adventures in the east bay.

one sunny saturday afternoon, beth and i decided to take a trip to the east bay to attend an event where we got to be the judges for a cupcake bake off! we visited this lovely place called rock, paper, scissors and ate some delicious cupcakes (my favorite -- the vegan lemon strawberry one -- ended up winning too!).

after, we decided to make most of our day on the other side of the bridge, so we had lunch in berkely as this vegetarian chinese place (the fake-chicken sesame was decidedly good). in addition, we went to this converted landfill which is now a lovely park with old art sculptures littered around the many random pathways. beth and her old band, acne attack!, actually played a show there a year or so ago and i was amazed that they lugged all their equipment on the long narrow rocky paths. we found a weird castle, some cool sculptures and even their old graffiti!















from here, across the water we could see these massive kites and we went on a mission to find out what they were. dodging traffic and navigating only by the tails of these kites, we finally made it to the marina where we got to witness the large squid kites up close and personal. the weather was perfect, sunny and very conducive to a lawnfull of kite flyers. we sat and watched before it was time to head home.







all in all, an afternoon well spent.

easter in dolores park!

a big thank you to the sisters of perpetual indulgence for hosting a wonderful gathering this easter sunday on the lawns of dolores park!

gerry, betsy, anna, rob and i met up today to hang out with some amazing people in celebration of the holiday. there was a band, lawn to sun in and plenty of people watching to do.

to round out the day, there was a "hunky jesus" competition where we voted by applause for the hunkiest jesus impersonator in the park.

what a glorious way to spend the beautiful afternoon. :)

cross-country.

so i left the midwest (again.. eep) and arrived in lovely san francisco last night. hoping to figure things out, get a job and settle down here for a while. ::fingers crossed::

on the way, i stopped in omaha, nebraska which was a pretty decent little town. not much to it, but i did get to drive on saddle creek drive and happy hollow ave which amused me much. (fans of bright eyes, the faint, cursive, etc will get these references.. ) the downtown was pretty small and easily navigable (minus the random construction) and there seemed to be a lot of chill intimate venues for popular saddle creek acts which i am envious of.

i also briefly rested in salt lake city after a long 13-hour drive which i found very nice as well. during my first visit to slc i found myself confused and a little put off, but this time i drove in with the backdrop of the sun setting on the mountains and decided to give it a second chance. it is apparently a good spot for those who love the outdoors, camping, rock climbing, and hiking so someday maybe i will check it out more thoroughly than overnight. mormonism has placed some strict laws on alcohol but i have met a few home brewers which i think allows for a lot of cool variety on beers and wine.

finally, after another long day of driving (11 hours!) i made it to san francisco. california immediately greeted me with green grass and clear skies. i drove with the windows down and the stereo up. even stuck in traffic, i was so elated to be back in this beautiful city.

donsol!

the last part of our trip involved a 13 hour bus ride down the coast of luzon, dropping us off in the small town of legaspi in the dark at 3 in the morning. cold and tired, we waited half-sleeping in a jeepney for the first run of the day while the driver dozed across the front seat of the vehicle. at 4 or 5 (who knows, really? time was a blur at that point) we took off and ended up in donsol. the main attraction of donsol is the migration of the whale shark (wiki entry) through their waters. these huge animals travel through the ocean near donsol to eat the plankton that is plentiful there. and, because we are so lucky, we get to swim alongside the gentle giants!

i don't have pictures of our actual swim (these were procured from google images), but we got to swim literally feet from 4 different sharks that day.. some appearing out of nowhere in the dark waters just to come swimming right at me! as the day wore on, i got cold and cranky but when our boatman called out at the sight of a whale dorsol, we all jumped in eagerly. it just so happened that the sky opened and rays of light poured into the water just in time for us to swim alongside the whaleshark and the crisp clearness of the amazing animal leaves me at a loss for words.




thusly, however, our journey through the philippine islands comes to an end. today, we are back in manila, doing the internet thing and watching movies. we took a trip to see the very first house i lived in as a child so that was kind of neat.


in two days, we fly back to the cold of madison and then get ready for our new adventure: hiking the appalachian!! :)

island hopping through the visayas.. .

from puerto princesa, josh and i caught a flight over to the visayas and deplaned in dumaguete -- the main port on the island of negros. we spent quite a few days there, relaxing, reading, surfing the net -- things we long to indulgde in. :) we also got around to the surrounding areas to check out the sights of negros.

one day, we went up to the national park to do some trekking. to get there, we had to ride this habal habal (a motorcycle with an attached uncomfortable seat on the rear for extra seating) on a long gravel road that had me terrified the whole ride up and back down the mountain. once we reached the park, we found that due to high waters, trekking wasn't possible so instead we kayaked around the twin lakes and hung out and enjoyed the scenary.


as another side adventure, we went caving in mabinay! we met our caving guide, jeffrey early in the morning and he prepared us for the experience. although i had brought a swimsuit and extra clothes, we had been apparently misinformed that flip flops would be sufficient for caving. jeffrey frowned at our choice of footwear but took us to a cave called baliw which was listed in the "difficult" category on our list of caves from the tourist agency. the cave itself was so much fun. we squeezed through small crevices, sunk in mud and guano, belly crawled through parts impassable otherwise, and in the end had to take off our helmets to swim through the small slit leading us out of the cave.





after dumaguete, we took a LONG few bus rides to the other side of the island and stayed on a beautiful secluded beach called sugar beach (or, langub beach). we met a lot of nice people at the neighboring driftwood resort and hung out there and went snorkeling at the marine reserve. we again saw a lot of cool marine life and corals -- but still nothing compares to the colors and expanse of coral we saw at port barton.





after saying goodbye to our pseudo family at driftwood (they stood waving on the shoreline and shouting goodbyes as our boat sailed away), we bused and boated to ilo ilo in hopes of being about to do some rock climbing at the national park. however, once we arrived, the climbing gym we were supposed to seek information at was closed (the owner had moved to the u.s. apparently) and the park was off limits due to the rebel inhabitants.

instead of climbing, we took a trip to guimeras where we checked out a waterfall where local kids went to swim and a mango research farm (which wasn't as cool as it was made out to be). bummed out, we bought some mangoes and prepared to go back to manila and to donsol, our last stop before going home.

back to the beach..

and, happily, it was back to the beach.

josh and i caught a plane to puerto princesa on the island of palawan and settled there for a night. the next day, we took a jeepney up to sabang, the home of the famous underground river (a navigable river that flows through a cave formation). aside from the long wait and the 2-hour hike to get there (we opted for the 20-min boat ride on the way back), the tour itself were really nice. the actual boat ride seemed a little short in comparison to the wait.. but it was okay. the town of sabang was a small beach town with waterfalls and charm. plus, our hostel had a water buffalo-drawn cart!



next, we headed up to the town of port barton and ended up at a wonderful friendly place called elsa's (josh met a guy that worked there on top of the jeepney that took us there). we were seaside with breathtaking sunsets and our own personal beach. we took a bangka boat out one day with a belgian couple and went snorkeling (the coral! wow!) and island hopping.





from there, we went to el nido, the top tip of palawan. another nice town perfect for hopping between the small white sand beach islands. we stayed there a few nights (among the barking puppies in the middle of the night and the chorus of roosters crowing to wake us up) and did more island hopping with an amiable guide named kalui and his friend (whose name we never got). we got to see a both big and small lagoons as well as "secret" lagoon, which was accessible only by crawling through a small crevice. we did a bunch more snorkeling (here the coral was less impressive, and a lot of it was dead) and swimming. they even made a nice fish lunch on the beach!






we spent the last of our time on palawan eating comfort food and vegging out (josh hurt his neck on the bus one day) in puerto before heading off to cebu.

in the mountains.

once we came back from southern luzon, it was time to head up north. we got off a bus in manila, settled down at a hostel and soon learned that the buses to banaue left at 10PM. we quickly bundled up our stuff again and boarded another bus for a 10 hour ride to banaue. sick and tired, the bumpy bus ride was not extremely pleasant, but when we disembarked early in the morning to the view of the mountains through the morning fog, it was quite worth it.

the next day, we did the long hike to batad, a small town with magnificent rice terraces housed in the valley of the mountains and only accessable by hiking. it was a hard hot hike for me, but we made it and it was definitely worth it.



we left for sagada (another mountain town) a day or so later to see the hanging coffins of the ifugao tribe and the caves. we arrived in the midst of the town's annual fiesta and were treated to a parade of the different zones of sagada, complete with traditional music and costume. one night, we even got to see the town's beauty pageant (which was, if nothing else, extremely long -- starting at 9PM and lasting 'til past midnight).

we went caving one day and it was one of the highlights of my trip so far (minus the complete submersion in cold cave water while wearing blue jeans). it was so much fun squeezing into tiny crevices, holding on to the sides of dropoffs and, sometimes, being plunged into complete darkness when our guide's lantern would go ahead a little too far. :) we got to see a bunch of fun formations, including a dinousaur's footprint!! hehe


another day, we took a short hike to echo valley and saw some hanging coffins up close. we met some funny tourists there that thought the chairs hung along with the coffins were for people to meditate on.



from there, we headed back to manila to plan our trip to the island of palawan!