December is one of the peak seasons for travelling. In fact, M who’s planning to join us for Christmas is still on the wait list for his trip to PH. We only decided to spend Christmas in PH last October and by then, December flights were already fully booked. Sigh. An agent told us that as early as February, bookings are already starting to fill in for December.
A little tip from our experience, if you see yourself travelling this month, it’s best to make the necessary preparations early. Book your flight, hotel and transportation transfers in advance. For those travelling in New York City and its surrounding suburbs, one transportation service you can trust is GO Airlink Shuttle, a JFK Airport Shuttle. With their affordable, on-time and safe services, you’d be assured of a reliable and comfortable ride from the airport to the hotel and vice versa. If you’re planning to see the sights of the Big Apple, you can also connect with their NYC tours and attractions that will take you around the city for sightseeing on their hop-on, hop-off bus tours.
At any rate, whether it’s a travel to a place within your country or out, I wish everyone a fun and safe vacation!
Today marks the second week of our arrival in the Philippines. We haven’t gone to any beach resorts or any points of interest in the country. This isn’t a tour-all-around-the-country kind of vacation anyway but more of staying-at-home-to-relax kind of thing, NOT! Hah! I wish I get to relax really. Having an energetic toddler makes it impossible. She has to be watched over more keenly than in Prague coz the house isn’t baby-friendly; there’s a long flight of stairs that she loves to climb, there’s a rock garden which she enjoys picking the stones from and many other things that she’s eyeing to discover and explore. Thanks to my sis and parents, they sometimes stash little C away to play with her and I get to have a time for myself. But lately she’s been clingy to me! Getting a yaya is not an option for me coz I don’t really trust anybody else to take care of little C other than family members.
But, we’ve made several trips to the malls for our Christmas shopping and that’s just about the one deviation activity from my motherhood chores that I get to do. Oops, there’s dining out too whenever we go shopping. Anyway it will be only two weeks more till my other siblings and their family will arrive and it will be a party circus everyday at home with kids running, laughing and playing all over the house. Little C will have many playmates then!
In the meantime, wherever you go around the city you will be greeted with houses, stores and buildings decked with colorful and bright decors and blinking Christmas lights such as this one:
The Chinatown Square in Bacolod City.
It took me a week to finally break the silence in my blog. I have been very tired the days that followed our arrival in the country. That and the problem with jet lag and the sudden shift of (almost) winter temperature to the tropic’s hot and humid. In fact I got sick for a day. Now I feel a lot better and my body clock has slightly adjusted to the local time.
Me and little C at Siam.
Little C and I stayed for a day in Cebu. I was able to meet my friends for lunch at Chika-an, one of the oldest and famous restaurants in Cebu which serves local foods. They’re now conveniently located at the SM North Wing, an extension of the mall which was then under construction when I last visited Cebu two years ago. I feasted on grilled squid, calamares and my fave, the fresh lumpia from Pete’s Kitchenette that my friends bought.
Little C with her cousins.
For dinner with family, we dined at Siam, a Thai restaurant located at Terraces, a newly opened extension of Ayala Center Cebu. Terraces has a circular plan which contains mostly of food joints and coffee shops. In the middle is an open sunken court which was beautifully landscaped into a park with lush vegetation and palm trees. On both sides of the stairs leading to the park, water cascades down like a waterfalls. What a progressive Cebu!
The Terraces, Ayala Center Cebu
The Terraces, Ayala Center Cebu
The next day, we flew to Negros and since then I’ve been busy settling down, resting and going out with the family.
*I don’t have any pictures to share of our inflight travel and also of our long stop-over in Incheon International Airport (Korea) coz I forgot to take the camera from M when we parted at Prague Airport. Way ayo! 
It was only last month when I wrote about my dream to fly to Philippines again for Christmas to be with the whole family for the celebration. And guess what? We’re flying tomorrow already! Well, just me and little C coz M has an important business trip to another part of the world to take care of. He’ll follow next month, hopefully if the travel agent can find him an available flight.
M and I originally didn’t plan to fly back to Philippines this soon since we’ve recently gone home last March and spent two months there, but upon learning that all my siblings will spend Christmas at our hometown, we considered going home again. M had to ask for leave before we could decide on our trip. And then we later on found out that little C’s passport was expiring this December and my permanent residence permit has to be renewed. After all the travel documents have been complied it was then that we gave our preferred dates of departure to the travel agent.
This time we’re taking a different route. Our carrier is Korean Air which will fly from Prague to Seoul and from Seoul to Cebu. We’ll stay a day in Cebu before proceeding to Bacolod. I’m quite excited about landing in Cebu. hehehe I’ll get to meet family and friends there whom I haven’t had the chance to see on my trip last time. little C’s cousins are excited to see her as well.
So Cebu, Philippines, here we come!
Related posts:
almost ready to travel
dreaming of holiday in the philippines
destination: philippines
the beach is calling!
A lesson to myself: make sure our travel documents are valid and updated for travelling! Who knows when the opportunity to travel knocks and it would be really nice if I can hurriedly grab our travel documents and ran off to the airport without any hitches. Processing these important documents can take weeks or months and such delay is annoying especially if the chance is slowly slipping away.
Anyway, little C had her passport renewed last Thursday. I hope it will be released this week. And today, we had my permanent residence renewed as well. Then hopefully we can fly off to the tropics!
Whenever we travel, we usually ask from friends who have been to place before for any recommendations on accommodations, the places to see, what to do and what not to do and other essential information that one needs before disembarking on a trip.
A photo posted in Sosauce Travel
Their tips and advises have been very helpful in having a smooth-sailing travel free from hassles. But for cases when we don’t have anyone to ask for information, we’d search over the internet. There are many travel sites that offers tons of information on any places of destination. Among these sites is Sosauce Travel, an interactive website where travelers share their experiences in their online journal; they also upload photos, videos and offer tips to other readers. This travel community has got almost all places covered. If you want to go to India, there’s a post about India by Edward Bally; if you search Ecuador, there’s Howard with his trip itinerary, photos and stories. You won’t run out of travel information from So Sauce.
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“Can we be friends?”
Yesterday – We were resting on the grass in front of the massive and impressive structure of Reichstag building in Berlin when little C caught sight of a Russian boy playfully posing for his dad’s camera. Without any hesitation and too happy to find a new playmate, little C hurriedly crawled towards him and befriended him.
Later on, whenever the boy would ran, little C would crawl after him too. It was an amusing sight!
The Prague Castle entrance at the Prašný most side
I hadn’t realized until yesterday how extremely big Prague Castle (Prasky Hrad) is. According to my sis it’s one of the biggest ancient castles in the Guinness Book of World Records and yesterday I had the chance to see it for myself when we (my sis, little C and I) strolled around the huge castle complex. I’ve been to the castle few times to see the St. Vitus Cathedral and some adjacent parts but never ventured far. Too bad my parents weren’t able to see the rest of the castle grounds and the gardens when they were here; there was just too much to see in a day!
What we saw that day:
The Inner Courtyard
The gothic church of St. Vitus Cathedral and its superb interior
The St. George Basilica
Garden On The Ramparts
The Episcopal Palace
The Schwarzenberg Palace
The New Orangery
Royal Garden and many other structures that we can’t identify.
Inside the grand St. Vitus Cathedral and the ever present swarms of tourists
The southern wing of St. Vitus cathedral
At the Garden On The Ramparts, with little C posing a smile
The Schwarzenberg Palace
A building in the Royal Garden with intricate carvings on the wall
Parking little C’s stroller while she sleeps at the Royal Garden
*Thank God for the kindness of a Brazilian couple who helped us carry little C’s stroller up the stairs from the Garden on the Ramparts.
After more than a week of hibernation, I was out last weekend. Saturday was spent visiting maminka or mam for short. It has been awhile since we last saw each other. I brought along my sister so they can meet each other and of course, little C too. It was a pleasant meeting. Mam gave us flowers and prepared food for us which we gladly devoured. Mam on the other hand was happy with our humble presents and of course, enjoyed little C’s antics! We were also glad that she offered to take care of little C on Sunday so I could tour my sister around Prague.
beautiful pink roses from mam, sis had a blue rose
little C with her grandma
So on Sunday, my sis and I were trudging the cobblestones and narrow streets of Prague, admiring the beautiful medieval architecture and buildings along with sea of tourists that were overflowing in Prague. Yeahhh, you can’t even extend your arms sideways or you’re sure to hit them. That’s how crowded Prague is especially that it was a Sunday and summer at that. It’s the peak season for tourists!
Our itinerary that day included:
Our Lady of Victorious Church
Museum of Our Lady of Victorious Church
The John Lennon Wall
Charles Bridge
a view of Vltava River taken from St. Charles Bridge
Old Town Square where you can see the following buildings:
Astronomical Clock
Clock Tower
Old Town Hall
Tyn Church
the Tyn church up ahead with two Gothic spires
Jan Hus Monument
St. Nicholas Church
Kriz House
House at the Minute
Palaces in the Old City Square
And lastly at the Wenceslas Square where the statue of St. Wenceslas is, and the National Museum. We occasionally stopped at several souvenir shops to buy souvenirs which took almost half of our time!
the pretty white & yellow roses in full bloom. pic taken along Wenceslas Square
Whew! It sure was a hot, tiring and long walk! What’s good is that Prague’s tourists’ attractions are concentrated in the centre which made our walk on foot possible. Tomorrow we’ll go out again, dekuji mami!
When time is short, speed is an important factor to accomplish many tasks. Just like our recent Europe tour to Czech’s neighboring countries, Austria and Germany. We hurriedly made a quick trip to these cities each in one day. Whew! It was quite hectic considering that we only have few hours to stroll around the place and see the sights and we also have to spend a total of more than 6 hours of travel; going there and back. You can imagine how we dashed from one place to another; walking briskly with the very limited time we had. But it was all worth it!
Speed is essential as well in the workplace. Workers need to have tools to make their work fast. Like when you have piles of documents to print out, an efficient and fast printer is important. HP LaserJet 2420 q5956a fits this criteria as it has 400 MHZ processor and a 32 MB RAM which makes printing fast. You can print an average of 30 pages in a minute! I wish we were like HP printer during our tour; able to walk 30 steps in a minute (Yikes that’s not really fast! maybe 30 steps in a second then) and not get tired (hehehe), then we could have seen more tourists’ attractions!
