Omigosh, thank you to @jrhyan for this! It definitely made our morning! I just officially lodge my protest. How come Delle and Gino get to have big pageant-friendly smiles, and I get a constipated princess look instead? NOT. FAIR.
Archives
All posts for the month March, 2012
If I’m not mistaken, this is our first ever The Morning Rush parody! I love it!!!
After the Good Housekeeping Family Fun Run, we’ll head straight to Red Box Eastwood for Bactidol’s event, The 12-Hour Sing-a-thon! This is going to be fun. 21 groups of 10 people each will sing for 12 hours non-stop! We’re also hosting this event so we’re really stoked. See you guys there as well!
We’re hosting this tomorrow! And if it isn’t raining, I’ll bring along my dog Siam to co-host with Delle and I. I’m especially excited about the dog and human category, because I want to see all the different types of dogs running with their humans. Hope to see you guys there!
Monday, March 26, is the release week of Madonna’s much-awaited 12th studio album, MDNA. It’s her best buzz since Ray Of Light, with great overall reviews, coming off her record-breaking Super Bowl performance, the most-watched halftime show ever. This is the 2nd single off the album, Girl Gone Wild, the one with the lawsuit claims from porn meister Joe Francis. Madonna goes back to her gay roots, with men in high heels and cameos by male supermodels Sean O’Pry and Jon Kortajarena. Lots of Lady Gaga debates as to who did what first, but it only fuels interest in the single and album. Early reviews have been very good, as everyone says she aptly goes back to her dance roots. No more Madonna going serious, just serious dance music. I can’t wait!
I refuse to give it up without a fight! Even on our last day I wanted to swim again with the whale sharks. So at 7am, on a freezing overcast morning, we set off to the mainland for another go at it. The water was freezing but they were there, maybe 4 of them, but no sign of Big Mama, the biggest of them all, because the boatmen say she always makes a grand entrance, always the last to arrive. The jellyfish were real bitches. It was like swimming into an electric field, much like Marlin, Nemo’s dad, when he swam into the jellyfish forest. But stings be damned, I stayed on until the boatmen said time was up. As usual, it was the divers who behaved the worst. Some of them did exactly what we were told NOT to do. Some used flash, swam too close, touched the sharks, blew bubbles from underneath the sharks, among others. The weather was whack, going from cloudy to stormy to sunny to stormy, all before lunch! We left the island around 1pm, back to the Cebu airport. After 12 days of traipsing around the region, from Singapore to Thailand to Cebu, our main vacation is over. Funny, my fave stop is our Cebu leg. The whale shark and sand bar alone already clinched it for me. Not to take anything away from the other places, but while I had moments in the other places, I had MOMENTS in Cebu. Swimming with whale sharks has always been part of my bucket list. Now I can scratch this off. So I guess it IS more fun in the Philippines! The End. #vacationmodeoff
Having had a full day yesterday with the whale sharks, we decided to just chill and enjoy the island the whole day. There are many things to be enjoyed on the island, like the fish feeding in the lagoon, kayaking, hiking, and snorkeling, but our favorite turns out to be the sand bar. The water was crystal clear, and it was almost freaky being able to see so far out! We stayed on one side of the sand bar because the other side has a sudden drop (I hate those!) and it has more tiny jellyfish, which also plagued us yesterday while swimming with the whale sharks. It was like swimming into a land mine if electricity! So we really loved just swimming around or lounging on the sand. This is what missed while we were in Thailand – the privacy and peace & quiet. There aren’t as many tourists, so we pretty much had the sand bar to ourselves. Although I do miss the sexy bodies eye candy, I don’t miss the chaos. We just went back for lunch, rested a bit, then back to the sand bar for us. We were deciding whether to swim again with the whale sharks today or wait until tomorrow. We’ll do it tomorrow; I hope it’s the right decision. I hope they’re all there tomorrow.
It was exhausting. We got to Manila from Bangkok at 5am, but never got to sleep because we had to spend time with my brother from Canada. Then we didn’t get to sleep anyomore because we had to leave the house at 1am because we had a 4am flight to Cebu. So we were running on our 3rd straight day without sleep. I was knocked out on the turbulent flight to Cebu, then a 2-hour ride to Tanaw-an. That’s when we saw them, something I’ve always wanted to do ALL MY LIFE: swim with whale sharks. They said we were lucky because for the past days, only about 1 or 2 would show up, but today all 7 of them were in attendance, especially the largest of them all, nicknamed “Big Mama”. It was a profound experience. The largest animal I ever swam with, and yet I felt perfectly safe. I still get goosebumps remembering the feeling of getting into the water and being mere feet away from the largest fish in the ocean. Big Mama was particularly awesome to behold. The rules are simple, keep a safe distnace from them (5 meters) and no sunblock. Everyone pretty much kept to the rules, except this group of divers who got into everyone’s faces. They were bullies, literally pushing snorkelers aside if we blicked their shots (they were filming). Plus, they didn’t pay like the rest of us. Their boat would just dock nearby, then swim to where the sharks are. And since they didn’t pay, they didn’t go through the briefing. So they go too near the sharks, they film in the mouth area (that’s a no-no swim area), and basically being the worst behaved of the lot. Divers shouldn’t be allowed to swim with the sharks without being briefed. It’s really the sad side of tourism. But that aside, it’s a life highlight for me. Unbelievable, incredible, awesome. I don’t think I’ll be forgetting this experience till my dying day. Goosies.
I was despondent on our 2nd full day in Phuket because we were set on joining a whole day boat tour of Similan Islands, about a 2 hour boat ride away. It’s a chain of beautiful beach islands, famous snorkeling spots if you’re into that. But by the time we were ready to pay and book the tour, we found out it’s fully booked, and there’s no chance for us to join. I couldn’t shake it off. I was in a bad mood the rest of the day because I badly wanted to see those islands I’ve heard so much about. I’m pretty sure it would be just as run over by tourists, but I wanted to see them anyways. But for the most of the day, I put up a brave face and enjoyed Phuket a little more in depth, since we had no choice but to spend more time on the island. One side of Phuket is the island paradise that it is. The beach is gorgeous, and I could just stay there and soak up the sea and sun ALL DAY. Just on a side note, the waters along the beach is never really quite clear, not the way it is in Boracay for instance. I’m not sure if it’s the actual water or just the natural particles suspended in the water. But the second side of Phuket is the seedier side. So funny, Baby Whale was just telling me about an article on the internet about a supposed scam in Pattaya where the people renting jet skis would rent you a jet ski, show you before you use it how spotless it is, then after you return it, they’ll show you a large gash that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, then demand that you pay for the “damages”. Supposedly, there really are damages already, but covered with a sticker or paint that is engineered to peel away once it gets wet in the ocean, so that when you return it after use, voila, it’s damaged. No longer than 30 minutes after we talk about that, as we were walking along the beach, we see a commotion. And as if on cue, the jetski owner was ranting to the customer, about how he damaged the jet ski, pointing furiously at the damage on the side, while the customer was swearing that he never hit anything while riding it. They were haggling on how much the hapless guy was supposed to pay the owner. Poor guy, never saw what hit him.
And of course there’s the fun but seedy Bangla road, Phuket’s red light district. By day, it looks like any other street. But at night, it’s closed to traffic and suddenly it looks nothing like it’s daytime incarnation. It’s like a woman who looks a meek and mild plain Jane by day, then a garishly made up floozy by night. You’d be barraged by barkers offering “ping-pong” shows, live sex shows, private shows, drag queen cabarets, magic shows, etc., and women as well as “women” offering their “services” for the night. One funny exchange between a white guy and a beautiful lady boy — Ladyboy: “I give you foot massage!” White guy: “Sure, how much?” Ladyboy: “400 baht, 500 with happy ending!” That’s the first time I ever heard of a FOOT massage with a happy ending. Hmmm.
So it’s like paradise island on one side, temptation island on the other. It’s got everything for everybody. You’ve got women of all shapes, sizes and ages walking around topless and at the same time you’ll see Muslim women wearing their burkhas with only their eyes exposed to the sun. It’s a two-faced paradise, you’ll never know which side you’re going to get.
I’m devastated that I won’t be in Manila when Cyndi Lauper holds her concert! Waaah, she’s one of the most indelible artists of my youth! Together with Madonna, Michael Jackson, and British Invasion artists like Culture Club and Duran Duran, Cyndi Lauper pretty much supplied the soundtrack of my high school years. And the one time she comes to Manila, I’m in Thailand! I’d probably cry if I hear her sing “Time After Time” or her stirring version of “At Last”. Oh well, try to catch her, she performs tonight at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. Call Ticketnet at 9115555 for tickets.
