With reckless abandon. That’s how I described our trip to El Nido in general. Not much planning was involved. We dove into it even though we had not even found a place to stay. And we pushed through with it even though we were in the middle of a very critical season at work. All we wanted was that feeling [...]
“Hey, look at this!” There she was, my friend Tonet, standing motionless before a gravestone; her eyes glued to the engraving. “It’s weird.” “What is?” I walked towards her. “Look.” Her finger led my eyes to two words in particular. Last seen. Usually, a gravestone has two lines written below the name of the departed — the date the person [...]
Coffins scare the hell out of me. I said it before and I’m saying it now — The Poor Traveler is not the Brave Traveler. There are so many things out there that terrify me. One of them is death. And most of the things related to it. The mere sight of a coffin is enough to make me shiver. [...]
“Hey, come inside! Look!” Normally, when somebody excitedly invites me over to show me something, I get thrilled. But at that particular moment, I was not. And with good reason. My blogger friend had just emerged from the restroom and excitedly grabbed my arm to show me “something.” “Where are we going?” I asked. “Stop asking questions! Just come with [...]
Quarter-life crisis. I guess it’s starting to kick in. Almost every night since my 25th birthday I would just lie in my bed at night and think about my childhood. When I close my eyes, I try to relive the days when I would just spread my arms wide open and pretend to fly. I try to remember the day [...]
Earlier that day, when our Tour Guide announced that we had entered the city of Kuala Lumpur, I quickly moved to a window seat and started searching the skies for an imposing structure — the Petronas Towers. When I looked at our itinerary before this trip, I was familiar with these twin towers only. Prior to this trip, I had [...]
The Kuala Lumpur Tower, or Menara Kuala Lumpur, has become one of the most iconic landmarks in Malaysia. Completed in 1995, the tower is 421 meters (1,381 feet) tall, making it one of the tallest free standing towers in the world. The KL Tower, as it is more popularly called, was built to improve the quality of telecommunications and broadcast [...]
Our tour bus stopped in front of what looks like a cricket field. “We gonna play?” I mumbled. The green field lie in front of Tudor-style buildings that somehow reminded me of Old England. Malaysia was under British rule before. It was only when I caught a glimpse of the flag pole in the southern end of the field that I [...]
I was still trying to catch my breath when I reached the tour bus parked at Port Klang, Malaysia. The SuperStar Virgo had docked and our group was ready for a tour of Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital. It was a long walk from the ship to the bus. “Are we still waiting for anyone else?” asked our Malaysian tour [...]
There’s something about the smell of new books that excites me. Call me weird but I love putting my nose close to the pages as I flip them. I also love the feeling of my fingers running on the edges of the books and its virgin pages. It’s just addictive. Books give me life. That’s why when our very little [...]
The wake-up call came at 6am and my roommate and I were up in no time. After doing the morning rituals, we grabbed a quick breakfast at Fragrance Hotel’s cafeteria, went back to our room to get our bags and by 8am, we were already on our way to the Singapore Flyer. I had tried the Singapore Flyer twice before [...]
When my mom learned I would be going to Singapore for the third time, she handed me a list of things I should buy for her. When I looked at the list I knew exactly where to get them — Mustafa Centre. It was not difficult at all to squeeze this quick shopping stint into my itinerary because Mustafa is [...]
I was the first to arrive at our meeting place. My fellow travel bloggers and I agreed to assemble at the Airphil Express area at the NAIA Terminal 3 and I was the first one there. That’s how excited I was for this trip. The first thing I did was get several copies of the Departure Cards to save my [...]
One of the most easily recognizable landmarks in Singapore is the Singapore Flyer. This enormous ferris wheel gives passengers a great 360-degree view of the city. Standing 541 feet tall, this is the world’s biggest observation wheel and the tallest in the world, taller than the famous London Eye in Europe. While onboard one of the capsules of the Flyer, [...]
Said to be the “world’s first purpose-built museum for toys,” Mint Museum of Toys is a wonderland for all toy-lovers out there. It houses over 50,000 pieces of vintage toys from more than 40 countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and Bulgaria! And they’re not just old toys. Many of them are incredibly rare while some pieces [...]
