Life in Zambo

Less than 10 months ago, I got on a plane to Cebu, stayed for a couple of days, then got on another plane to Hong Kong. I stayed another couple of days on my own in Hong Kong and just walked around Nathan Road, feeling the cold, brisk air in my face and ate alone at a Turkish restaurant. I have never really minded being on my own. The first time I experienced being on my own was when I left home for college. I was 17. Sure I missed my family terribly, I missed having my own ride, and I missed being comfortable in my house. When you go off to college and share a house with 35 other individuals, you're bound to keep to yourself so as not to disturb them, or worse, make enemies of them. A couple of days in Hong Kong prepared me to get on another plane headed to Mumbai, India. I wasn't even able to stay in Mumbai for an hour. The moment I arrived in Mumbai, I had to look for the check in counter headed to Doha, Qatar. It was going to be the start of a new life for me. I never...

A few nights ago as I was getting dropped off at the villa, the youngest member of the house has been star gazing with her mother on an almost starless night. When I opened the gate and she saw me, she jumped up from her seat on the front porch's stairs and ran up to me while saying, "Tita! Tita, you're here!" Tita is a Filipino word, meaning "auntie". She said it with such excitement that it was hard not to return any affection. I picked her up and swung her in my arms from side to side and since she's someone else's kid, I'd rather not kiss her on the face, rather just nuzzled on the spot under her ear. We were enjoying the moment, when she pulled on my cheeks, looked at me with such love and then she stuck her little tongue out and licked my lips. Then she giggled. It was such a whoa moment for me, but having puppies kind of made me get used to little things licking me. LOL When I put her down, she wanted to pull me in to the front y...

I flew back to Cebu City on the 14th of January. I had lunch with some friends and said my good byes for now and chilled with my guy. After all, I was leaving the Philippines on the 16th. In my mind, I guess I really needed to move forward because it felt like I was pretty much stuck, not getting anything else happening in my life. I was stuck in a routine. I wanted to try something new and being an OFW is something I haven't done before. And maybe it'll keep me grounded for a few years. The 16th. I had an early morning flight to Hong Kong. My guy had to ask his friend for a favour to drive me to the airport. We both couldn't stay long with each other. He had his friend with him and they were just using their lunch break to take me to the airport. I had to go through check in, travel tax processing and immigration. I've heard plenty of horror stories involving the immigration process, so I was praying internally that everything goes smoothly. As someone who has not ...

Here I was, living a normal life, working a normal job, which paid just enough to keep me afloat and my bills paid and even enough to save up for a trip or two. Well, that's if I plan on being single for the rest of my life or if I plan on not having more than what I had. I don't plan on being single for the rest of my life, but I can't really control that. Moving on, I do plan on having more than what I have and staying stuck in a room working won't really get me that. I found myself just rotting away in my bedroom, not having any social life and occasionally took a break on Mondays to pay some bills, do some groceries, clean up at home, do some laundry and even chauffeur for my mom. Last November, my visa to enter Qatar was approved. I didn't really know how to feel like when it happened. My mom was happy, as if I finally got something going for me. Moms are like that. They always want something for you even if you never really asked for it. I wanted to work i...

Two weeks ago, I arrived at Doha's Hamad International Airport. Locally, it was 2:45AM. In the Philippines, it was 7:45AM. I had taken a flight out from Hong Kong to Mumbai then to Doha. Fashion-wise, I did not plan well. I mean, it's the Middle East, right? Like you'd see deserts all over the place and then you'll just burn up and die. How stereotypical. LOL. But really, no. The airport's temperature was okay, I was fine indoors. I was waiting for my mom's friend to come pick me up from the airport. I never really met her formally. She knew me from when I was still a kid, but I never really knew her. It was a good thing I had my Philippine number's roaming feature on, so she got a hold of me and we met outside. Before she arrived, I tried to get some fresh air because I was just on two flights which pretty much totalled 12 hours. The moment the doors opened, I felt like I was splashed with cold water. And I thought it was chilly in Hong Kong. Coming ...

Breeze ActivBleach is treating mommies across the country to a day off from their laundry chores with the simultaneous nationwide event 1Laba Day happening on August 28. Moms in barangays throughout Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao are invited to head to 1Laba Day venues and let Breeze’s revolutionary ActivBleach take care of their stained clothes while they take part in exciting activities Breeze has in store for them to celebrate every mother’s hard work and love for her family. With 1 Laba Day, Breeze aims to wash 1 million stains using Breeze ActivBleach, which removes even the toughest of stains in just one wash. Participating moms can enjoy their ultimate laundry day-off as Breeze treats them to various entertainment activities, while the Breeze Laba Ladies and Laba Machines, sponsored by campaign partners Electrolux, White Westinghouse, Whirpool and LG, will take care of washing their clothes. Simultaneous 1Laba Day events will happen in Metro Manila (Pasig, Marikina, Quezon C...

I used to attend Pilar College in high school. It's situated right in front of RT Lim Boulevard. Looking back, every morning was filled with fog, but during the afternoon, we'd be able to see across the sea at the islands. At the time, nobody really knew what they were, just that they were close enough and that the sand were light enough to be seen across the sea. Our family, including anybody from our extended family, have never been to those islands. In the past few years, the local government officially made it possible to visit one of the islands for recreation, while the smaller one was turned into a naval base. We decided to finally go see the Pink Sand beach before my brother goes back overseas. On a Sunday, and appropriately enough, on Father's Day, our family, my aunt's family, and as well as a family friend and his two daughters were all at Paseo del Mar, where the Sta. Cruz Island Ferry Terminal is found.

I've lived in Zamboanga City for most of my life, but I haven't really gotten around to viewing the sights and sounds. Thinking back, I used to just hop on my motorcycle and ride through the still undeveloped parts of Pasonanca and Lunzuran. The unpaved, dusty roads and unexplored areas excited me. When I went to visit those areas again, it wasn't what I expected. I, for one, never expected that people would actually start to live in those uneven patches of land. So, for the past week, I went on a mission to find Zamboanga . Zamboanga has gotten so much bad rap the past few years that I think people have started to forget that Zamboanga isn't all that bad. If it was so bad, the population would have already dropped. I went to find ten places in Zamboanga City where you don't have to actually splurge to have a good time, or appreciate Zamboanga City.

The author with the Yakan children With today's modern society, and Man's hurry to progress, many of our cultural heritages have been forgotten. Our forefathers, in their obsession to catch up with modern times, have neglected to pass on what we could have counted as part of history. But this ethnic tribe has not. The Yakan people originally come from the Basilan province. During the trying times of the '70s, some of the population opted to move to the safer Zamboanga City, bringing along with them traditions and culture as a means of making a livelihood. Although some of them may have moved on to become more progressive, a small village in Zamboanga City has preserved their culture, which is now known as the Yakan Village. This small group of people earn their livelihood by showing guests the traditional dance, Pangalay , which is also practised by other Muslim tribes, and by selling handwoven goods. Considering the amount of effort put into it and what it symb...

Summer's over for the most of us, so I'll be going around Zamboanga to find out more about life in the now. For the next few days, I'll be checking out some spots, right here in Zamboanga, some known, some found right in front of your eyes, just unacknowledged. Maybe go on a little cultural trip that can only be found in Zamboanga. If you haven't yet, follow me on Facebook , Twitter , Tumblr or Instagram . You may or may not find more interesting stuff on there than here.

Finally, after two months of waiting, I got my first BDJ box! Well, I can hardly be called a beauty blogger, but I'm still a girl, and I like make up. I've yet to try the products, and maybe I'll use one or a couple of them for today. I've been kinda lazy these past few months, but I will be definitely putting up a review of the products that I'm going to use. Here's the box. Click to enlarge. It's a pretty little box of treats, don't you think?

Thanks to Pantene for sending me this little treat. God only knows how much I need this for my hair. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I can't afford it, it just so happens that I wanted to sign up here and they decided to send  me these lovelies. Just to give you a gist of how much fixing my hair needs, check this out. That's due to too much abuse via coloring. If I don't use conditioners or leave-ons, it's like doll hair. T_T

Source Last night, instead of being with family, I partied with a friend and her family. It was a type of party that I haven't been to since I was a kid. I'm the one who's usually away from home, but this time, I'm the only one who stayed at home. So instead of being lonely on New Year's Eve, I decided to take up my friend's invitation to come over and spend it with her family. For the past ten years, every New Year's party or celebration I've been to involved beer and a lot of singing. Well, I don't really drink, but I'm not going to tell my friends to stop drinking either. It's their choice to make.

Well, okay, so I never had a list of what I wanted to do for the past years. This is going to be the first time I'll be putting goals down. Maybe before the year ends, I'll even have a bucket list of long term goals. I never made a list, because I always thought that plans always don't push through. But not anymore. I haven't thought like that for a more than a year now and now, I like planning years to come. Now before I start writing down my plans for 2014, here are some stuff that happened in 2013. I backpacked through five countries in 16 days. I backpacked with some friends and the boyfriend locally. I opened a new bank account. I got my stock portfolio. I started blogging again. I started an emergency fund and travel fund. Lost 10 kilos.

Paydays usually fall on the 15th and the 30th. When I still worked at my first call center, and if the 15th fell on a Saturday, we'd get our pay on the 14th. The funny thing was, it's still the 13th and people are already itching to withdraw from ATMs. We'd call the last few days towards the payday " tingbits ". That's short for tingbitay, an expression Cebuanos use that means "running low on cash". My salary used to be between P10,000 - P15,000 at the time. Since I was a fresh graduate, the frugal living that I led and taught my younger siblings were carried over by habit and I managed to live somehow without asking for allowance from my parents. Then I met Lifestyle. I met Starbucks, Bo's Coffee, met with McDonald's and Jollibee as much as I can, and even forgot that I used to see Carinderia to shell out just P20 during midday. Regretfully, whenever it was payday, I always found a way to spend it and just lived from paycheck to pay...

Originally, I started writing this to be posted as a Facebook status message, but then it got a little too long, so I decided to make a blog post out of it. Let's do a little math. Say for example, we have a call center agent whose salary is P20,000 in a month. Her mandatory SSS contribution is set to P1,560 per month since her salary bracket is above P15,000 (this is set to be increased come January 2014, by the way) . She also has HDMF, PhilHealth and 12% salary taxes to pay. If, for example, she gets off 20,000 clean in a month, that's 12% Tax: Goes to the Bureau of Internal Revenue, which is used to pay ordinary Government employees (their wages aren't much, mind you, I would know) , the Police, the Military, the Congress, the Senate, the President, etc. There's also the Pork Barrel, the DAP, etc. 20,000 x 0.12 = P2,400 Social Security System: P1,560 PhilHealth: For a salary base of 20,000, expect a P500 deduction from your payroll monthly(http:/...

No amount of hair moisturizer, whether oils or creams, and even hair masks can save the dryness of the tips of my hair. Well, that was to be expected, given the number of times I've dyed my hair and the way I avoided trims. I've recently just had my hair rebonded(?). And this is how my hair looked before. Note: Don't be fooled by the Instagram filter. LOL And this is how it looked after.

I've read somewhere that pet photography isn't something that you can take lightly. It's like trying to take pictures of babies. You can't tell them to sit still and smile, nor tell them to do something crazy and then attempt to capture that moment. I have two Labrador Retrievers, but I think somewhere along the line, probably one of their grandparents wasn't all Labrador. I mean, how can a Labrador Retriever have long hair? Just look at him.

Late July or August, I was working on the computer as usual and went to bed at around 11PM. My working environment at the time was that I used the edge of my bed as a chair, so I didn't have a back rest and I used an old computer table, which wasn't level with my elbow (it was a little high). I would sometimes sit on my legs just to get myself to move around. Then one day, I woke up with a sharp pang on a spot a little above where my heart's supposed to be right through my back. It was so sharp that I shot up breathless, grabbing on to whatever I could grab on to. It was a familiar pain. Last time I had it was when I was still in college. I was graduating and I pushed myself so hard then that I'd only sleep one or two hours a night. I got the rest of my sleep in class. With the type of environment that I set myself up with, I always ended up with a sore tailbone, and a sore neck. It was often so uncomfortable that getting up became so tasking and that all I wanted t...

It has definitely been a number of days since I last watched the news. I just find the news to be engrossing that I haven't been as productive as I wanted to be. Actually, if I had a TV in my room I've probably still be watching the news while working. Mar Roxas, well-known as Mr. Palengke back when he was still running for office in the Senate, supposedly declared that the war is over, based on the barrage of status messages on my Facebook News Feed. A lot of people are not convinced. Some commented that they heard gunfire and explosions still, while others who probably are far away from the the affected areas are rejoicing because of the good news. While I am among those who are in the unaffected areas, the gunfire and explosions that have been waking me the past few days seem to be absent today. I'm not going to say that it's now safe to go out and be merry, but rather I would advise those who would need to be outside for work and provisions to be as vigilant as ...