Seoul, Korea between Super Junior and SNSD.
Next, France.
And the main reason? THIS.
(Image courtesy of google.com image search)
If you don’t know that this is then I guess you’ve been living under a rock all your life.
Anyway as for other reasons, I don’t have any. Haha I really want to visit France just because of this but I guess I’ll have other reasons to love that place when I get there. I don’t really have any other idea about the places and French culture so I guess I’ll have to read more about it. All I know is that it’s close to Spain(? please correct me if I’m wrong about this) so it’s kinda cool since I also want to visit Spain.
Lastly, Maldives.
I think for everyone who knows this place, reasons about wanting to visit this island nation is self explanatory. For this one I guess I’ll just post and spam pictures of the place and if there’s anyone of you who doesn’t want to visit this place after seeing a couple of pictures hit up the comment box on why. Hahaha
Anyway that’s it for my first Daily/Weekly Post. I hope I can continue with this project for the rest of 2011. I’d love to read some comments if you guys have any. Thanks!
This seems awesome. I’ll be joining this WordPress.com program. Although I’m not pretty sure if I can post a blog every single day, maybe a couple of posts per week would do yes? I’m suddenly excited. LOOOL. Anyway here’s their site if you guys want to join in. They’ll provide topics and inspirations for every blogger out there every single day to help them blog more.
I just figured out that its 22 days till I turn 22. I’m not counting it down though, I was just surprised by the coincidence since it’s the first day of 2011.
But is age really just a number? I guess some would say it is. For me? I don’t know. Really. Before, when I was in college, I didn’t think of my age that much since I was a student and there were so many other people older than me in my batch. But now, I started to actually think about it and worse, I started to worry about it. If you’ve read my other post, I wrote that I started to have plans. Goals. Is this what aging means? Will my age start to matter now that I’m out of school and working? I really don’t wanna worry slash think about it.
Its too troublesome. Agk.
Anyways, Happy New Year to all. Let’s hope 2011 will be awesome-r than 2010. 새해 복 많이 받으세요!
(Picture courtesy of 
(Picture courtesy of 
Nameless Comet 