I know the pictures I have here will not cover everything that happened in that trip but these were all I got from the available pictures weeks ago. Not really all the pictures but only the ones that I liked from the bunch.
I haven’t checked if there are new ones from friends, I just decided that these will suffice.
This first photo is familiar. Though I edited it differently this time, the raw picture I used is the same as the one I used for the first post regarding this trip.
Lirabels!! She is one of Diane’s friends from work. They (my sister and her friends) sort of “adopted” her when her best friend left work for medical reasons. My sister have been talking incessantly about her that when we finally did meet and had the chance to talk, I told her I already know a lot of things about her.
It must have been creepy for her but I do know a lot of things about her.
From this trip, I discovered that Lira is an old soul in a young woman’s body. Then one realization hit me, that must be one of the reasons why I instantly liked her.
Lira Fact Number One: She listens to old songs, particularly new wave songs from the 60′s onwards.

(L-R) Lira, Me, and Diane
This second picture is “Ate” Tin and her friends. Don’t get me wrong, I’m older than her. But my sister calls her that all the time and I just I sort of associated that name phrase with her. From the stories that my sister tells me, she is one great Team Manager and if I were working for their company, I would want to be one of her agents.
All three of her friends were great people. How do you know that a person is good? You just do. I just do. You can feel it actually. There is just that aura that they exude that identifies them as true and kind. Of the three however, I had a lot of good conversation time with Nang Donna. We covered a lot of topics in that after-dinner-up-to-before-bedtime talk that we had. A lot. Nowadays, its not easy for me to open up to people, but to the three of them (and mostly to Nang Donna), I did. It was not a one way street, I also learned a lot from her (them) about family and mostly about relationships.

(L-R) Shasha, Nang Donna, Lelot, Ate Tin
This picture was taken while they were preparing one of our food for that day, pork intestines.
I was totally devoid of good sleep. Let me do a little recap why this is so. We left for Zambales, Saturday, 6AM. The day before that, my training shedule was 2PM to 10PM. I have not done any preparations yet because I was thinking, I will have a lot of time after work. By 1AM, I was done with my preparations and my sister said that I should be in Paseo Center before 4AM. I decided not to sleep so that I can be on location before the rendezvous time. One mishap though, Lira did something that made us wait for her for an extra hour. So when we got to the bus terminal, we were not able to catch the direct trip bus because it left at exactly 5AM, while we were still in the queue to get tickets. The next direct bus was at 10AM so we opted to go the long haul, buy tickets for Olongapo and then from there ride another bus to Lene’s hometown.
It seems that everybody thought I had the best sleep while we were travelling. The truth was, it was the worst bus ride I have ever had. Most likely because we were seated at the end of the bus. If I did get some zzzz’s, the longest interval was 30-45minutes. But it was actually better than getting no rest at all.

(L-R, Bottom Row) Izza, Diane, Lira, Rochelle
(Top Row) Me, Nang Dona, Lelot
Below is a picture of our hostesses for these trip, the Llorico sisters!

Hostesses!!
(L-R) Rozanne, Lene, Rochelle
This is one part of the trip that I missed because I was in my talking session with Nang Donna, the bonfire part. Below is my sister enjoying the loungy set-up. There was actually 13 of us and the cottage that we rented cannot accommodate us all. So it was decided that everybody will sleep around the bonfire. I could’ve slept inside the cottage but there was a lot of mosquitoes in there that I finally went to sleep beside my sister.

Here is another picture of them with the bonfire as the background. I was not part of the food committee so when we were actually talking about bonfire early that day, I remembered marshmallows. The bonfire could have been more fun if we had marshmallows. I would not have missed that part of the trip either if there were marshmallows. I loooooooove melted marshmallows!!!!!

(L-R) Izza, Lene, Diane
The next day I woke up a little bit early, before 7AM. It was so amazing opening my eyes to a clear blue sky, with the sound of nature surrounding me, and breathing in clean and fresh air. I wanted to sleep more but I thought, I did not go to this island to sleep. I was there to enjoy everything that it offers!
So here I was, with the gang while they peel green mangoes and prepare ingredients for the Bihon Guisado.
I have a weak stomach so I opted not to eat any of the mangoes. Instead, I had some rice and adobo and then some chilled coffee.

I planned to go for a swim right after I woke up but nobody was up for it. I was trying to coax Lira to accompany me but she wanted to sleep more. Good thing that after hours of trying to find a companion, my sister decided that she wanted to go. And so we went together. We were the first ones from our group to go for a swim. We had a little bit of time to talk which actually was mostly spent on gossip.

Here is a random picture which I really really like to the extent that I wish I had something similar.
Lene in one of her many “emotera” poses!

Now we have come to the highlight of the trip.
If there was a Miss Popular or a Miss Most Wanted award, it could have been a hands down Lira award. If there ever was a chance for a photo session, people kept on asking to be photographed with Lira. When I say people, I meant me, Diane, Lene and Izza. I actually created two collages with those pictures. The first one is composed of pictures that were taken on our first day in the island and the second one is from pictures taken on the next day.


Overall, this was one good trip. Something that I really really needed. I want to thank my sister for pushing me to go with them (to the last minute I was having second thoughts), her friends for being so accommodating, Ate Tin’s friends for being so open and so kind, Lene’s sisters and their bf’s for being so helpful, Lene for organizing the trip, Lola (Lene’s grandmother) for cooking the adobo and the other viand for us, and most importantly thank you to Tito and Tita (Lene’s parents) for opening your home to us and for making this trip a lot less work for everybody. Thank you! Thank you!!!! Much Love! <3<3<3<3