Pinoy Potter's Chronicles

Last Monday, me and my colleagues Kacel and Miss Kathy decided to play badminton for the next day. Keena ,not wanting to miss the fun, decided to join us. We were so excited to the point that I had to rush at Rockwell Powerplant Mall the same evening just to buy a badminton racket.
The next day, we left the office at exactly 6:00PM. Mind you, we had a lot of trouble going to Powersmash Badminton courts. We were standing at the side of Dela Rosa for an hour just to wait for a cab, and it was traffic, but all the troubles were nothing compared to the fun we had, even if we were amateurs in this sport.

We had so much fun. In fact, we decided to play badminton once again. We just had our second time this morning, together with another colleague Roschelle Lim. Well, when Roschelle joined, I realized how amateur I am in this sport. Too bad we didn't have a camera this time.

Badminton is one heck of a sport. At least I now have an alternative to bowling. I hope I'll get to play badminton with my other friends despite our busy schedules.

More photos of my first badminton experience at my Multiply and Flickr.

I became a certified Springfield passerby! I'm really not good-looking when animated. :D


Got this from Johann's blog, who found it through his friend. Join Springfield here.

Last April 14-16, I was at Paniqui, Tarlac for a well-deserved vacation at the house of my friend Joji De Fiesta. Together with my friend Mark Bernardino and Joji's family, we stayed there for three days and two nights.

On our first day, Mark and I judged a barangay beauty pageant, featuring the young girls from Tarlac's Barangay Manaois. It was my first time judging an event. We also witnessed the barangay's folk dance competition.

The next day, we woke up as early as 4:30 AM for our Hundred Islands getaway. From Joji's house, we went to a popular bus-stop at Tarlac City to have some breakfast and to catch the earliest bus leading to Alaminos. We managed to ride the Victory Liner bus at around 7:30 AM. Our trip to Alaminos from Tarlac was quite fast, despite the fact that one of the tires of the bus became flat. When the tire got flat, which happened to have a loud sound, Joji panicked. She realized at the end that there were only few people in the bus, so she just laughed at what she did.

We reached Alaminos at exactly 10:00 AM. From the Alaminos bus stop, we took a tricycle that brought us to the place near the coastline. From there, we met a nice navigator by the name of Mang JR. He showed us around the hundred islands while taking our pictures (yes, he was a good photographer who knew how to take good shots).

It was still a quite long trip from the mainland to the islands, maybe a 5-minutes boat ride. We did some island hopping among the various islands there like Governor's, children's, etc. (except for Quezon Island which was flocked with so many people aside from the fact that there's an extra fee in entering that island). There was an island that we all loved because of the very fine white sands, as if we were at Boracay.

There was a body of water at the hundred islands where there were so many clams. However, there's also a perimeter line which prohibits boats to go near the clams. We tried to go to the area of the clams from the perimeter line using our life vests and goggles, but such was too good to be true. Joji and I can't even stay an inch away from the perimeter line while Mark was kinda hesitant to go to the clams from the perimeter line since it was kinda distant. Mang JR suddenly decided to bring the boat near the clams even if it meant crossing the perimeter line, which we did.

When we reached the spot with clams, we thought of peaking at these by holding at the side of the boat while immersing our body underwater. We managed to take a better look on the clams. The clams were amazing, with some fish swimming near it. The funny part is that when we decided to end the underwater sightseeing, I had a difficult time leaving the spot of the boat that I'm embracing. It was a major struggle going back to the boat. Haha.

Then we visited other spots, including the popular mini-cave, the top view deck with 170 steps, and the island where the mini Big Brother house where three of the big four finalists of the Pinoy Big Brother Teen Edition resided in their final week. While literally walking at the shallow water to the PBB house, Nico Alcedera, a bedahigh and CAS schoolmate, together with his classmates from marketing suddenly passed by in a not so distant part of the water. We were like crazy when we saw them. We decided to follow Nico's barkada, which was a good thing not only because we had bonding and saw fellow Bedans in our getaway, but also because we had free lunch. While following Nico's group, Mark suddenly bumped into a giant shell, which caused him to slightly lose grip of his N73. His phone got wet, though it was still in good condition thanks to its transparent thin protective case.

At around 1PM, we decided to go back to the mainland to have more food and refresh ourselves. We took the bus bound to Pasay that dropped us to Tarlac City at around 3PM. After two and a half hours of travel at the Five Star bus, we decided to have some Kart Racing at Tarlac City. For a minimal fee of P80.00, which is cheaper than the rates of the Kart Racing tracks at The Fort and Enchanted Kingdom, we managed to race for five laps.

In the evening of the same day, we witnessed the ballroom of the local folks of Barangay Manaois. After the festivities, we had a long rest. We all woke up at around 10:00 AM of the next day just for us to freshen up and get ourselves ready for departure.

Though I had a blast and a great time during our vacation, I somehow felt sad when I saw some trash thrown in some portions of the various islands as well as in some shores of the tourist spot. I am disappointed with how irresponsible tourists have become. Despite the efforts of the local folks of Alaminos to preserve the hundred islands, some people are not doing their part.

I would like to thank all of Joji's relatives, especially her mom Tita Jo, her cousin Gian Miranda (who happened to be a big fan of my bedahigh classmate Paul Garilao), and her grandmother for their hospitality and accommodating us. Of course, my special thanks for Joji and Mark for inviting me to Tarlac's festivities and for all the fun moments during our getaway, especially while we were at the Hundred Islands. It was a cool short weekend getaway.

View our pictures here.