A Word of Thanks

I, my mom and my dad would like to thank everyone below for making our 2-week stay in Australia a very memorable one:

1. Tita Tess Andres, Tito Art, Tammy, Tricia, Nick, Michael and Annalys: for the homecooked meals, accommodations, Blue Mountain tour, and shopping tours
2. Tita Pat, Tito Robert, Marie, Iasmin, Adrian and Jeremy: for the splendid dinners and chitchat
3. Tita Menchie: for the Bowral tour, cheese and wine
4. Tita Lilian and Tito Arnie: for the kangaroo steak
5. Mike, Rebecca, Elizabeth, Mahak and Naomi: for Bridgeclimb
6. Kyle, Georg, Arthur, LJ, Merlin: for the uluru outback camping
7. the great staff at the Cityrail stations and University of Sydney
8. Paul: for touring me in Melbourne
9. Elisa and Erik: for the fun night at King's Cross *sneer*

From the bottom of our hearts, maraming salamat po!

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This post was drafted and published at Kingsford Terminal, Sydney.

Being Young at Heart

I had dinner last night with Iasmin (a 32 year old Pinay) and Adrian (her Australian husband) at their suburb home in Sydney. Dinner was a gastronomic platter of spring rolls, barbecued pork loins, water chestnut salad and wine.

After dinner, their 5 year old kid Jeremy (such a cute and playful kid) tugged at me to go play with him. Adrian "agreed", so Jeremy and myself scooted off to the living room to play with his rubber bug collection.

After an hour or so of playing and making squishy sounds with bug dialogues, with Adrian and Iasmin talking to me half the time regarding our common interests, Jeremy asked me in a matter-of-fact tone: "Are you a kid or a guy? You play like a kid and talk like a guy." Adrian and I laughed after hearing Jeremy's question.

So, I shrugged my shoulders and told him, "Sometimes I'm a kid and sometimes I'm a guy."

It's then that I realized that I'm really young at heart and will still be 50 years from now. =D

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I met Adrian and Iasmin while having coffee at "The Rocks" in Sydney City. It turned out that Iasmin was also from Baclaran (my "hometown") and that they lived in the same Sydney suburb as to where my parents are staying.

A Message for the Loony Bin

To the funniest, wackiest, smartest, most profound and most sensible lady I've met offline and online across four continents:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, L I S S A !. Cheers to you and the loony bin! :D

Cold Wild Ozzy

I've immersed myself for three very cold days (temperature range: 2-12 deg C) in the uluru, Central Australia's outback wilderness. It was bushland as far as the eyes could see except for one major landmark in the area: Ayer's Rock. :D

There were 9 of us in our group: 6 Sydney University students (Kurt, Kyle, George, LJ, Rigg, Key), 1 tourist (me), 1 guide (Arthur) and 1 dog (Merlin --- that Arthur guy has some sense of humor), and all of us were blokes. No girls, drat.

Anyway, the objective of the trip is to experience "soul cleansing", uluru being sacred ground for aborigines and what-have-you mysticism with it. The way I look at it though is trying to survive uluru at its harshest condition.

It was a great experience for me. My only regret though is that all we were allowed to bring were clothes, toiletries and a thermos. No iPods, no junk food, no cameras, no cellphones. But after enjoying my experience there, I then understood why Arthur wouldn't want those things on the trip. Read below.

Here's the run-through of the last 3 days:

1. Walk 14 miles from the airstrip to our campsite (in 6 hours) with about 30 pounds of food and gear on my back.
2. Cold weather at night: 2 degrees! And what's the easily available fuel in the bushland? Dung. Dingo and kangaroo dung. Because it's winter, they're freeze-dried (hahaha) so they don't smell that bad when we were collecting them. But when we started burning them as fuel... *whoo boy*.
3. I was the only one who didn't have mitts for my hands. So, I tore a pair of my socks and cut-out fingerholes in them.
4. In the absence of an iPod, group singing is the next best option. And the group's favorite artists: Britney Spears and 3 Doors Down. Weird combination.
5. Learned how to make a stone knife. :D
6. Ooo-ba: some sort of spiny bush whose leaves can be used for smoking using a pipe.
7. Ma'mata: another spiny bush whose branches, when boiled in water and drank as tea, has the same effect as sake.
8. Built some stone markers along the way. Route marking in the outback is very different from what I know for forest trekking.
9. Learned animal trailing: snakes, dingos (dogs), kangaroos and foxes.
10. Pratical exam: trap either a snake or a fox. And our group (me, LJ, Rigg) trapped a snake! Wahooo!
11. Gutting, Cooking and Eating Snake 101: Snake lechon.
12. Coal picking. That's much better than dung fuel.
13. Tribal marking.
14. Rain + cold weather = 9 shivering blokes.
15. Woke up on the third day (after the rain) with a whole herd (?) of kangaroos surrounding us! There's easily 30 of them. That was cute! And scary... hahaha.

The adventure was really challenging on my body. I was dead-tired at the end of the third day. But I'm glad I took that trip --- it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience. :D

Thanks to the Sydney guys for the swell company! And for the record, I'm already 27; I'm not a student on vacation as you guys first thought. Hahaha. :D

Funny Caption

I leave it up to you to develop your own funny caption for the following series of photos. =D



Photos taken last July 1, a belated birthday gathering for Marijo.

COUNTDOWN

A. ONE

Wahoo! I survived this week! I never would have thought that I'd be able to pull-off a decent job in facilitating one of the technical reviews for the refinery's ultimate site lay-out for the refinery's future upgrading. However, at the end of our 3-day exercise, my brain (ouch, I've a migraine coming up) and legs (been walking around the site in the last 3 days) are almost ready to give up.

But a pat in the back by Carlos and his team (our consultants) for a job well done (suppossedly hahaha) makes all my sacrifices this week worthwhile.

B. TWO

Mental note to myself: In case of need for a kaladkarin to help me entertain my business guests, Gelhandsome is a good choice. I found that out last night when he tagged along to entertain my guests at Leslie's Tagaytay. Thanks dude!

C. THREE

For a taste of humorous reality, Marijo and Ube have become my staple sources. "Nakakapayat ba ang jogging?" "MJ, for you it won't work." Bwahahahahaha!

D. FOUR

I went on a splurge last weekend. I bought this cool Northface jacket at 10% off on the Power Plant mallwide sale. So instead of shelling out eleven thousand, i only had to shell out less than ten thousand pesos for it. Crazy, Stip! And I also bought a thermal shirt, a pair of shoes, a lot of books and a sweatshirt. I won't post the total amount I spent in 1 1/2 hour; some of you readers might have a heart attack or die of asphyxiation from holding your breath. :D

E. FIVE

Just two more days and I'm off for a vacation. Really looking forward to it!

F. SIX

By the way, happy birthday Quito!