Travel: Batangas Scuba Diving

Summer of 2006

yes! we go back to 2006, It's been 3 years now since I tasted a little bit of what it's like to live underwater. We went there with my Godfather and his brothers and with my team is my older brother and father. Originally it was only my Godfather and his brothers who were going there but we joined in to add a little fun.

It was a 1 day trip we left manila at 4am and arrived at the port at around 5:30am... and then we arrived to Maricaban Island at around 7am. We got complimentary drinks from the resort, fresh buko juice! Then after we had our breakfast, we ate some hotdogs,eggs and rice, nothing fancy just a typical Filipino day breakfast. I swam around the beach, throwing some corals back to the sea.
the morning was just spent talking to each other, taking a walk at the coastline and enjoying the scenery. After that we ate lunch, seafood and some crispy porkchops and ice cold softdrinks to put it down to your stomach... I can't remember how much extra helpings I got but all I know is that I got a lot!

This is my Godfather or "ninong" in Filipino language term.

After having lunch we went to one of the surrounding islands to learn basic scuba diving. The european scuba trainor taught me the parts of the scuba gear, I also learned about the hand signals that they use it was funny because they have signals for "awesome" and "cool". The older people went on first and after an hour they surfaced and talked about how scared one of them is because while he was descending at the depth of the ocean he saw this blue shark sitting at a rock inches away from him was staring at him like he was a descending bait :)). They also saw this big turtle who was snobbish and it looked like that it didn't want humans entering his territory, my godfather's brother even joked "he must have been from his office, cause he looked like been scolded by his boss, he was not in the mood".



Finally! it was my time to shine and the first question I asked my diving instructor was "how deep will we go?" he said about 30feet below, and we went on decending to the coral reefs. I was so overwhelmed by the beauty and amount of fish swimming around. I saw different species, lots of sea urchins(dangerous but they said it was delicious) and sometimes curious fishes will go directly at your goggles as if they were asking "what are you stranger?". I managed to touch some fish.
In this picture you can see the instructor carefully assists me while we were wandering below the waters. Inspite of all the water surrounding you, I got thirsty because of the air I was inhaling from the oxygen tank. After 30 minutes we surfaced and it was already noon.


This picture shows the last moments before surfacing. That's me showboating my newly learned sign. "two thumb's up!" haha, I really enjoyed this. After that we had our dinner and then went back to the port by small boat, while we were at the sea you can see stars in the sky as many as the sand on the beach, it was just a magnificent scene. Then we got home at around 3am.

I hope that the future generations will still see what I saw that day.

Travel: a day of meeting the wildlife

APRIL 6, 2009
Blag!blag!blag! "get up and dress up, we're going somewhere", said my dad in Filipino language. For me, I get irritated when someone wakes me up in the morning and tells me that I'm going somewhere and I didn't have it on my calendar of activities. I always wanted to put activities on my calendar so that I can prepare myself and my things and my mood for that activity. Having no choice, I got up with a dragon's face, went straight to the bathroom and then got dressed, got my camera and we took off.

Then I asked "where are we going?", "Avilon Zoo" says my mom, and suddenly I got excited because I've been planning to have a photo shoot there for the summer but my budget was short and then here it is again! voila! I'm going to have my planned photo shoot for free! but first we have to go to WAWA DAM, my dad said that when he was young they used to here and swim around.
It was an awesome site to see, I even saw some people with big cameras and I assumed that they were filming the place. You have to trek for about 15 minutes to get to the dam, The only thing that I didn't like about the place is that it was noisy because some huts have videokes. It swallows the songs of the birds, gush of the river and hymn of the Nature. We didn't stay at the dam that long as soon as we got there, after a minute or 2 we went on to Avilon Zoo.

When we got to Avilon Zoo, I got out of the car with a smile on my face. I didn't even wait for the others to get off the car, I rushed inside at the ticket booth like it was my treat. The entrance fee was PHP208.00 ($4) It was a privately owned zoo an d it has some of the endangered species in the world. I hate to spill the info about the zoo but I just can't stop myself from telling it, haha! Going on we went inside and had our lunch at the foodcourt inside it. I ate Spaghetti and after that we set off to explore the zoo. It was a wide collection of Snakes and Lizards, and it was the first time that I saw a Cougar and Leopard, It was a funny thing to watch because the Leopard was scared when the Cougar growls!

This is the best thing that happened in that zoo, I want all of you to meet Camille , she's a female orangutan who walks around and charms people and sometimes scare children. When I saw her I was so excited I quickly asked mom for PHP50.00 ($1) so that I can play with the Orangutan. So I did and took a lot of pictures. She was very kind though it seems that she's bored with me I was happy! It was a very touching moment for me because I care about animals and It was my first time to interact with one of them. So I went home with a smile on my face and slept te way home.