Busay

Can't still have a good grasp of it # the mighty sun has been playing so elusive since the first of August, had given  Manila daily burst of massive rain, not less than 3 typhoons, torrential/monsoon serious flood BUT!! yesterday 'till today_  the sun has been up and shining !!!! Are you kidding me?? After I had cancelled two scheduled trips for this month, now you're giving me this " beautiful beach weather". Nohurtfeelings. I heard another typhoon is coming, so really I'm just happy to wake-up with the sun beaming at me, which is a rarity now a days.

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I'm just saying.. my last out of town was as old as the last time a whole week the sun continued to show. As far as I can remember, that was like sometime in June this year. Cos after that, it has been all raining and just small peeking of the sun, and the only place I've been to were malls' supermarkets to buy groceries. then stayed home under roof being hammered by the heavy downpour of the rain_everyday!

Sometime in June, we had our short visit of my hometown and before exiting, we decided to eat our lunch at one of the countless waterfalls/river resorts a little bit away from the town.

See how cheap the entrance fees are.

From that opening, we walked and passed some houses, really rural. I enjoyed some rustic scenes like the kid bathing himself in a basin. He didn't care at all about a bigger body of water just across his house which was the resort we were going. Or maybe, he had too much of it already.

Few feet across that little boy in the basin, there was this man made small bridge with water flowing on it.

It wasn't a pass thru bridge where one can walk to reach the other point. It was more it seemed a water container. Unseen from the photo above, there were couples of women washing clothes right at this spot. Making use of the free flowing water. This also served as the entrance of the resort.



From up there, we went down and this what caught us in surprise. One solid massive rock with water flowing happy. For P20 entrance fee, where could you steal such a nature treat, if not in gifted rural town such as Guinayangan Quezon.

We couldn't help ourselves and went straight up to the rock.

The water was coming from the river behind the rock. I wasn't so solved about the staircases. They lessen the rustic appeal of the falls and made them looked  man made. In fairness, they made going around the falls real easy.



Neither the painted stairs appealed to me.



That time, the resort was relatively had just opened for business. We also caught some locals having photo shoot for the beauty contest of their barangay fiesta.

The place spelled nature kiss. We almost forgot why we dropped by there. Not to swim! We didn't bring any swimwear.

But to eat our packed lunch!!! We weren't asked to pay for the cottage since were just there to eat and not to swim. Yah, I looked funny there,haha,



Nothing could beat a nature stop when you're up for a long road trip (like 5-6 hours) back to the tiresome city.

Torrential Rains

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Photo of Manila City Hall area taken two days ago. By now more horrendous under water Manila+nearby Luzon provinces photos are allover the net. The flood source is a news in that sense that it wasn't a super typhoon at all. It was caused by  "torrential rains" following typhoon Gener which later had gotten different international names. Torrential rains?, now we have added a new word in our local weather experienced dictionary. I'm quite 'omg' to what next.

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Marikina residents waiting to be rescued. The same city which was so much affected by "Ondoy" had again went through the same ordeal. This makes me hundred folds thankful that my family is residing in Las Pinas which is so lucky not to be a flooded-prone sub-urban city. If there were flooded areas in Las Pinas, they were only isolated cases and had not reached our area. So far.

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Having been safe and well had made me so thankful but never joyous. My heart goes to the thousands of displaced victims of this latest catastrophe in our country.  Many are temporary housed in evacuation centers around the city up to this day.
The sun is a little up today. No one will surely know if it would stay up there for the whole day. But for the victims it needs more than a beaming sun to alleviate the difficulties they are going through. They need HELP!
For those who are like me who wish to extend a hand to our affected kababayans, you can visit the website for links to relief operations and evacuation centers.
God bless us all.

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

This was taken a year ago. At a Buddhist temple in Singapore which for a time I couldn't  locate which. This one is just a reminiscent of the whole album I took of the place. Lost now in my hurricaned cyber files. Again I reminded myself to not forget to take photos of marker of the place if only to help me name it later ( like even years later when I feel like I already want to do a post about  it, haha ).




Until my visit again to Sg with my daughter last April this year and we set foot again around Chinatown.

This time I was able to take a photo of the marker of the place. See. . :))))

So now I know. This maroon red temple is the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. Befitting the metropolitan Singapore, "old" is definitely not a word to describe the temple. I've actually seen quite a number of temples around Asia, including in my own country, and usually their existence aren't lower than a decade at least. But this is in Singapore, everything seems to have been built " just yesterday ".




I'm always fascinated with the details of a temple's gate, or of our churches' doors. There would always be interesting characters.




We failed to get inside the temple. We were worried that our clothes that day (shorts and sleeveless tops) weren't appropriate to enter one. We just took photos from the outside. I was considering the photos I had taken a year ago with my brother. But when I got home, I couldn't find them anymore.

I also knew, I would be stopped when I would be seen taking photos of the Buddhas inside so I just took from the outside with inappropriate lens. Those Buddhas were so beautiful but this shot is a failure.




I'm not a religious person but a very prayerful one. I breath with prayers everyday. I pray for peace of mind, good health, safety, balance, positiveness, but always I pray to give back the glory to God for the flowing love I receive everyday.

Hits & Misses

I'd say the best things in life are free. And random. The sweetest experiences I had_ mostly came unannounced and happened unplanned. Talk about free spirited people like me, you wouldn't have to wonder.
Ofcourse, a coin has two sides. My randomness is not always a happy ending. My being a snappy traveler also  brought us some random misses, haha.

Okey, I'll share a very graphic example of my randomness. One after-a-rain-noon, we were on our way back to Manila from a short visit of my farfar away hometown. But before we even got out of the town, brother mentioned that we were about to pass by a barangay with a cave he recently visited. In fact he added it was just like 10-15 minutes away a little detour from the main road. My random bell rang so loud, I went ahead to persuade driver husband to entertain the detour, haha. To cut the long convincing scene _  we reached the rural outskirts and all we needed was to change our foot gears cos we would be doing a little hiking.



Not so fast my dear! My ever protected/conservative/opposite of my random- self husband had to make his bylaws speech first as usual. This time with my brother around, he was letting us go without him. He actually not so liking this kind of snappy trip and would only go with us to protect us.



Afterwhich we were ready, but wait.. brother had an issue_ he totally forgot how to get there! wt#@%#!!!

So now we had to look for a local guide. He then went to a house nearby and when he came back, he brought with him our guide___



Meet little Angelito :))) The boy volunteered or was it like he was sent by his mother to guide us to the cave. The boy swore he knew the cave so well it was one of his play areas in the neighborhood. Ahh, ok.

So we followed the little boy leads. He said that it was just very near from the main road where we started the hike. He was so right about the cave not so far. Only this young fellow forgot to warn us that it wasn't going to be as plain as the beginning.







It was not at all obvious in the photos above, but the trail was actually not made easy by the previous rain that day. It was muddy and slippery. Many times, we couldn't hold to anything but to thin twigs only which were not very helpful. I guess the situation limited brother (who was behind the lens) on taking photos of our trail. It wasn't only once that we nearly fell down the river below the hilly muddy road we were walking on. It's good husband never read my blogs. The secret is safe from his worries.



The boy was right, it wasn't that far. Really, just few minutes and difficult muddy trail from the mainroad. Brother was not convinced that it was the cave he was looking for.



The boy insisted that this was the one! Brother was sure_it was not!!

You decide who's right ! This was the cave the boy-guide said it was! haha.



To give you a better perspective of the size of the mouth of the cave_  how do you think I could fit in to enter thaT?? crawl !!! haha.

The boy swore it was a cave and people in their community went in to catch some___... now I forgot what! Not snake, I'm sure of that.



Brother was so sure it wasn't the one. The boy out of embarrassment  ran out of the woods and left us all by ourselves to trek back to the main road. wheeww!!

All ended well in laughter and well as usual as I say to my girls__ charge it to experience!!!