Let me talk about my college friend Mimay. To be honest, it’s weird that I call her a “college friend.” Although we shared the same batch, same college org and even same classes, we weren’t really close in college, looking back. She was busy doing theater while I was busy being emo. It was after graduation that we really became [...]

Singapore has a special place in my heart. It was the first city outside of the Philippines that I set foot on. My first time was almost two years ago and it was on that trip that I met some of friends. That’s why when I was thinking of a trip for me and my mom, it was easy for [...]

Here’s something I learned in my recent trip to Singapore. Tourists in Singapore can actually claim refund on GST (Goods and Services Tax) paid for items purchased from establishments that are participating in the Tourist Refund Scheme. Introduced in May 2011, the Electronic Tourist Refund Scheme (eTRS) allows tourists to get back the GST they paid on your purchases when [...]

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 [...]

I wasn’t expecting to score good deals in Orchard Road since most brands here are high-end. Actually, the night before this we already went to Mustafa Mall in Little India to buy pasalubong and we were more than delighted that there were so many good buys in the area. But I still wanted my mom to see the famed street. [...]

Our Day 3 in Singapore started early. We were up as early as 7am. The first item on our itinerary for that day was the Chinatown Heritage Walking Tour, which I was very excited about because I had never been to this part of Singapore before. Note that it is a Do-It-Yourself tour. Even before the trip, I already determined [...]

Movies! If there’s one thing that I am so addicted to other than traveling, that has to be the movies. That’s why Universal Studios in Singapore is my idea of wonderland! I just couldn’t help but feel giddy in excitement as my mom and I made our way to Resorts World. Add the idea that my all time favorite TV [...]

I love walking. I think it’s the only form of physical exercise that I do these days. I loved walking in the streets of Hong Kong. And I definitely enjoyed walking around Singapore, especially in the river area. There were just so many places to visit and so much to see. The only problem I had was that I didn’t [...]

Finding an affordable place to stay in Singapore can be ridiculously difficult. Accommodations are generally expensive and even if you find a cheap hotel, there’s always that chance that they don’t have available rooms on your desired dates. To be honest, I think finding a place to stay was the hardest part of planning our Singapore trip because I only [...]

Because we flew to Singapore with Cebu Pacific Air, we landed at the Budget Terminal of the Changi Airport. This is the same terminal that low-cost carriers Seair and Tiger Airways use. Unlike the other terminals in Singapore, the Budget Terminal is relatively less impressive but still great and probably better than any terminal we have here. It has everything [...]

Airphil Express and Cebu Pacific Air flights, domestic and international, fly in and out of NAIA Terminal 3. If you’ve flown out of the country before, then you’re probably familiar with the whole pre-flight thingamajing. But if it’s your first time,  read on as I discuss in detail the whole check-in and boarding processes so you could breeze through them. One [...]

I just arrived from a trip to Singapore with my mom. It wasn’t my first time to visit Singapore. I attended an international blogging event in Singapore in 2009 and toured a little while I was there. This made preparing the itinerary for my second Singapore trip a lot less difficult. I already had an idea about what I wanted [...]

Frankly, our Tacloban-Marabut trip is probably the most unfortunate of all of my trips. It wasn’t because of the place — Tacloban and Palo, Leyte and Marabut, Samar are awesomely beautiful places. It was the rain. Although from the very beginning we knew it would be a “wet” trip because the weather forecast said so, we still, somehow, hoped for [...]

Many times, I consider the rain a friend. It helps me think. It makes me feel. It brings inspiration and brings back memories. But during our City Tour, the rain was a complete and utter b*tch. All it did was pour when we were exploring the great outdoors and stop when we were indoors. And then, when we were back [...]