Anyway, this is not a sob story. Today is my mom’s death anniversary. I miss my mom, and I’m just letting everyone know it.

Anyway, back to what I was writing about. Growing up around mostly female relatives (my cousins who lived in manila were all girls.) I was not used to brotherly love. Hey, I’m not complaining, I just wished that I had a brother or at least a guy cousin who I could be partners in crime with. You know, as a kid, when someone is picking on you, you want to have back-up. I never had that luxury. Well, I never really got into fights when I was a kid. Probably because I was too scared to start one in fear of not having anyone watch my back. Hmm… I guess that worked out for the best anyway. So there’s that, or the other way around, where I would have a kid brother who was picked on and I would have to kick the some bully ass. Obviously that didn’t pan out as well. Look at the bright side, at least I have a clean record of conduct. Hehe.

So here we are fast forward to Dec 21, 2008. Funny thing was, though I was excited to see my sister who I haven’t seen in 3 years, I was more excited to see BIL. You know how a child is on Christmas eve and he sees his new toy gift wrapped under the tree? Well, that’s how I felt. I was finally going to have my partner in crime. Not like we were really going to wreak havoc in manila. But I knew we were going to have fun.

True enough, when we picked them up in the airport, of course I see my sister, but the first person I hug is my new toy. Oops I mean my brand new and shiny brother. Of course I had to hug my sister just so that she doesn’t feel left out. He was tall, exactly a foot taller than I was. Man I could have used someone like him during high school when the big kids would pick on the little kid, namely me. You mess with me, you mess with my brother.

So when Christmas came, you could feel the brotherhood right there. We did the barbecue! Its different when women do the barbecue compared to when the men do it. I don’t know what it is but it’s just different. Successful was that event that we just had to do it for the New Year’s celebration. And yes New Year’s was fun too. BIL likes fireworks. Not just the aerial one but the loud ones. It’s like he was a brother from another mother. He’s a pyro just like me. Yahoo!!!

2 days later we go to where you should bring first timers to the Philippines, Boracay. The plan was laid out. If you read the past 3 blog entries you’ll see that it was a full trip for us. Too bad my sister couldn’t join us in most of the stuff we did but it was a good opportunity to spend time with BIL.

They left on the 9th because it was reality calling again letting us know that it was back to work time. The saddest part about visiting is when the time comes that you have to leave. I wished they could have stayed longer. There was so much stuff to do. A lot of catching up, but it was time to be a grown up again. Now 5 days after they head back to NY, the house is back to normal. Yes, I miss my sister, but now I could wholeheartedly say, I miss my brother too.

Being up in the sky was an experience, I should say, that you could try to share with pictures but is not the same. It’s the kind of, “you-had-to-be-there”, experience. But that’s not the whole story. The great experience was being up in the air. But lift off and landing was a totally different experience. It’s a very rough launch. Maybe the winds were just too strong or maybe that’s the way it really is, but personally, that was a pretty scary experience.

But in the end it’s something that you should try at least once. I’d do it again. I’m sure BIL feels the same way. We did all of the water sports together. It was a good bonding experience for us. Not excluding the fact that one mistake and we would have both fallen to our deaths, but hey, we didn’t and we’re here to make you jealous. Hehe.

So we rest up for the afternoon plan which is to ride the parao. A parao is a type of sailboat/catamaran/banka. It’s made of wood and bamboo and held together by nylon cords. It has two sails, and it has two mesh platforms which you can lie down or sit on. And it usually has a crew of four. The one we took could take about four to five passengers. But I was told that there were some that could take up to fifteen people. That’s a huge ass parao!

Some people take a full island tour on a parao, but we decided an hour would be enough. And it was just enough. Wind conditions were perfect and the waves were just right so we were able to get good mileage on it. Of course the experience would not be the same if you don’t get wet, and boy did we get wet.

After the ride we just did what we came to Boracay for, to relax, because tomorrow would be the part of the vacation that everyone doesn’t like, going home.

Right after breakfast was a reef walk. For the benefit of those who don’t know what a reef walk is, it’s the type of diving that doesn’t require any padi certification. You basically just wear a dive helmet and down you go. Yes you heard it right, a dive helmet. The same kind they used in the olden days when there was a long hose attached to the helmet on one end and an air compressor on the other. I’m a certified scuba diver so going underwater isn’t new to me. But I thought this helmet thing was cool. It was a little heavy though, 35 kilos to be exact. But when you go under it becomes only 5 kilos. It was still heavy and sometimes you have to hold on to the handle for it not to tip over. If you ask me, its not the best way to go diving. Your vision was limited too, but it’s the novelty of getting the feel of how divers did it before.

Just as it is with the normal scuba diving, after doing that reef walk you get really hungry. So it was back to the hotel. The plan was that after we eat we settle down for a while then ride the banana boat. But our contact with the water sports place said that you need a minimum of 5 people to ride it. Whaaaatapredicament! We were only 3. Its hard enough to find one person to ride the banana boat with you, let alone 2. So we decided(translated: didn’t’ think it through) to take the fly fish.

To give you a brief description of this crazy “ride”, it’s shaped like 3 banana boats stuck together on the side with a lip in front. That lip helps the fly fish live up to its name. It goes up to almost 90 degrees! And if you don’t have a firm grip they’ll be picking you up in the water. And I wasn’t in the mood to get wet. Well I just really didn’t want to look like an ass in front of BIL. It was the longest 15 min of my life. I don’t think I’d be doing that again anytime soon.

After being bounced around you get hungry. Merienda time!!!

It was my first time to fly from terminal 3. Boy it was impressive. Compared to terminal 1 and 2 this one was way better. Its not fully functioning yet but still I thought to myself, wow, this would look good for the country when foreigners would come and visit. BIL too was impressed. Gjob!

Finally we’re in boracay. It was 6:30 in the morning and wow it was so cold! Then it occurred to me, we’re screwed! The whole idea of going to boracay was of course so we can show off to BIL and second for him to get a tan. How the heck are you going to get a tan when all you can see is clouds? But I still believe the travel gods are on our side and he would not allow his beloved “travel show presenter” to lose face with his BIL over some clouds. And once again he has pulled through for me. Only problem is we fell asleep under the sun.

So now here I am writing this blog entry with my eternal sleeve. It looks stupid by the way. If you’re planning to get a tan, do not I repeat, do not wear sleeves. Or else you’d end up like me. Half of my arms are still my original color and the other half is red. Oh well, I’ll try to compensate tomorrow. I hope the colors catch up.

Its 10 o’clock in the evening and for me that is too early to call it a night. Well, we haven’t really gotten any sleep since we decided not to anymore so that we wouldn’t be late for our flight. We were able to accomplish something today. I’ll tell you all about it tom. But for now I will fall face down on my nice bed in our nice hotel suite.

Goodnight everyone!

Its 2009 and I’m wishing everyone a happy new year. Here’s hoping for a better year than last year. I don’t know about you but 2008 was a bad year for business for me. Well, 2005 was really good. 2006 was ok, 2007 was bad and just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, 2008 proves to you that it can.

This New Year’s celebration I did everything I could to keep up with the superstitions. Hey, there’s no harm in trying right? From putting money in your pocket to welcoming the new year with firecrackers. The only thing I didn’t do was jump. Come on, I’m 30 years old now. I don’t think any form superstition or even medicine for that matter can counter the powerful bonsai genes of my mother and father.

So far so good. First new year celebration with my sister after 3 years, and with a new brother in tow. How’s that for a Christmas holiday? I’m hoping by this year I could put in more interesting blog entry. And I hope it would be cool enough for people to at least just check it out.

So that’s that for my first blog entry for the year. A Happy New Year to all! And may we all get rich! And if not all at least me. Hahaha!

For the past 5 years, I’ve been sleeping through Christmas. Mom was gone, my sister was out of the country, yes I had friends who wanted to adopt me for the night but it just wasn’t the same. What made it sadder was that Christmas is my favorite holiday. It’s what I always look forward to. I’m your typical, “as soon as the month end with ‘ber’ it’s time to bring out the Christmas decors” kind of person. I just couldn’t bring myself to be happy on the day itself. Funny thing is, right after, like the next day, I’m ok again.
But this year is different. My sister (aka “the master”) with her husband who we shall call BIL, are here. Its BIL’s first time in the Philippines and I’m going to make sure he has a great time. To add icing to MY cake, I have my Yogi.

So what did we do last night? Well earlier in the evening, we decided to do our last minute grocery shopping. The day before, we were scouting for a good barbecue grill to be used for the New Year’s celebration but we couldn’t decide which one we were going to get. There was one that cost Php3000 there was another that cost Php8000 and a lot more choices. It was a good thing we couldn’t make up our minds because when we got to the grocery, BIL found a grill worth Php380. No, that wasn’t a typo. It was only worth three hundred eighty pesos. Gjob BIL!

Now that we had our grill, we got excited. We couldn’t wait for the New Year. We just had to test the grill. So we bought hotdogs. You can’t go wrong with hotdogs. As soon as we got home, we assembled our “perfect purchase” grill, and then the barbecuing began. It was the best. Just like the way mom used to make it. Then we had our traditional ham with syrup, hot chocolate, some bread and some edam cheese. Yeah!
This was a really good Christmas. Having my sister and brother-in-law around, and having a new love. I’m only hoping for it to get even better every year.

Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas! And I hope your celebration was as good as mine.

Ok, so enough of the excuses.

For the past 5 years I have been living on my own. No one to answer to, no one to ask permission from. Basically, I was king of my own little palace. But today, the 22nd of December, there will be a coup’d etat. The “master”** is arriving. (**please read previous blog) after 3 years of not seeing each other it’s actually cool to see my big sister. And to make this visit more interesting, she’s coming home with my brother-in-law (B.I.L.), whom I’ve never met in person. I think I’m even more excited to meet my BIL than my sister. Don’t get me wrong, of course I can’t wait to see my sister. But for the past 2 weeks, it has been very stressful. We’ve been preparing the house. And when I say prepare, I mean PREPARE! I didn’t want to hear, “why is this place a mess?” or, “why do you have so much stuff in your room?”

My sister isn’t obsessive compulsive. I guess she’s just a neat freak. I’m not saying I’m a slob. let me put it this way, growing up, when we’d do our chores like fixing the bed for example, when she’s finished fixing the bed, I would put a little crumb right in the middle. This assures you of a “BUUUUUG!!!” or a “MAAAAA!!!” That always cracked me up.

When she was here 3 years ago, she wasn’t happy with the state of the house. I thought it was fine. Really it was. Just not to the level of “master”. To me, clean is when you don’t see any dust accumulating, or when you can practically lie down on the ground and still be clean when you stand. But the “master’s” level is different. It’s not the, you can eat-off-the-floor, type of clean. It’s the, you can have open heart surgery on the floor clean. That’s what she wants. So we’re happy to oblige. I just hope it passes later. Their plane is landing in 45 min. so I have to wrap this up and get ready to pick her up. Yes, slave duties for the next 3 weeks.

If I don’t get to write a new blog, you know that she’s killed me already because she wasn’t happy with the clean up job that we did. Hahaha!