Last week my father-in-law arrived from his three-week Asian tour with three of his friends.  I got souvenir magnets from him to add to my collection and some goodies from Negros!

They went to Singapore, Philippines and Bali, Indonesia.  Their Philippine stint included a tour in Taal Lake, Tagaytay, Corregidor, Intramuros and other parts of Manila and Makati.  Sheeeshh, I haven’t even been those places yet! We found a travel agent that took very good care of them and even went out of his way to make their stay a pleasant one.

After their stay in Manila, they transferred to Negros to visit my parents.  It’s the second time for them to see each other.  The first time was when my parents came to Prague to see us.  Mom prepared a well-planned itinerary for them; tour in the Victorias Milling Company to see how sugar is made, they attended the reenactment of the Cinco de Noviembre battle in Silay where their presence was recognized by the Mayor, they visited the Negros Museum, saw the Ruins, trekked the hilly Mambukal terrain up to the 7th falls, went swimming in Pacific Shores, etc. etc.  It was a fully-packed and very busy 4 days for them in Negros and of course, aside from seeing the sights, my family made sure that they get to taste the famous delicious Negros cuisine and Filipino hospitality at its best.  I am glad our Czech guests enjoyed their stay in the Philippines.

I’m posting some of their pics courtesy of mah sistah (Happy Steps Travel Blog)!

Lunch by the sea. They feasted on oysters, crabs, fish and shrimps! They’re seated from tallest to shortest! haha

Lunch at Pacific Shores with my family…

At Don Salvador Benedicto…


Mom with the towering Czechs. (:

The Mambukal Boating Lagoon

Posing in front of their cottage at Mambukal Mountain Resort.

My two dads. (: At home, during their farewell lunch.

I was silent for sometime because of this:

Yeah! We went on weekend to Wolfgangsee, a lake in Upper Austria that lies mostly within the state of Salzburg (think Sound of Music!).  We were actually supposed to go to St. Gilgen but we got there past 7 in the evening with no accommodations. M just randomly called hotels and pension houses for any vacant rooms. After what seemed like a dozen tries, we luckily found a room in Wolfgangsee.  Whew!  It was a blessing in disguise, coz our pension house was sitting near the centre and we also found an open beach nearby in a camping site.  It wasn’t crowded, and the water is shallow enough even for little Adie to wade on.

Pardon me, but we’re taking advantage and savoring the last summer days with real summer warmth outdoors.  Plus I have tons to prepare for Caity’s 4th birthday this weekend and next week, our lives will change dramatically (well, mostly MY life) as our little girl will start preschool. We haven’t gone shopping yet for her school stuff.

Anyways, I hope you’re having fun days as well where ever you are!

Day 11 in Finland, we borrowed my bro-in-law’s car, dumped the kids to my sister’s care and drove off to Helsinki for a day. Yeah, we only had a day to see what the city has to offer. We thought, without the kids, we’ll be able to accomplish lots of things.

Helsinki is the capital and the largest city in Finland. It is about 225 kilometers away from Pori. We made it to the city in less than three hours, stopping briefly when M had to return his office’s call. We parked near the Helsinki Central railway station for 2.5 euro/30 minutes (I forgot the name of the parking center) and started our tour on foot at the Helsinki Cathedral.

Helsinki Central railway station.

The Helsinki Cathedral. It looks grand and huge but inside it is actually small.

Statue of Alexander II.

We were just in time for the Marching Band’s performance.

The Senate Square, view from the steps of the Helsinki Cathedral.

Corinthian columns of Helsinki Cathedral.

Then off we went to the Market Square where you can find Finnish crafts, souvenirs, local produce and foods.

Souvenirs!!!

Magnets!

This is where we stopped for lunch – salmon with mixed vegetables and potatoes. Yummy!

After eating, we continued our tour…

The Presidential Palace, right in front of the Market Square.

Next on our list to see is the Ustepenski Cathedral. We followed the addressed inputted by dear M in his GPS, and that’s where our walking around in circles began. Huhuhu. We actually wasted our time, energy and money (our parking clock was ticking euros!) looking for this church.  My mistake, I didn’t bring the map and the M’s navi that’s supposed to direct us to our chosen places was out of battery. Waaaaa!   It turned out the address of Ustepenski that M found in the internet was not correct!!! We finally got ourselves free map from the Museum of War, thanks to the friendly Finnish guy there who gave it to us. By that time, my patience and energy was super depleted coz it was a super hot day, the hottest ever since we got to Finland.

Random pics while searching for Ustepenski Cathedral.

Ahhh, there it is!!!!  If you scroll back up in the Market Square pictures, you can see the tip of the dome there. Yeah, it was close to the Helsinki Church, and we actually passed by there on our way to the market.  We even got intrigued what the beautiful building was, and planned to go there after we see the Market Square!!!!  What a big joke, right???!!!

The Ustepenski Cathedral.

Anyway, I’ll end for now and give you a rest from the pics overload. Beware though, there will be more pics on my next post!

On our third day in Pori, we hit the beach of Yyteri! It was a sunny yet cold breezy day; but beautiful nonetheless. We brought our coats, food to munch and whatever stuff the kids can use to make sandcastles and we’re all set.

This beach boast of six kilometers long (one of the longest in Finland and all Nordic countries) of powdery sand and dunes!

Our little boy immediately took the pleasure of playing in the sand.

Trying to swim there too…

Caity getting water from the Baltic Sea…

The kids were busy building their sandcastles…

Seagull flying in the blue, blue sky…

Sweet love… (:

O-oh!  Adie’s gonna destroy the castles!!!

Caity-kat posing…

Us!! Nobody wanted to swim in the cold water & come out to be greeted with chilly wind brrrr…

What a cool way to spend a Thursday afternoon! (:

Oh Finland. We miss you already, and it’s only a week since we left you. huhuhu… Choosing that nordic country as our vacation destination for two weeks was the best thing we did. We stayed with my sister and her family in a small and nice city of Pori. My sister’s house was family and kid-friendly, well that should be obvious because she and bro-in-law have three young kids (15, 10 and 7) so they know better what kind of environment these kids should grow up in. The lot where their house sits on is kinda big, about 600 sq. m. if I’m not mistaken. The house is spacious with three bedrooms, a toilet & bath with sauna (every Finnish house has a sauna), and another toilet, laundry room and garage. In the backyard, they have a wooden playhouse (which Caity loved), a sandbox and a trampoline; a far cry from where they were living the first time we visited them. They also have plant beds with some unknown species. We also discovered a raspberry plant bearing sweet fruits. Adie liked it, and we gather fruits for him almost every day which he ate with gusto.

If we’re not out seeing sights, staying at home was fun too.  The kids were contented playing in the backyard, oftentimes we’d go biking (errr I was learning to bike there, with 90% success) at past 10pm (yeah, it was still bright even late at night there), sweat in the sauna(!), we’d visit the nearby park which was only two houses away from them or have barbeque, or fill our tummies with my sister’s baked goodies. See?  We don’t ran out of things to do!  In fact, there’s more we wanted to do but time is lacking.  We were living a nice life there! Unfortunately, we had a hectic schedule, going places, but hopefully next time when we visit them again, we can spend more time relaxing in their home.

Pictures galore!!!

The night we arrived, Caity checking out the playhouse as her cousin looks on.

Happy Caity!!!  It was past 10 in the evening and still soooo bright!

Playing in the sandbox…

Adie running in the trampoline.

Bikes are parked, while the bikers are playing football, and me taking pictures…you can’t tell its past 10pm, right?

Caity roasting marshmallows for her s’more with her other mama.

The house. (:

No snow, Adie?


Water fun in the smoky air!

M, me and kuya…

The kids eating at the terrace…

We’ve been busy with our vacation these days and I’m glad the kids are enjoying their stay here, playing with their cousins and biking around. And since I collect ref magnets, you bet I will be shopping around for those during our trip to the center. Aside from taking photos, I am fond of shopping for souvenirs to remind me of the happy memories of our Nordic vacation.
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Moikka! We’re in Finland now! We arrived yesterday afternoon in Helsinki and took a bus to Pori where we will be staying for couple of weeks. On board the plane,the kids behaved very well. Adie slept immediately after we took off and woke up about 15 minutes before touchdown. Caity surprisingly acted like a big girl throughout the flight. She loved sitting in her own seat (unlike our last plane trip Prg-Mnl-Prg where she refused to sit on her own); she even knows how to fasten the seat belt by herself; she ate her snacks and took a short nap. They made M and I happy and proud coz the other kids around us were giving their moms headache! They were freaking out, and filling the plane with their screams and cries.

The 3.5 hours travel to Pori was a different story though. First two hours went okay, but towards the end of the trip, Adie was getting sleepy and tired and was already restless. He would wriggle out from our arms and wouldn’t stay put. He’d complain and cry. Weeee!

It’s really tough to travel with kids especially the young ones. You have to expect the unexpected to happen and be ready with tools to keep them entertained, food, drinks and lots of patience!!! But it doesn’t compare to the grueling Manila-Prague trip I took alone with the two kids (Caity just turned 3 y/o then and Adie was only 7 months!). That was the toughest and most challenging trip I’ve ever taken with kid/s! It was like taking adapexin coz of the stress. Grabe!

Anyway, there’s no time to dwell on the least pleasing side of traveling. We’re on vacation and will make the most of it. So far, everyone is having fun especially Caity. She has only stayed for a night and already decided not to go back to “my house” in Prague. haha

A friend of mine who hasn’t gone home to the Philippines for seven years is excited and also nervous coz she will finally be able to fly home with her daughter this month. WOw! seven years is a long time! Her family must have missed her so much.

Since she will flying with the same airline (Korean Air) we flew the last time, she was asking me a lot about the travel, the stop-over, how it is in Cebu, etc.

She is more worried about the 7 hours stop-over in Seoul…   I told her that it will pass by fast, coz most of the time they will be sleeping anyway, from the tiresome flight. If I was able to get through the long wait with two kids (age 3 and 8 months old), then there’s no reason why she can’t.

I advised her to be extra careful especially when commuting in public transport because there are many hold-ups and theft happening even in broad daylight. For sure this Christmas season, the thieves will be working extra too so they can also celebrate Christmas. Huhuh… at the expense of other people that is!

I told her not carry plenty of cash and to keep her valuables like mobile phone or ipad in a safe place. Or better yet, not bring it especially if she goes by public transport. If she has ipad insurance, then it won’t be so bad, but still losing a valuable item while on vacation is a worst thing to happen.

But then, even with all the thefts happening there, spending Christmas in the Philippines with loved ones is still the best.

My days of stay in PH are numbered! This weekend, I will be flying back to Prague with the kids. After almost three months of stay here, it will take some time to adjust to life in Europe once again especially that we’ll be arriving in autumn. I was told its getting cold there.

Have I packed up already? Packing up has never been a good friend nor traveling light. As much as I want to carry only few things, it’s impossible coz I am bringing with me goodies that will take a long time for me to see or eat again. Hahaha there goes the subject of food again! So what am I taking with me? Got no hoodia diet pills, but lots of vitamin C capsules for a friend! Dried fish is on top of my list of things to bring. Mango fruits for maminka and M too (that is, if the ones I bought don’t get rotten before our trip!) The other stuff I am shy to share. But if you’re a Filipino, you already know what are those.

So please say a little prayer for me, that I’ll survive the long trip with the two kids with little or no problem at all!

While there are many modern steel buildings built in my home province, Negros Occidental, but nothing beats visiting historic buildings such as the ancestral homes in Silay and the most popular one in Talisay City, The Ruins.

This mansion was built around 1900s by the sugar baron Don Mariano Ledesma for his first wife, Maria Braga. It opened its doors to the public last January 2008, and we were fortunate to visit it in December of the same year. It was an unplanned visit though, and we were in a hurry so we really didn’t get to see the structure from inside.

What remains of the house in just the skeletal frame after American forces burned it to prevent the Japanese forces from making it as their headquarters but even so, its beauty still stands out.

A comeback to this enchanting place is mandatory. Have to plan it soon!

*Thanks to Aileen Tee-Gee for the pic.