Travel Diary: The Lion City Itinerary

Glad that I was able to squeeze in a short trip to Singapore with my family to take a short break from both of my jobs as September comes to an end. We make it a point to fly out of the country at least once a year but my other brother missed this year's trip since he's having his own baby in a few weeks time (yes, I'm gonna be a full blown tita!)  

This is only the fourth country I've ever been to outside the Philippines and also my favorite one by far so I made sure I documented my first visit to SG well. I wouldn't exactly call my blog a travel blog but I can't seem to find the time and right ambiance to unearth all feelings that come along with setting foot in a new place. So forgive me if this post will sound more informative than creative. :(

We landed in Singapore on a Friday night and took a cab to our hotel in Bugis area. There are many ways to reach the city from the airport aside from taking a cab. Singapore has a very efficient and tourist-friendly transportation system. It may be possible for you to get lost in a small city in other countries, but Singapore is equipped with signs and directions everywhere that it will be hard to get lost even if it was on purpose. We bought a 3-day tourist pass for S$30/person (with S$10 refundable deposit for the card.) It gives you unlimited access to trains and buses which is very economical for tourists because here's a tip: everything in Singapore is expensive.

The famous USS globe!

We spent our first full day at Universal Studios. How to get here if you're staying in the city and not on a tour package? Do it like the locals! 

(1) Coming from the city take the the Northeast Line and get down at Harbourfront Station. 

(2) Follow the signs going to Vivo City (it's a mall), climb up the 3rd floor and you'll easily spot the ticketing area of Sentosa Express. It will take you to Sentosa Island but unfortunately the tourist pass does not cover the Sentosa Monorail. We paid S$4 per person to get to Resorts World Sentosa.

You can also take a cab (they call it tek-si) but most highways in Singapore has tolls so if you're on a budget and also in it for the experience, take the MRT!

I know Instagram nuts can relate to me when I say that there are too many doors to choose from in USS, especially in New York section.

Parents pulling it off

Far Far Away Castle

I'm making a mental note to come back to USS when I visit Singapore again since I didn't get to ride everything. My little brother got sick on our first night but didn't want to ruin the trip that he dragged himself to go. He forced himself to get on rides despite feeling under the weather but the scorching heat of the sun was no help. I swear it was even hotter than Manila weather at the time. Even I, a beach and sunshine person couldn't bear it. It was half a day of going around and experiencing the rides and the other half was spent on eating and resting because the heat was really physically draining.

And so we were told you can't leave SG without a visit to Merlion Park

We spent the following day exploring the vicinity of Marina Bay. The heat was still unbearable so after getting sundrenched taking pictures, we walked to the nearest MRT station and went to Orchard. Then we went back to Marina Bay Sands in the afternoon. Medyo hassle, but thanks to our tourist pass for the unlimited train ride.

"Bes dali, ang init." me to mom haha

Gardens by the Bay at Marina Bay Sands

Gardens by the Bay easily won my heart with its genius theme of nature meets the future. The place has two airconditioned conservatories (S$28/head if you want to enter both).

First conservatory: Flower Dome

Second Conservatory: Cloud Forest

Proud of mom for bravely conquering the Cloud Walk bearing her fear of heights

Gardens by the Bay at night, during the light show

One of my favorites: Little India

On our last day we went around exploring the colorful neighborhood of Little India. This is a pretty lowkey area since these bright colored houses are hidden in the side streets that tourists can't easily locate it. But if you have spare time, do find it! Little India has its own MRT station (Northeast Line and Downtown Line)

I still wanted to visit Clarke Quay at nighttime, eat street food at Haji Lane, visit heritage and art and science museums, visit the famous Sri Thendayuthapani Temple and experience the River Safari but time was not on our side. Four days was apparently too short so after our Little India walk we went straight to shopping for pasalubong.

Two places where you can get the cheapest (cheap as in Singapore cheap) items: Chinatown and Bugis Street. This is the closest you can get to Divisoria but the prices are nowhere near if you convert. So skip the local Pinoy tourist habit of converting to peso before buying. It's not practical, our money doesn't have the same value. You won't get lost going to these places if you look at the city map because both have their own train stations.

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I find it imperative to share that although I can't live without traveling, I am also a fearful flyer. I can't count the number of times I've been asked by people who know how much I love traveling why I didn't try becoming a Flight Attendant and the equal number of times I shamefully admitted that I'm scared of flying. The anticipation of being confined in a pressurized tube up in the air for hours stresses me out so much that it triggers my anxiety. After this trip however, I think I learned to keep my flight anxiety at bay. After so much research, turbulence no longer bothers me, though I can't really tell for now if I could survive a long haul flight without in-flight wifi and enough space to move around so I won't feel so constricted (must save up for that business class ticket then.) I've been on an aircraft exactly 16 times and I learned that no anti-anxiety pills can cure the fear of flying, the only remedy is to fly as often as you can. To fearful flyers like me, at the end of every long turbulent flight, it's always the experience of immersing yourself in a different culture, exploring new places and the memories that you keep that matter. So don't let any of your fears cripple you. Keep on flying. Keep on seeing the world.

Little Adventures: Prado Farms

It lifts my spirits to finally be able to sit in front of my laptop and write for leisure. It has been such a struggle to make time for writing in between having two jobs, having a clingy boyfriend and wasting precious hours in traffic. Now I am just elated that, albeit long overdue, I am finally writing again! So here's a story of how two weeks ago, I celebrated my birthday in a farm.

During the last week of the month of July, I busied myself searching for a different place to spend my birthday weekend. I considered Tagaytay first but being a south girl all my life, I've already been there tens of times and the hotels are becoming unreasonably expensive. I widened my search parameters and laid eyes on the northern area and that's when I stumbled upon blogs recommending this unfrequented place in Lubao, Pampanga called Prado Farms.

Before we get to the Prado Farms experience, let me just tell a quick back story. I planned to go there with my family but I realized that this year, our family has grown bigger. Not just individual mass but I mean new family members were added within just one year. My younger brother now has my sister-in-law and Baby Raffy on the way, and of course, I can't celebrate my birthday without Ram. The eight of us can't fit in our family vehicle anymore so we had to borrow a van from Ram's parents-- which led to our parents meeting much earlier than we had planned. We've been together for only 7 months so we were a bit nervous but thankfully it was a smooth casual encounter and now that the pressure of our families meeting is out of the way, we have one thorn out of our chest on our journey to a life together. If or when it happens- this we constantly pray for.

So after a 2-hour drive from QC (including a 20-min stopover somewhere along NLEX), we reached Prado Farms.

Prado Farms is a 5-hectare farm which according to our tour guide is owned by a family of architects who like to collect antique items. Only 1 hectare of the land has been developed thus far but it is evident in the materials they use that they follow a theme.

Old and broken chairs mounted up the ceiling at the lobby

Old and rusty LPG tanks welded to form a huge gate

The hacienda looks like an artistic junkyard but nowhere near trashy-looking. Major props to the curators of this place because who knew old and rusty materials can be turned into beautiful artforms and make an entire place of lush greenery and screams art on its own? They offer day tour and overnight stay at the hotel but since it is quite creepy-looking, we opted for the day tour. The rate is at Php 1,250/head + 10% service charge. However, they don't accept walk-in guests so you have to shoot them an email or message them on Facebook for inquiries and reservation. They will ask you to deposit 50% of the total to confirm your booking. The package includes morning/afternoon snacks, lunch buffet, short tour and use of hacienda facilities.

Blue House Dining Area

The tour starts at 10am and we were led to the Blue House where we had our morning snacks. 

Prado Farms only serves organic food. They grow their own vegetables and even raise their own arugula-fed pigs.

The tour guide will give you a brief background and history of the place, show you where everything is located and then you can pretty much go on your own. The hacienda is not that big so you can actually roam around on foot or use a bicycle. 

They have old bicycles all over the hacienda but there is another option.

You may request for a carabao ride. Free of charge!

Main swimming pool

Our biggest regret of the trip was not bringing swimwear. They have a really nice swimming pool and jacuzzi and following the au naturel theme, they make use of salt water with very minimal chlorine. There was barely anyone around and we could have had the entire pool area to ourselves. :(

Interiors of the Blue House

The yellow house which houses the library

The place is utterly instagram-worthy. It's one of the most photogenic places I've been to considering most of the structures don't really look that neat when you're in there. Almost everything is old but the camera undoubtedly loves every corner of this farm.

The all-organic lunch buffet

Lunch was served at 1am at the lobby of their hotel. Before we went here, I warned my family that we would be eating organic food and everyone prepared themselves for a "diet meal" but to our surprise it was actually sumptuous. We loved everything from the brown rice, salad, adobong kangkong, organic pork, kamote tops juice and gabi ice cream made with carabao milk! Gabi ice cream that tastes good, guys!!! Great food that's also healthy. Now I know why organic food is more expensive.

We got exhausted after biking and walking around plus it rained after lunch so we maximized our stay by resting the whole afternoon before having late meryenda. They have what they call the siesta room- a huge air-conditioned common room with small beds and couches where day guests could rest. And yes, they have wifi! We left at around 5pm since since without swimming, there was really nothing much left for us to do. They have not yet fully developed the place so I'm hoping to come back once they have built more structures and amenities.

Thank you for the unique experience, Prado Farms! 

Of turning twenty-four

The inevitable has caught up to me and I've learned to embrace the fact that some things can't be dodged (e.g. birthdays and growing older). I recently turned 24 on the 29th of July.  It's that awkward age of not knowing whether you're still in your early or already in your mid 20s. Thus, I call it the ecotone age. Despite the plus one to my age, I have grown to love celebrating my birthday. So this year, I planned everything from the family dinner to the mini weekend getaway and got carried away by excitement that I forgot things get out of hand every time I get excited. As precedented, the first part of my birthday was a let down. I refuse to cry over spilled milk so let's just get to the good parts.

Pre-birthday dinner with my girl friends Nica and Aina

I had a pre-birthday dinner at Sweet Ecstasy with two of my girlfriends who made being 23 somehow bearable. I may have left the office but our friendship is for keeps! It was a quiet alcohol-free night and it just showed how much has changed since last year. Less than a year ago, we had Nica's send off and got so Tequila inebriated that we were literally crawling on the floors of Ram's house. This night on the other hand was just a night of clean fun and catching up. Although it's a little sad that we're all so busy for even a little wild fun now.

I decided to go to work on the morning of my birthday and was surprised by my new officemates. The very thought running through my mind at this moment was "Yaaaay cake!!!"

Ram picked me up after work to head home for a simple birthday dinner with my family. He handed me a big black box when I got inside the car.

Underneath this pretty flower was his other gift- a pocket wifi!!! I was thrilled as I have been complaining for months that my 3GB monthly data allocation only makes it until the second week. Practical. Boy, you know how to keep a girl.

Organic lunch buffet at Prado Farms

My main birthday celebration was held at Prado Farms in Pampanga but I'll create a separate Little Adventures post about it as the experience was certainly worth raving about.

I feel a bit old being 24 and way behind my personal timeline but I've been badgering myself these past few years, constantly swayed by the pressure of seeing my more financially stable batchmates especially those who are getting married and having children. But I think I have convinced myself to lighten up a bit this year (though I'm still not giving up my second job). 

Can't believe I survived another year as an adult. Thank you, Lord! *happy dance*

Pawesome Saturdays

Daphne and human mom at the Pet Express Dog & Cat Expo

I haven't updated my blog in a while and I missed writing so much. If it's worth knowing why I've been off-blog lately, it's because I am currently juggling two jobs (of which one is full-time) and still looking at helping in the family business. Yes, quarterlife crisis entails quarterlife hustle. I'll tell you about work some other time but for now let's focus on living for beautiful weekends. Yesterday I was blessed to spend quality time in the city with my two babies. For the first time ever, I took one of my pets to a pet expo. We went to the Pet Express Dog & Cat Expo at SMX in MOA. Dogs have always had a special place in my heart. I can't even remember a time when we didn't have a dog at home. I am thankful for making a good decision of bringing only my youngest pup because man, it is probably tougher to bring a dog outside more than it is to carry a baby around. And to think Daphne is the least aggressive of all my dogs.

There were actually too many people at the expo that I got lazy to stick around so we just hoarded dog food, got a few freebies and cooed at all the adorable furbabies. It's sad that I didn't think of taking photos of them while we were there. I got too distracted by the cuteness. :( 

Not used to a crowded place, Daphne was trembling and literally vibrating. She refused to walk inside the halls and kept scratching our legs so we would carry her. She's a princess type Shih Tzu classified as a "toy dog" but with her appetite, she's seriously not lightweight. So I'd like to say mad props to this man for being Daphne's daddy-yaya and taking turns in feeding and carrying her around. It's funny, it's as if we were a real family and Daphne was our baby. Hay, love-hate how you keep giving me reasons to love you more. ❤️



And lastly... it's July!!! HELLO, BIRTH MONTH!

That summer sail from Leyte to Cebu

Three months ago, mom and I decided to take a trip to Leyte following lola's passing. Lola used to come visit her hometown every month of May for the fiesta. When her health deteriorated late last year, the fact that she might not make it to this year's trip was already foreseen. Unfortunately, she did lose her battle to cancer. But we decided to take the trip for her. It pained me somehow to think that we could have visited her hometown all together, but I'm just as well comforted by the fact that her new home up there is better tenfold.

It may have been a sad purpose of going on a weeklong vacation but having many of our relatives meeting us there turned it into a rather fun mini reunion. The trip wasn't easy for me and mom. Since there is no airport in Southern Leyte, we had to choose between Cebu (five hours away by ferry) and Tacloban (four hours away by land). Being in charge of the itinerary, I took this advantage of taking a side trip to my favorite city in Visayas: Cebu. We'll get to that later.

Since we did not want to miss the disperas ng piyesta, we headed straight to Pier 3 in Cebu from Mactan Airport, literally sleepless as we were already at the airport at 3am. So after the 8-hour journey to the remote province of Matalom, Leyte I looked as if I could pass for a zombie extra in a post-apocalyptic film. I slept through the entire "disco". It was a loud party at the town plaza in probinsya style. There was a stage in front, tables and monoblocks set up forming a U-shape around the plaza, and the old school dance floor in the middle. Lights and sounds were blaring from every corner and people both young and old were dancing while I just slumped there in the sidelines with my forehead over my arm. People probably thought I was drunk. The best part was we went home at 1am and woke up at 4am as we were scheduled to climb Hanginan in Maasin, Leyte the following day. I climbed a mountain with only 3 hours of sleep you guys.

View from the summit of Hanginan

Hanginan is a traditional pilgrimage site in the City of Maasin, well-known to many local devotees. People climb Hanginan to reach the church at the top known to be the dwelling place of the image of San Francisco Javier. It takes 1-2 hours to reach it depending on your pace. They say all wishes made to Senyor San Francisco shall be granted so long as you treat this climb as a sacrifice and if possible, without any complaints on the way up. Many attest to this myth. On your hike up, people whose wishes were granted (especially the sick who were healed) donated in paving some parts of the trail that were difficult to climb. Their names are etched on pavement and cemented stairs. Mom said her wish was granted when we first climbed Hanginan over ten years ago.

With mom, aunts, and cousin. Co-sleepless climbers.

We stayed in my lola's old home and the worst part of the trip was having limited water supply in the area. The climb was a real sweat-jerker and we were yearning for nothing but a good long shower afterwards. Sadly, we would have to walk a mile or ride a habal-habal from lola's house to ask our relative if we could use the poso in her backyard. For days we stripped half-naked in my tita's backyard taking turns in pumping water from the poso just so we could get a bath. Kicking it old school, yes. I also slept uncomfortably on a wooden chair for three nights. I'd be lying if I say I didn't complain about it at first but remembering the good laughs we shared during the most inconvenient moments, I'm glad I had the privilege to experience everything.

Canigao Island. Matalom, Leyte.

Even Canigao Island, the paradise island of Matalom didn't make it easy for us. To get to Canigao, you'll have to ride a boat from Matalom's small port and sail for 10-15 minutes. Since this is the only decent island resort in Matalom and its neighbor towns, taking the fact that it was a Saturday, the crowd was pretty intense. From the line at the port to the island itself. We had to go around the island to find a spot that doesn't have too many people swimming so we can take pictures and better appreciate the raw beauty of the beach. Canigao boasts of its crystal clear waters and powdery fine white sand similar to Boracay's. It was just too bad that the series of mishaps poured along with the heavy rain. Dark clouds brought heavy downpour and since there were too many people, we weren't able to get a cottage. We camped under a tree and got soaked by rainwater. There were also no decent comfort rooms. The line to the shower area and only two functioning toilets in the island was unbelievable so we gave up. Given the unfortunate circumstances, we went home not bothering to shower and ended up riding another habal habal to the next town so we can bathe in our neighbor's backyard. But as I said, all part of the fun. :)

It was a Sunday when we went back to Cebu. It's been a while since I last boarded a ferry and I forgot that unless you're on a cruise ship, there's nothing to do in the middle of the ocean. But all worth it since things have been turned around once we docked in Cebu. From papag to a comfy bed, from pashmina to a comforter, from poso to warm shower. 0 to 100 real quick!

Not only did I get a comfy bed, I also had breakfast in bed!

The next day we went to visit the Temple of Leah.

This Roman-inspired temple is owned by the Adarna family dedicated to Leah Adarna (Ellen Adarna's grandmother). The purpose of building this place kind of reminded me of the Taj Mahal. The beauty of its structure is just exquisite, as if you've set foot in a foreign country. I can't imagine how many millions were spent constructing this. It's not finished yet but visitors can already enter the site for Php 50.

But my favorite part of our trip was our stay in Mactan Island. On our last night, we checked in at Mövenpick Resort which is truly a man-made paradise.

The view from our balcony. They gave us a full ocean room view upgrade FOR FREE!

The swimming pool

The beach garden

Ibiza Beach Club. Best place to chill in the afternoon with a few beers perhaps.

And one of my favorites: Sails. The reataurant. The breakfast buffet was heavenly. Who knew you can make such wide variety of breakfast food? They did all-you-can-eat-buffet better than Yakimix.

We ran out of time but there are still so many places to visit in the promising land of Cebu. I didn't make it to Oslob or Kawasan Falls. I didn't even get to try wining out at La Vie Parisienne. Nevertheless I am elated to have had this breather. I'll come back, Cebu. I always do, right? ❤️