All posts tagged: featured

The Beijing Experience

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My first impression of Beijing was unexpectedly nice. I was a bit wary to visit this city because of what people tell me — that it is very polluted, smoggy and that the people are rude. I was lucky to get there without so much smog and pollution, though. And I found most of the people quite nice and not rude at all, except maybe for the scamming cab drivers. I was impressed at how huge their airport is. You’d have to take a train after the immigration check to get your baggage. The immigration queue was considerably long but it took a very short time to get past it. I booked myself transportation in advance to take me to the hotel (since hubby was going straight to work) as I arrived very early in the morning and didn’t really want the hassle of haggling with the non-English speaking cab drivers. There was very thick traffic jams along the way. It took 45 minutes to get to the hotel. But I was impressed by the fact …

A Taste of Tuscany Part 1 – Firenze

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Ever since the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun, all the women I know dream of visiting this gorgeous Italian region, at least once their lives. I was not an exception. You can imagine how thrilled I was when an opportunity to visit this place presented itself a couple of summers ago. Hubby and I followed the suggestion of this french guidebook that was provided by the french travel agency that organized our trip: We just changed it a little bit, opting to go to Arezzo and Cortona instead of Volterra. The first leg of our trip was France – Firenze, since we were coming from my parents-in-law’s place in the South of France. We took a flight via Volotea, a low-cost Spanish airline. Upon arrival at the airport in Firenze, I was surprised to find how small it is. It seemed more like a domestic airport than an international one. The ceiling was very low, the luggage took forever to arrive at the baggage carousel, and it was very much lacking in souvenir and food shops. Immediately, we headed out to take our …

CDO, Iligan, Camiguin

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My trip to Mindanao is a very memorable one. It was the last place I visited in the PI before moving out of the country for good. It was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing that my friend Jen and I decided to visit these three places in the North of Mindanao. At that time, neither of us had ever been to this island that most people fear to visit, even for us locals. But we were brave and young and free. 🙂

Tokyo and Kyoto

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Japan has always been one of the first countries I’ve always dreamed about visiting. As a kid, I remember watching all these short documentaries about Japan on TV that were frequently shown on this local channel in the Philippines. It would talk about the cherry blossoms, the festivals, their special cuisine and the beautiful places of interest. I was a big fan of these documentaries that greatly influenced my interest in this country.

I finally got to visit it in October 2009 to see my Japanese friend, Yoshie. I met her back in my voluteering days in the Philippines. She was working in Tokyo then for The Red Cross and was living in Shinjuku. She was kind enough to let me stay at her place and to serve as my guide.

Sight-seeing Sydney

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There is so much to see in Sydney. I was surprised to find this lovely city filled with buzzling activity of a typical urban setting, but also, providing easy escapes for a quick nature fix.   The long stretch of coastal walks from Bondi Beach to Coogee beach was just the perfect relaxing break from the city life for me.