Te Arai Reserve

Winter's out, spring's here, summer's coming.  It's time to hike again!

The weather hasn't been so perfect like this for ages!  First hike is Te Arai Reserve in the north, 1.5 hours away from home.  Love the rough road going to the park.  Nothing our tiny car can't handle.

Lunch was served at the back of the car - grilled liempo and fried rice, flushed down with cold coke, chocolate donuts for dessert.  Could pass for a perfect date.  I'm cheap like that :)

Te Arai boasts of walking tracks, horse tracks, beach area for swimming/surfing, grazed areas, sand dunes. 

I especially loved the white beach with long and wide coastline, the lagoon, a thousand splendid shells, tree-lined paths, and more lush views.

And the bluffs... how could I ever forget the bluffs?  It deserves a separate post.  The bluffs deserve a separate post... Yes, they do.  Did I say I need a separate post dedicated for the bluffs?

Teh (and Paul)

Hot milk tea on a sunny yet still cold spring morning!  I do mine with extremely hot water, english breakfast tea, heaps of creamer (coffee mate is love!), and brown sugar.  

I love how it doesn't make my heart palpitate like coffee does.  I love how the mild tea flavor combines with cream - tastes like magic!  These raves are all coming from someone who can't drink coffee :p

Flashback to 2008 in Zurich... Paul the African (?) BA asked me to join him for tea.  We went to the cafe, he ordered for tea, and put in in tons of milk in his cup.  You can't even find a trace of tea in there!  He probably saw me looking at his cup.  He said, "Hey, this is the way I like my tea, ok?  I like it milky!"  Hahaha sure, Paul!  Whatever works for you!

Speaking of Paul, I also fondly remember some comedic stories with him!  Like that time when we were tasked, more like punished, to test results for a project.  The results were in spreadsheets that span about 3 meters when printed - this is just for one test case.  There are about a hundred (?) tests!  He managed to escape all that by saying, "I ain't doin' that! I have bad eyes!" (he's squint-eyed).  Smooth!    

And that time when we went to Mc Do for lunch.  We had to ride the bus but we both forgot our transport passes in our desks.  Too late to go back, we rode the bus anyway, and hoped that no random inspector will hop in.  It's just one stop anyway!  Yes, irresponsible (and may I just add, young?).  No excuses!  I sat down in the bus.  He looked  at me in disbelief, scared too like we were fugitives, "what are you doin' sittin' down there?  You don' even have a pass! Stand up here!"  Hahaha kapal nga naman ng mukha ni ateng!  Uupo pa!

Memories!  

Amag Away

Winter is over (vs GOT's 'winter is coming' nyek!).

This usually means it's time to clean all the molds that accumulated on the window sills.  Molds are really annoying. They come at a time when all you really are in the mood for is hybernating.  Who wants to move around and clean during winter?  Well, not me :)

Last Saturday, the weather forecast said 'crappy day' so I said something bright to Mike - that it's about time we remove the molds.  To which he said, "'di ba tayo magkakasakit pag nagliparan yun at nasinghot natin?" 

Aba, that was a brighter remark and good attempt to escape cleaning.  Then I hit back, "'di ba tayo magkakasakit lalo pag di natin nilinis?" 

Hahaha!  The supernova award goes to... the molds!  For making us shake our bonbons and clean.

And boy, did we clean the moldy windows!  But wait, there's more!  We also cleaned the sofa and the carpets!

Pag sinumpong nga naman oo!  It does wonders!

How to Fight with the Demons in Your Head

- play candy crush until you run out of lives - once you consume the initial 5 lives, you'll have to wait for 30 mins (?) before you could play again

- play sudoku - medium level will take you 3 - 12 mins

- play with a kid - this is fail-proof! You'll absolutely forget everything that messes with your brains

- sing karaoke over youtube - especially useful when you are alone in the house as you can sing at the top of your lungs. All-time favorites: tadhana, anything for you, sunlight, sway (mga bagong-bago!)

- water the plants and talk to them too

- cook

- drink. Water. Lots of it. Coffee/tea too. Experiment on coffee. I've tried adding butter and coconut oil after watching videos on how to make bullet coffee. Good :)

- surf on facebook, blogs, twitter 

- watch informative videos

- pray

Christmas 2015

Mike and I spent our first NZ Christmas on 2014 with fellow orphans :p - friends who have no family members here.  At that point in time, we only had each other and we are all one family

Christmas of 2015 was a bit different as we got to spend it with the cool oldies + kuya and April and dear Keyla :)

The Christmas feast

Keyla and her love letter from Santa.  Santa sneaked inside our house while we were out for Christmas mass.  Sneaky Santa :)

Missing wawi, whose visa got botched :(

We opened gifts, half of which were for Keyla.  The joys of being a kid :)

The things I would do to always have a Christmas like this :)

Shakespear Regional Park

2015 Christmas Season had been extra special. Mami was here! And so were Tita Marenila and Tito Peps (April's parents).  I fondly call them the oldies, Keyla protested and said it was not a very nice thing to say. :p

Dec 20, 2015

We went to Shakespear Regional Park, all geared, more of psyched, to harvest cockles.  Armed with a, hmmm, plastic bag, we searched for cockles.  It turned out you don't just go to the beach with the hope and desire of getting cockles.  

There's actually a thing called "tides" (no rocket science) hehehe that you have to consider.  And it was high tide when we got there, and high tide always means no-cockles.  Bow.  Sayang effort and hopes! :)

With my beautiful mami...

What's not to love?  I will never get tired of these...

the following pics are from kuya's cam:

kitang-kita, the label on the frame says 'Shakespear Regional Park'

Picnic!

The closest thing that we could get to 'swimming' in the beach.  Still too cold that time :)

The napurnadang cockles picking.  See that white plastic bag?  That's where we intended to place our cockles harvest.  Hahaha!