Almost Cebu

 My mom got a free ticket from a local  airline last Christmas. Knowing I  would enjoy that ticket more than she  would, she gave it to me and made me  finalize the booking. I picked Cebu  and paid a whopping PHP 2, 500 on  taxes (at the back of my head I knew I  shouldnt have because promo fares  are much cheaper*).

 The tendency of “being there” and  standing in line made me decide to  just get on with it (pay up) and wait  for the Labor Day weekend. There are  ways to make my Cebu trip cheap and  there were friends filling me in on  how. 

Last Sunday, however, I found out that I would have to stay in Manila because of an important meeting over the weekend. After a long and hard process of “letting go” – I find out now  that the meeting IS NOT happening. 

Danggit!! (Yes as in the dried fish from Cebu). 

I still have a few hours to pack and leave Manila and have some peace for three days… 

 

BUT NO. 

The decision is to stay and rest HERE (and hide). There are things that need to be done, and things that need to be dealt with here and now. 

And an alternative trip has been planned. 

Hehe. 

 

I waited for two months for this Cebu trip. Now I guess, I have to wait a little longer. 

From hindsight, it really doesn’t matter where I would go. What matters is what I would do.

And this weekend’s task list looks promising. 

So that’s 2,500 PHP out the window (can’t be refunded and if I rebook, I get charged for a heck of a lot of other things which I swear are NOT worth the hassle). I guess that’s alright. Whatever I accomplish this weekend has a bigger value than that.

And I also learned an important lesson. For this Cebu trip, I was charged for taxes for two one-way tickets. I booked it as a round trip ticket but each route was taxed separately. It kinda made me think that the gift certificate/free ticket wasnt really a gift/free at all.

My take is, I would rather pay for the real thing than be made to believe I am getting a nice deal from stuff like this. 

So to hell with that PHP 2,500. I am going to be a lot smarter next time. 

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By the way, YTRIP was featured in Manila Bulletin’s Student and Campus section  (29 April 2009). Thanks to Jaser for a great article. Wanna read it? Click HERE :-)

 

*Cebu map from http://www.cebu-hotels.com

SUMMER BEACH MODE

The coolest thing to happen in the Pinoy travel industry…

At least to me. Haha. Very responsive, very creative. Makes you wanna get married for the heck of it! 

Fantastic idea, ROX!

On Travel and Blogging

Blogging has made venting, bashing, and self-expression sooo easy that we forget (most of the time) the need to put things in context when we type away.

Since I hit 23, the word RESPONSIBILITY has been on my back and it has become part of my writing, expressing, and even venting framework. True, it is easier to just go on and write, blog, and let the world know how you feel and when… but people tend to take things out of context and misinterpret most of what we say and post. No matter how many smileys you put in there, when you sound like you’re bitching, you are bitching  (even if you really werent). 

This post’s direction now, though, is on travel and blogging. When we travel, of course we write about our experiences – the good and the bad but I realized that whatever information we put out there, it becomes history and memory. People will recall. You will recall. And no matter what happens, because blogging is not censored, your post will be taken as truth. There may be doubt yes, but it is still – supposedly – close to the truth. 

 

  That’s why we should be    careful of what we say and  post, or at least – we should  be responsible with the way  we frame our words and  blogs. As a stickler for  propriety, we should always  have some level of respect  for everything we write    about – and this also shows  the level of respect we have  for ourselves. 

Travel and blogging have to have context. When we write, we have to have context so that readers would understand where we are coming from. 

Of late I have found people who wrote about complaints and insights gained from travel… and I appreciate all their thoughts and shares. What hit me though is sometimes, our personal insights – no matter how enlightened they would seem – need to be enriched and challenged. They need to be contextualized. 

… and after all the insights you generate, when you travel and blog, and share all of what you have learned, what does it make of you? 

The whole experience must have enriched you, whether it was good or bad… and hopefully, that kind of growth would show when you express yourself.

 

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Photo by Cherryl Si (c) 2009

My favorite words in travel

CONTENT. IMPACT. RESPONSIBILITY. ACCOUNTABILITY.  PAKIALAM. FRAMEWORK. OBJECTIVES. CONTEXT. FAIR.

 

LESSONS. 

 

Ayun.  In no particular order. 

 

The WHY will follow.

 

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photo by Cherryl Si (c) 2009, taken in Caluya, Antique. 
Orange background is the author.