Happy Ramblings

The first time that I went to Boracay, I stayed in one of the hotels in Station 2. To be honest, I didn't really like how crowded Station 2 is even on lean season. Station 3, where Current by Astoria is located, might sound a bit far for some; but I reckon it is the best spot in Boracay! It's less crowded, bigger area to swim and nearer to the tents where activities  booths are! So, about Current by Astoria. The first time I saw and came to this hotel was when we got lured by the offer of free buffet dinner at Astoria Boracay. lol. We were given buffet stubs and were told that there was no catch/fees/whantnots. So we went to have dinner in Astoria Boracay in Station 1 and little did we know, it was a marketing strategy. We were 'kind of' forced to go to Current By Astoria to listen to a loooooong presentation about Astoria Vacation & Leisure Club. (We eventually signed up and now members of AVLCI, separate post coming!)

So, one day I was bored + I can't find anything to hold my pens, so I decided to go make myself my own pen holder! So here's what I came up with. It's so easy, effort exerted was almost non-existent. Lol.  So I was using this empty cotton buds canister as my pen holder and it just felt so sad looking at it! I was actually planning to buy a legit pen holder but then I remember that I have a lot of washi tapes and this empty cotton buds container is perfect to be DIY-ed! I actually already gave away a lot of these, but I still have a shoe box filled with washis!!!  I chose these prints. Gotta love 'em lace, animal print and anything pink! Easy peasy like 123!

It's crazy how things change so rapidly. I mean, I was just so happy and giddy when I woke up and now, here I am, feeling the exact opposite of how I felt earlier -- whatever that feeling is, that's how I feel right now. You know how no matter how hard you try, no matter all the efforts you make, you know for sure that one day everything is not going to matter. Those tries and efforts are actually not going to weight as much as whatever the reason behind it all. It breaks my heart that just when I thought I have moved forward already, I'm going to get pushed far far back again. It just sucks because I know that nothing's going to be good enough to turn things around. I hate it. I hate myself for it. And what i hate most is that I know that somebody is hurting even more because of me.  Yes, I am feeling all sh*tty right now, but I also know that feeling like this is not going to take me anywhere good. I will bounce back, I have to; but for now I'm going to a...

For the first time in years, I am actually writing  on my blog again. I decided that from now on, I will go back to my first love. I will blog when I'm happy and even when I am not. Abbie, one of my favorite bloggers of all time, said that it's very important to STOP blogging for the readers. And I agree. I know that the reason why I wasn't blogging regularly was because I felt like those things that I wanted to blog weren't good enough. I was so worried about the content. I forgot the main reason why I started my own blog back in 2008 -- to document my life so one day I can look back at it and see how far I've become, so I can share my stories with other bloggers. So, here I am again. Doing my best to be back at blogging not just about places and things, but also about feelings. 

One thing that I liked so much about Bangkok is how easy going around the city is. The train system is not confusing and everywhere felt accessible. For our third day in Bangkok, we chose to visit two of the most famous markets in Thailand. The Damnoen Floating Market and Chatuchak Market. These two are far from each other, but we though it would be the best thing to do since we are already dressed for a market visit. So how do one get to Damnoen Floating Market. Get on to any train and just find your way to alight at Victory Monument Station. From there, you will already find the mini vans going to Damnoen Floating Market. Depending on traffic and stops, travel time is more or less 1.5 hours. Fare was 90Baht. We stopped at a gasoline station for pee break and I got myself iced coffee! I love their iced coffee! We finally reached the boat station. If you someone from what looks like an agency offers you a boat ride for 2 markets, just say no. The second market was not ...

Aside from the plane tickets (if you were unable to take advantage of the seat sales), the only other big chunk of your travel budget normally goes to the accommodations. When travelling within the Philippines and the purpose of our travel is to relax, we do not hesitate to allot more on accommodation. But if the main purpose of the trip is to explore and see as much places as we can, then we make ourselves ready to sacrifice comfort a bit and settle for something a little bit lowkey. We didn't actually have enough time to plan this Bangkok trip. Me and my partner had our minds set that we will go to Bicol. But two months before our planned vacation, change of mind and plans, we ended up booking a flight to Bangkok! So needless to say, we spent so much on our plane tickets hence, we needed to make sure that we won't spend so much in where we are going to stay. I have checked Agoda and everything is over our budget. Good thing I remember AirBnB! I started looking around...

Bangkok is known for its temples around the city but ironically, we didn't get to take much photos during our scheduled Bangkok City Temple Tour. It was unbearably hot and we just couldn't enjoy it. I thought we will be able to finish visiting all temples there are to see around the city, but nope, we weren't able to do so.   I suggest that you allot one whole day if you want to visit all the temples within the city. You might think that it's a lot of time just for the city temple tour, but believe me, you would want to take your time in seeing all the temples. As for us, we spent 5-6 hours with rests and all but we were still not able to visit all the temples in our list! But of course, looking at the brighter side, there will still be reasons to come to Bangkok one day! :) So here are some of the photos on our second day in Bangkok! First on the list of course is The Grand Palace, which by the way lived up to its name, SO GRAND! As much as we'd love...