Alive.

...and exhausted! Been traveling every day for the past five days - it's kinda nice to not go anywhere for a day. However, it is extremely hot up in here! I'm escaping the heat in my grandma's room, which is air conditioned - it's currently 16 degrees :) Outside, it's 34 but it feels like 45!

As I had mentioned, I've been traveling every day to different cities, mainly visiting family. I went to my dad's town of Pinipin in Santa Cruz, Ilocos Sur. His town is right on the beach...you could take 50 steps from his house and you'd be in the water already. It is just stunning there. The crisp air is always flowing from the sea and it gives you a nice break from the heat.

I saw uncles, aunts, and cousins, whom I haven't seen in 13 years! I love having such a large family. I have so many relatives that I don't even know all of their names! It's just great to spend time with family, even if you don't see them or talk to them often. You have this connection without even having to say anything. My Uncle Efren (one of my dad's 10 siblings!!) almost brought me to tears when I first got out of the car. He came over to the car door and as soon as I opened it and stepped out, he gave me a huge hug and didn't let go for like five minutes. He didn't say anything, he just smiled and hugged. One of my aunt's came running from the beach when she saw me and hugged me and cried. ***cue the tears*** She said, "thank you for coming to visit us, I don't care if you brought us anything, I am just so thankful that you came to see us."

The following day I went to my grandfather's grave. I had a dream about him about three months before coming to the Philippines and that dream kinda solidified why I decided to come. In my dream we were staying in a hotel. When we were checking out, we hugged, and we both said, "I love you and good bye", and then I woke up. When my grandfather passed away in 1995, I was at the hospital with the rest of my family that lived in Toronto, however, I was asleep while everyone else was in the room with him saying good bye and I didn't get a chance to. That dream was our chance to say good bye to each other. When I woke up, I was in tears - it LITERALLY felt like he was alive again and that we actually hugged each other. When I booked my trip, I knew I had to come and visit his grave. I was strong at first, holding back my tears, but as soon as I finished my prayer for him, I started bawling. I miss him so much.

OK, so now that I've got that outta my system. I'm gonna go take a nice cold shower and brave the heat, once again. I'm going to try and post pictures later tonight. Peace.

Thunderbird Resort.

So I haven't posted in a few days because we had a BIT of a typhoon that cut out my broadband connection but everything is back to normal. I tried posting these pictures when I got back from the resort, however, the rain won. Here are some pictures that I took from the resort that we stayed at for a day. I wish I had taken pictures inside the resort because it was quite stunning. There was a private beach as well, which I forgot to bring my camera to. You can see in the pictures that a storm was brewing.

This is the view of the east wing. The resort is still under construction, however, there are two wings that are completed and people are already staying there.

This is the view from the pool.

These cabanas were scattered along the shoreline to just sit and take in the view.

These are my nephews swimming in the little kiddie pool. They are so cute...until they start fighting with each other! I had to be a referee between them all and by ALL, I mean all NINE of them!

The sun has come out so we're going to go to another resort that's close by to go swim to relieve ourselves from the heat. I'll post soon friends!

Photo recap part one.

Outside my aunt's house in Gerona, Tarlac

These flowers were on either side of the walkway to the house.

Not only did they look pretty but they smelled just as nice as they look.

Beautiful sunset through the palms.

Mountains in Pangasinan in the background.

Kawayan or in English, bamboo! Look at how tall they are and with every gust of wind, they bend so far down.

Palm tree.

Isdaan is a seafood restaurant. It's MASSIVE. It's almost like Sea World but a restaurant. The following pics are all from the restaurant.

Buddha - there's many of them around the restaurant. This one sat atop a lookout point and it's probably 40 feet tall.

Monkeys carved in stone.

The bike in the foreground has a whole bunch of faucets and they actually all work PLUS there's a shower head built right into the back of it!

TACSIYAPO WALL! So basically the wall is there for you to release your anger. You can buy a mug for about $0.30 and throw it against the wall. You can aim for the different things that you are angry about, ie: your ex-wife, father/mother in law, etc, and aim for the target. You can also buy a dinner plate for about $0.50 or my favorite was a small TV for about $45 for you to throw! People were having tons of fun with this.

Another Buddha head.

Buddha with a koi.

Everything at the restaurant was under some type of tiki top, even these lamp posts.

These are the tiki huts where you eat in, surrounded by koi in water. Each tiki is floating in water - you can even feed the koi during dinner. We happened to have a group of singers entertain us throughout our dinner.

Hope you enjoy the pictures! I'm going to bed and hopefully I'll take some more pictures tomorrow.

Sweat it out.

WOW is it ever hot here in the Philippines! It's currently 36 degrees but with the 95% humidity, it feels more like 46 degrees and the sun's not even fully out yet - it's only 10AM! It's times like these where I take for granted air conditioning. You would be so lucky as to find one person in a barangay (small town) who has it. MY grandma's house only has two rooms with air conditioning and thankfully, I'm sleeping in one of those rooms.

The heat is actually quite unbearable. It's just before 10AM and already people are starting to take cover, coming outside of their hot houses and opting for shade under a kubo. Most of the houses have metal roofs so it gets really hot inside. At least if you're in the kubo, the breeze can pass over you and you can get spared for just two seconds from the heat.

Another place to save yourself from the heat is the mall :) which I need to get ready for! There's a Pacquio fight tomorrow and I'm gonna buy my cousins a flat screen TV so that everyone can watch! I'll take some pictures later today and upload when I get a chance. Bye for now!

Pictures from Korea.

All the flight attendants for my Korean Air flight. It was insane how many there were. The plane was a Boeing 777 which can hold up to 450 passengers! There were about 20 flight attendants for this flight and each of them combined weighed as much as me LOL!

Loved all the leg room on the plane. Sat right behind business class so I had some extra space to lay flat and rest my feet on the magazine pouch. It was much needed during the 15 hour flight!

This is from the Incheon Airport in Seoul, Korea. This is the new Louis Vuitton store that's opening there. It's gonna be five times the size of the one on Bloor Street in Toronto!

I was taking note of all the different fashion trends that I was noticing while in the airport. Cargo pants was one and the other was snakeskin anything. This photo is obviously some snakeskin heels with tiny little skinny jeans. Wish I had gotten the top half of her outfit - it was literally an embellished bra LOL.

The beautiful curved design of Incheon Airport. The natural sunlight coming in made it feel like you were outside and because it's curved and positioned strategically, the sunlight pours in from sunrise to sunset.

Kinda creepy that I took this picture but there's a reason for it - every Korean child is OBSESSED with playing games on their iphones! Two seconds after I took this picture, the kid on the left lost his game and blamed his brother for distracting him with his cheering from winning his game. LMAO

I'm gonna try and take some more pictures today, when it's not 50 degrees and the sun is not melting me. I really want to take pictures of what it's like outside of Manila, in the countryside and farm lands. People usually don't see pictures of these areas of the Philippines and I find that these are the places with the most interesting finds!

I've got to take a picture of the antique acacia furniture in my grandma's living room. I absolutely love it even though it's so not my taste!

Alright, time to have breakfast under the mango trees. Man, my life sucks LOL ;)

Korea.

After 15 hours of flying, I've finally arrived in Korea. Sitting down for 15 hours straight is not fun and actually, quite uncomfortable. Couple three screaming babies and two toddlers running around playing tag and uncomfortable just got even more uncomfortable.

As soon as I stepped off the plane - the heat hit me like a slap in the face. It is bloody hot here and I forgot how us Canadians in Toronto, haven't had much of a spring.

The best part of my flight was this slice of chocolate cake :) It was so good that I even asked for another slice LMAO! Two of my loves married in one.

I've got four hours to kill before my connecting flight to Manila so I'm gonna go shopping. I passed by Hermes earlier...not that I don't have more to blog but the store's calling my name.

Cheers!

Leaving on a jet plane.

So the day is finally here! I've still got that tickle in your throat when you know you're about to get sick and I'm also extremely exhausted! Didn't really plan out my days off too well and I maybe shouldn't have worked all day yesterday.


At any rate, I'm here and I'm so so sooo excited to head to the Philippines. I'm excited for many reasons: 1) it's been twelve and a half years since I last went; 2) I get to visit family that I never see often; 3) I get to go and visit my grandfather's grave, who I've been dreaming about recently; 4) finally getting a chance to just relax away from all the stress that weighs me down from everyday life. 


Whew!


As I'm sit here, waiting to board the plane, I feel nervous. Not because something's going to happen with my flight but nervous because I feel like I'm going to discover a "new" me on this journey. Let's gooooo!!!