Goddess, I Am.

Somebody (I can’t say who because I’ve been sworn to secrecy) seriously needed a mountain of winter clothes, so we decided to go a’thrifting one unbelievably hot Wednesday. Now, we haven’t thrifted for at least a year, so we were a tad rusty (read: lazy).

First, we went to the ukay place atop the Mercury Drug in Fuente, my best friend Aileen’s favorite haunt. We probably stayed no more 15 minutes, though, because 1) we were toasting in that huge unair-conditioned room and 2) their stuff was crap. How Aileen manages to find really good stuff from that place is beyond me. But then, I’ve thrifted with the woman, and her zeal is unbelievable.

But I digress. We eventually ended up at this place right across Gaisano Country Mall (right beneath UC Banilad). It was roomy, organized, and best of all, air-conditioned! Now that’s more like it! It was such a comfortable shopping experience that I almost forgot we were thrifting.

Our winter bunny ended up with over a dozen winter coats – all for about P2,500 ($50)! Seriously, her loot is making me want to move out West, too, just so I can bundle up. The Sister got a really, really awesome corset top (among others), and I’m jealous. Worse, she refuses to lend it to me.

I didn’t end up with much because I just bought a load of dresses that week and The Husband was already freaking out at the state of my closet. Instead, I got him a pair of shorts and some really, really cool t-shirts as a bribe.

Still, I just couldn’t go home empty-handed. I got this really cute top with a rather sexy cutout at the back. I couldn’t help it; both my tattoos are on my back, so I can never have enough backless tops. I tried this on with leggings, and my, oh my did it look good! I’m now this close to rethinking my anti-leggings stand!

Now, my other find is definitely my favorite. A few months ago, I was drooling over a nautical Topshop dress that I refused to buy on account that it was too expensive for a dress. Said Topshop frock literally haunted me for months. I saw it everywhere, from magazine spreads to pop displays. I can’t count the number of times I almost caved, but I never did because I’m a model of self-control (at least, I like to think so).

Imagine my joy when I found a close-enough replica:

Oh, and it has a darling lace hem, which I think makes it even cuter.

This P150 frock is definitely going to be a part of my Singapore ensemble. Methinks this will look awesome with my new yellow Keds Rapture Boat Shoe, a gift from The Mother.

So it looks like we’ve found our new favorite thrift store. We already gave the staff our phone numbers, so they can let us know when they’ve got new (old) stuff. One of these days, I’m going to hunker down, clean up my closet, and get rid of some of my clothes. I’m going to need all the room I can get with all the thrifting I will be doing from now on!

As far as life experiences go, this is definitely somewhere at the top of my list – probably somewhere between traveling for a week in Malaysia and Thailand with only about $80 in my purse and watching Lea Salonga play Kim in Miss Saigon back in 2000. It’s powerful, intense, and completely surreal.

The Husband, he knows a lot about wildlife, and it was he who told me about the whale sharks that migrate through the waters somewhere east of the Philippines. After a bit of research, I found out that we can actually swim and interact with this fantastic fish off the coast of Donsol, Sorsogon, about an hour’s drive from Legazpi City in Albay. Not only that, we can fly straight to Legazpi City from Cebu via Cebu Pacific, so the moment there was a seat sale, I booked our tickets without even batting an eyelash. Yes, I’m a sucker for seat sales.

But I digress. Being the ‘organized’ traveler that I am, I spent months reading through travel blogs and trawling forums to get ready for the trip. I read that although the whale sharks (or butanding, as they are locally called) travel through the Donsol sound between November and June, they are best seen during the dry months of March to May because rain makes the water murky otherwise – quite similar to a pond without a garden pond filter. And since I was celebrating my birthday on the 13th of March, anyway, I figured it’ll make for a great birthday holiday. I also found out that it was a good idea to book accommodation months in advance as guest houses in Donsol are quite few and far between and can get pretty crowded during the peak months, so I had that sorted out as early as November.

Day One

We left around lunchtime on the 11th to catch our 1310 flight. Yes, I know we should’ve left at least an hour before that, but The Husband forgot to sync movies to his iPhone, so we had to wait for that. Thankfully, we found a cab driver who drove like a maniac and got us to the airport in about 15 minutes, so we were able to check in with a few minutes to spare. It was a bit embarrassing, though, because while I lined up at the airport Dunkin’ Donuts, our names got called over the loudspeaker to board the plane, and when we did, all the other passengers glared at us. We took off about 10 minutes early, so really, that was unnecessary.

We would’ve landed early, too, if it wasn’t for the really thick and really scary fog that had the pilot circling around Albay for a full 40 minutes. It was strange because it really was quite sunny and pretty on the way over.

I was told that another 20 minutes and we would’ve had to turn back to Cebu. Thank heavens the fog cleared up long enough for the pilot to land! That really was quite a harrowing experience. I wasn’t sure whether I was more scared of crashing or having to turn back!

It was drizzling when we landed in Legazpi City. Just our luck. We planned a trip for high summer when it was highly unlikely to rain (there’s a drought, after all!), and that’s exactly what happens!

The airport was really small and quite functional. I spoke to the lady at the tourist desk to ask her where we can get the tricycle to the public terminal where the vans to Donsol are, and she suggested taking one of the private vans right outside the airport because of the rain. A van to Donsol costs about P1,500, but she told me we could share with other tourists who were heading our way, so that’s exactly what we did. We ended up with 3 other people, and we were off!

Normally, the drive to Donsol is meant to be quite scenic, thanks to the Mayon Volcano. The mountain was a complete no-show that day, however. The fog was THAT bad. Still, Albay is quite pretty. We passed rice fields aplenty and some of the prettiest cemeteries I’ve ever seen. Now, I’m deathly afraid of cemeteries, no pun intended, but these ones were so pretty, I couldn’t help taking a little peek.

Donsol was a lot larger than I expected. We got to drive around the town somewhat to drop off the other passengers in the van, and it really is quite a pretty town. The locals seemed friendly enough, and I’ve never seen so many foreign backpackers since Thailand.

Our driver drove us straight to the Amor Farm Beach Resort, where we would be staying for the next couple of days. Apparently, this family-owned resort was the first resort ever to be established in Donsol. One of the Amor daughters checked us in and showed us our pretty little bungalow. Now, being staunch budget travelers, The Husband and I have been in some real shitholes in our time, and this was definitely NOT one of those. In fact, our bungalow was one of the nicest places we’ve ever stayed in. I was very impressed by the room and was even more impressed by the bathroom with its faux Greco-Roman tile design. Yes, it was definitely worth the price of P1,800 per night.

After we settled in, one of the resort staff directed us to where we could sign up for the next morning’s butanding interaction tour. It was about a 5-minute walk from the resort, but it took us about half an hour to get there. There were just so many pretty things to photograph! The new 35mm was on a roll! I took photos of everything from cows to flowers to boats, while The Husband did what he does best: bird-watch.

There was a small crowd of travelers when we got to the Butanding Interaction Center. Everyone has to register for the trip, and no one will ever get scammed here when all trips are regulated. The registration fee is P100 for Filipino citizens and P300 for foreign nationals. Each boat costs P3,500, which is divided amongst its passengers.

Everyone’s encouraged to register early because they only allow 30 boats to go out to sea each morning. Each boat carries a maximum of 6 people, and the staff usually groups people together to make up those 6. When we got there that afternoon, everyone else already had their groups, so we were told to come back at 7:30 the next morning, and they’ll find us a group then.

It was already near sunset when we got back to the resort. We walked to the beach and watched the beautiful Donsol sunset. The water was so calm that you can almost ignore the fact that it was raining just a few kilometers away across the sound.

We realized that we haven’t eaten anything since we left, so The Husband and I then had dinner at the resort’s restaurant. The food was mostly Filipino, so he settled on the safest thing on the menu – fried chicken and fried potatoes – while I had pork sinigang with rice.

Unfortunately, the food wasn’t all that good. His fried chicken was bland, while my sinigang was quite dismal. We ended up feeding most of our dinner to the resident puppy, instead (who we decided to name ‘Patch’, for obvious reasons).

After dinner, we went back to the bungalow and ate almost all the sweets and chips we brought with us to make up for the disappointing dinner. Beat after a long day of traveling, we decided to turn in early.

To be continued…

More photos of the trip can be found on Flickr.

Okay, I’m going to do something I don’t do very often: I’m going to take back something that I said, specifically the one about YouTube artists. While most YouTube covers are about as appealing as the idea of natural colon cleansing, there are some that are so beautiful, they actually made me cry.

Case in point:

Goodness, I didn’t expect that a song – a cover, no less – could move me so much. In fact, it moved me even more than the original We Are the World 25 for Haiti, even with all those popular artists. (The rapping ruined it somewhat for me. And Miley Cyrus. And Nicole Sherzinger. Jennifer Hudson, on the other hand, was BEYOND awesome.)

I now have a newfound respect for YouTube artists. Well, at least for the REALLY good ones.

Sometimes, when I’m bored and feeling particularly catty, I poke around YouTube and watch wannabe artists hawk their often dubious talents for all that they’re worth. These desperate cries for attention never fail to amuse me. The singers are my favorite. Bad covers of Taylor Swift songs are always good for a laugh, and more often than not, the comments are priceless.

Every so often, though, I find myself thinking back to 12, 13 years ago. Back then, my sister, cousins (they’re aunts, actually, but we were in the same age group, so we decided we’re better off cousins), and I were demented enough to think that we did the best Spice Girls covers in this ‘ere parts. We dressed like them, cut our hair like them, and generally acted like them (I was Posh Spice, tee hee). We got the songs (complete with harmonizing, mind you) and the dance routines down pat. Why, we even performed – in church youth activities, mostly, but once in a luxury yacht in front of actual paying customers. Truly, it was horrid. But back then, we felt like the height of cool.

I thank the heavens that we did not have video cameras then, or else we probably would’ve filled many an external hard drive with those ghastly performances. And I cannot even begin to express how thankful I am that YouTube did NOT exist back then.

The idea of seeing myself on YouTube doing the Posh Spice wink-and-point thing really is enough to make my sphincter tingle.

(And no, I am NOT going to post gruesome pictures of such a dreadful time in my life.)

I’ve been back from the AMAZING Donsol trip (where The Husband and I swam with whale sharks) for nearly 4 days now, and I’ve been meaning to blog about it – really, I have. And I will, I promise – as soon as I kick my deadline’s ass. You see, that’s the downside of going off on holiday in the middle of the month: you almost always come home to a million and one things that you forgot to do with all the excitement of packing and getting ready for the trip . . . on top of all the other things that you haven’t even done yet (it’s mid-month, after all)!

So I’m just dropping a quick note to let you know that no, I haven’t been mistaken for krill and swallowed by a butanding. I’m not only very much alive; I’m also a year older (I celebrated my 28th 25th on the 13th) and hopefully, a tad wiser. And I promise I will blog some more about the trip for the benefit of those who would like to go to Donsol, too, as soon as I get the demands of my employment sorted out for this month and before I have to commence next month’s campaign.

But for now, meet the lovely, (not-so) little fellah that we met on holiday.