Playa Calatagan

It was my first time in Calatagan and I had high expectations. Never mind what people are saying about it being so far away. Basta.

We went there (mom, wacky, alex, ponce, sofie, les, and paul) on an invitation by my sister’s college friend. She wanted to show us Playa Calatagan, the newest luxury residential resort by Landco, the developers of Punta Fuego. The place was still pretty barren but the reception area, the pool, and restaurant were already operational. The place looks great. The theme is ‘Asian Tropics‘ so it’s dark brown wood, thatched roofings, a mixture of hardwood and rattan furnitures, and a cacophony of native plants dotted the whole of the property.

From the cobbled-stone steps that hugged the shorelines you can already see the faint outlines of the neighboring islands, I think it was Mindoro, and miles and miles of sea. The beach, just a couple of meters away, was teeming with small hermit crabs and starfish! The kids had fun just watching the hermit crabs scurrying away from their grubby little hands. It was fun just watching them squeal with delight and panic at the same time. Kids.

I came prepared because I heard that Calatagan was a beautiful place. Aside from my respectable 5mp cellphone cam, I brought my Holga 135 for those funky vintage-y kind of shots. I took pictures of everything, well, almost everything that captured my fancy. Chairs, bridges, stones, starfishes, ceiling fans…there were so many things I wanted to take pictures of with my Holga. Unfortunately I only brought a single roll of film. I didn’t think we’d stay that long for me to need another roll anyway.

After lunch we headed out to see the model house which was a little way away from the reception/club house area. The whole residential resort is being built on rolling hillsides with roads carved to its natural contours. There were already a few houses built on some of the lots but it was still mostly barren. The model house was, as expected, a magnificent display of architecture and interior design. True to its “Asian Tropics” theme, the house was decked in stained wood, from the floors to the kitchen cabinetry and the platform beds.

Floor to ceiling glass adorned the living area as well as the dining room, affording homeowners unobstructed views of the glimmering sea and the sinking sun over the horizon. It was awesome. The scene alone is worth a million bucks in my book. The ‘awsomeness’ doesn’t end there. Just outside of the spacious dining area is a bit of garden and a small, but nonetheless, enticing infinity pool which also looks out to the clear blue sea far off in the distance.

The rooms were spacious and fitted with beautiful wooden furniture and was well-equipped with modern amenitites. Laptop, flat screen television, and air-conditioning. While the master suite had a canopied king size bed draped in silk beddings. It was truly a dream house out there away from the city. By the way, we heard that the model house was bought by the famous Carlos Palanca. The house and everything in it. As in EVERYTHING, for about 16 mil if I remember correctly. Whew! That’s a lot of moolah.

Anyway, as the afternoon rolled on, the children became listless and tired from all the playing and running around. I was to beat up from running after Wacky and taking pictures. I felt grimy from the sweat that mingled with the humid air. I wanted to wash it all away. Unfortunately, we were hours and hours away from the comforts of home. We decided that it was time to go home because we still had a long way to travel.

We got home really late. Maybe past 10pm. I was tired, grimy, and sleepy. I didn’t know which one I wanted to do first. Sleep or take a bath? We had to dress Wacky up first and put him to bed before I was able to finally lie in bed around 11pm. Too tired I was immediately asleep.

In summary, I had a great time with my family. I got to see Calatagan and took home great pictures to remember the place by. It’ll probably be years before I can come back to that place so these pictures would have to do.

Hmm, ang haba na pala ng post ko. =D

Mishu, mishu

Long weekends mean long separations. That’s just how it is with me and Han. We did manage to sneak in a whole day of fun last Saturday. It was a surprise that he let me choose where to eat at lunch. Being the Cebuano that he is, he’s not used to the not-so-tasty food daw here in Manila. Although, he is beginning to discover a few gems out there.

I chose to eat at Mang Inasal’s in Makati Avenue. It’s one of our staple resto choices and we haven’t eaten there in a while. The food was good, except for the sinigang na bangus, the fish smelled rotten! Ewww. Despite that one dish, we stuffed ourselves silly with their all you can eat rice. Well, at least han did. Haha.

Sunday, I was out of the house the whole day. Went to Calatagan, Batangas to look at the newest, exclusive, and poshiest Residential Resort from Landco Pacific Corp., developers of Punta Fuego also in Batangas, Playa Calatagan. More on that on the next post. Anyway, being so far away, having no yaya, and no Sun signal in some parts of the resort, I didn’t get to text han as often as I wanted to. We got to talk before I went to bed though, and that’s enough to make me go to sleep smiling.

Well, tomorrow’s a working day, so I will get to spend an hour or two with han.

Am I A Writer?

I’ve never considered myself as one. Though, officially I’ve been a copywriter for 6 months already, yet it’s still hard for me to believe that I’m actually one. Funny isn’t it? The reason is, I believe, is that for most of my working life, writing was never the MAIN thing that I do. It was just part of it.

I think I just got lucky I know how to string english words together correctly, and that I happen to know a couple of hifalutin words, that my former boss asked me to write a brief news article of an event that we were part of. Short of making me do a task beyond my job description and for lack of manpower, I was in no position to argue, disagree, or decline. Lest I see myself out of a job the next day. So I did what I could and have never stopped writing professionally since then.

However, I consider myself a newbie in this field. Writing notebook after notebook of journal does not make one a writer. Being with real writers all day makes me realize that I have so much to learn about writing good copies.

And speaking of learning about being a true writer, I just recently found out about MOLESKINE. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. How could I? How could I not know of Moleskine? The most revered notebook in the writing and traveling world. With pages that make your scrawny hadwriting look reeeaally good and spines that make it possible for pages to lie flat whatever page you’re writing on, how could I have not heard of this gem before? Ah…I dunno. Perhaps it’s because I’ve never been around writers much before now? Ahm, maybe it’s because no one I know has heard of it either. Well, whatever, now I know all about it I am getting one.

I’m seriously thinking of furthering my career in the writing world and my current job makes it all possible. Of course, I’m still a techie at heart and I still want to learn stuff about web designing, photoshop, digital scrapbooking, and maybe programming. For now, I’m going to write to my heart’s content.

The Arts and Crafts Week

It’s been one hell of a week. First week without a nanny. This means having no time to rest, no time for watching tv, and no time for going out. Then here comes my sister, leaving her three precocious kids on our doorstep while she and her husband goes gallivanting the land of white-sand beaches, delicious gigantic home-made shakes, and idyllic Boracay. What the heck?!! I haven’t even had a proper summer vacation myself! And I had one weekend planned destroyed, shredded, and crushed to oblivion because of it. Grrr! I’d wring her neck if she wasn’t my sister and if Sophie-girl wasn’t such a cute and funny little kid who showed off her dancing prowess and pointed to her head whenever you ask, “Where’s your bukol?” Oh well, so much for ranting. They only stayed for four days. It was fun for me and Wacky got to spend time with his cousins.

On the work front, things haven’t been as busy the last few weeks. This means having a lot of idle time on our hands. So aside from the many mini-projects they’ve cooked up for us to do, some of the designers and writers decided to do some arts and crafts ranging from readymechs to origami. It was a lot of fun trying to figure out the different folding techniques and seeing how this piece of square paper can turn into a dog, a bird, a dinosaur, and even a pokemon. LOL.

On my way home I passed by Trinoma, at this everything 10 pesos store I bought 3 coloring books, colored pencils, and a box of crayons for Wacky and me. It’s cool. The coloring books look great. It doesn’t even look like it’s only 10 pesos! I think I might have to go back to buy some more.