I need to discipline myself again. I realized that I gained all the weight I lost the past year when I self-medicated again with food. I didn’t want to go through days of out-of-whack sleeping patterns again because I was taking pills that balanced my brain but messed with my sleep. And work. Although at that time, it helped me get through the dark days so I stuck with it. But I wanted my sleep back. So now I am off it for a year now and haven’t seen my shrink. I know it’s not recommended to just drop out of therapy but I did. Anyway, something happened again and I blamed myself… I went through self-flagellation and binged on junk food again. I was comforted by food. I knew I hit rock bottom when a friend found me in the dark munching on corn balls. I went through two bags. But it has to stop. I am taking my life back.
I don’t have to fly to access paradise
Maricaban, Batangas. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on Instagram
My girls and I have been driving to Anilao last summer to make up for not visiting Los Baños because of the hellish traffic in Calamba. Mabini, Batangas is more tolerable, albeit painful on the wallet and credit card.
Anyway, all my life I thought I need to fly just to be able to get to crystal blue waters. Glad I was wrong. It was just a boat ride away from Anilao.
And my kids loved it.
It is hard to reconcile that we were just a few km away from Metro Manila.
A few tips for Anilao amateurs: You don’t need a swanky resort. Go to diving resorts, rent your gear from there, and spend your money on a boat trip to go to Sombrero Island and Maricaban Island (P3,500). You need to pay extra to reach main Tingloy municipality.
We stayed in Blue Ribbon Dive Resort, which my girls adored because of their 8-ft diving pool (my girls know how to free dive) and it’s smaller compared to leisure resorts so there are less people. Food is better than the other resorts where we stayed weeks prior to this one. I booked the room via Agoda and used the discounts I collected from being a frequent traveler.
Blue Ribbon Dive Resort, Mabini, Batangas. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on Instagram
There is no “beach” to speak of (in all of Anilao anyway) so don’t expect Instagramable areas of the seaside.
Blue Ribbon Dive Resort, Mabini, Batangas. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on Instagram
Blue Ribbon Dive Resort, Mabini, Batangas. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on Instagram
But swimmers/divers don’t care because the beauty of the place is underwater.
*This is not a sponsored post. I spent my own money for all of the content in this blog.
Little free diving secret tucked in the middle of the metro
This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on Instagram
My kids had been bugging me about swimming or going to Anilao in the middle of the monsoon season. Harassed mommy went searching online for swimming pools other than in somebody else’s condo or Ace Water Spa (I don’t wanna deal with weekend crowd). It would be perfect if there are diving pools here in the city that are open to the public.
I thank thee, whoever put up Plunge Dive Club in Pasig. We now have a substitute for Anilao (albeit a very poor substitute). We have something to do on a weekend other than going to the mall. For P500 per head, my kids can swim and dive to their hearts’ content all day. And we can bring food too!
This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on Instagram
Bring your own gear (fins and snorkel set) or you can rent from the club. P300 for the snorkel set and fins.
It can be a bit crowded on weekends since survival and dive classes are held there. We just go there during off hours (which I won’t tell you 😏) so that we can enjoy our free diving sessions.
The pool is 4 ft to 16 ft deep. My girls can dive effortlessly up to 8 ft to retrieve the weights I throw at them to practice their free diving skills. I’m still training them to breathe better and equalize ear pressure when they go deep.
And it seems like it’s rare to see 8-year-old children free diving there. People were often gawking at my kids because they beat older swimmers. The lifeguard is entertained by them as well.
I like the place because they let you do your own stuff and not prissy about it. The bathrooms are clean but they are small. They provide lockers with no locks; you have to bring your own padlocks.
Free drinking water is provided via the water cooler that is accessible to everyone. They have tables and monobloc chairs for divers/swimmers where they can eat and rest.
It can dent my weekly budget but going there is better than hanging out in the mall or being glued to iPads on weekends. (Besides, I hate malls). It also burns calories. I just hate driving on a weekend though 😐
Plunge Dive Club is located at The Upper Deck, G/F Ortigas Technopoint Parking Building #1, Doña Julia Vargas Ave, Pasig, Metro Manila
Infrastructure envy
Train from BNI City to Jakarta international airport. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on Instagram
*Life took over so this post is several months late*
I had major infrastructure envy when I was leaving Jakarta to go back to Manila in July.
Let me start off with this: I technically stayed there for 48 hours since my MNL-JKT-MNL flights were red-eye trips. Getting a taxi during rush hour in Jakarta is a pain when using ride hailing apps. It’s more painful when hailing ordinary taxis off the streets because they don’t speak nor understand English. I was at the mercy of the hotel staff, who also could barely speak English, to get me a taxi to take me to BNI City to take the express train to the airport.
To my pleasant surprise, their terminal looked like a mall
This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram
Waiting for the train is not a miserable experience too. It’s airconditioned, not crowded, and it’s clean. Although it’s tough to pay for tickets because cash is seldom used.
This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on Instagram
I paid a peso equivalent of P250+ for this:
This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on Instagram
The train is fast (less than an hour to the airport), clean and not crowded. It took only three stops to get to the airport at around 8 pm.
And damn it, their airport has skytrains to connect T1, T2, and T3.
This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on Instagram
This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on Instagram
This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on Instagram
I wanted to cry all the way from Jakarta to Manila. I blame the stupid masses for voting for useless politicians who are just looking after their self-interest. I blame the 16m people who voted for a narcissistic president. I blame myself for pinning my hopes on a country that I believed would change. Here we are, Jakarta and Philippines are often compared due to the similarities in demographics, economic growth, geography, and level of corruption. And yet they have better infra than we do. Fuck it. All the Philippine government is doing is tooting its own horn and patting itself on the back.
Why can’t we have nicer things here in the Philippines?
This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on Instagram
I cry for my country. I am almost giving up.
Massage via GoLife, Go-Jek’s all-around service provider on a motorbike
Yes, I know. I am pathetic. So after the training session with colleagues, I went straight to my hotel room to catch some Zzzzzzzs. But then the little laminated card on my table beckoned…advertising a 60 min Javanese massage for IDR 295,000 (PHP 1,074). I was almost tempted. So I asked Durian Writer if the price was reasonable.
He said it was too expensive when I can have a 90 min massage via Go-Jek’s GoLife app for half the price.
I downloaded the app. But then Durian Writer said I should start the process of verification as soon as possible because it takes a while before a user can get cleared.
The app requires a person to upload an ID or passport, then a selfie with the ID/passport. Then GoLife backend will clear…it may take an hour or 24 hrs…
I was getting impatient so I went out and tried to look for alternative massage places. There was one at the back of my hotel.
Their receptionists were a bit dense, unfortunately. One of them said their available therapists are male and it would only start at 7:30 pm. The females are available at 11 pm (they close at 12 am). Would I be booking the male therapists? Errr…
So I walked away and tried searching on Google Map the nearest massage place again. This time it pointed me to one in Sarinah. I went in search for it but there was nothing! I couldn’t find it! I got hungry and ended up at KFC. Durian Writer gave a remark that was close to a curse for eating KFC.
I resigned and went back to my room. Then I checked GoLife. Hurray! I was cleared, or I thought I was cleared. Everything was in Bahasa so I was just guessing. I tried booking and was able to proceed so I guess I got cleared.
I have no idea what the app was telling me but I just assumed that TUNAI means cash. I double-checked with Google Translate, so yeah, it means cash.
So there, a therapist responded to my request. I had to tell her though that I am a foreigner and that I do not speak Bahasa.
Durian Writer told me to correct my therapist that I am not a pak (sir) but rather I am a wanita (woman).
Her massage was strong to the point of being painful–the good painful. Similar to the Chinese reflexology massages I had in Singapore and Taiwan. 90 minutes of that. For half the price that the hotel is offering.
So yeah, GoLife makes it easier for you in Indonesia. As Durian Writer said, he doesn’t need to hire a maid in Indonesia (he has just transferred to Malang in East Java); all he needs to do is book a cleaning service via GoLife.
Artsy fartsy place to stay in Jakarta that will not break the bank
This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram
I was supposed to book something else in Jakarta, I think it was near Grand Indonesia.
But then my boss recommended this and I saw it was a lot cheaper, at around PHP 2,370 a night. There was no question about it so I booked it. It was in front of Sarinah, Jakarta’s first department store, ergo, I will not run out of food options.
This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram
Durian Writer told me to take a selfie infront of it because it was the scene of the Jakarta bombings a few years back.
Anyway, Artotel in Thamrin is comfortable enough, the room was much bigger than anything else I book in Singapore, and has decent Internet connection (around 20+ Mbps). It poses as an art gallery/hotel and it has murals done by up and coming local artists.
Looks like it’s tilting but it’s actually level. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram
This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram
The food though is… Any breakfast buffet without bacon in my book is a fail. That’s it. Since everything in Jakarta is halal, I couldn’t expect to have babi/baboy which is why my diet the past three days consisted of ayam (chicken) and veggies.
This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram
The food I had the past three days lacked the umami flavor that I favor so much. Yes, Indonesian food is spicy because they love putting so much crushed chili but I found myself always reaching for the soy sauce and black pepper.
Nasi padang. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram
The style of nasi padang is to serve everything on the table. But of course my colleagues and I did not eat everything. You only get charged for the ones you pick/touch. So I think they make money off people who have bigger eyes than their stomachs as they would be dipping into every dish on the table “just to try”. They will end up paying for everything.
I just ate beef rendang, jackfruit curry (like ginataang langka), and a vegetable dish that is a bunch of leaves that was blanched and it tasted like lagundi leaves. I liked the rendang.
The other day we ate near Sarinah and I ordered gado-gado (because this dish has been advertised to me by Durian Writer so many times) and satay, just to compare the Singaporean one. My colleague boasted that Indonesian satay is the best (of course you should love thy own) but unfortunately I liked the Singaporean version grilled near Lau Pasat every night. The Indonesian satay is covered in so much yellow sauce that didn’t help in flavoring the meat itself (which is, of course, ayam) I liked the gado-gado, which is a dish composed of kropek, fried tofu, veggies, sambal and some stuff I no longer remember.
This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram
I had this blueberry vanilla milkshake when we were in Markette in Grand Indonesia for a meeting.
All in all, my travel food is not a success. I may have better luck the next time around.