A quick visit to Philippines

You can find the pictures from here on picasa or facebook.

A short word about Tiger Airways punctuality. As I told my friend while heading to the airport, we are in no rush. Previously, we got a call from Tiger customer service on Saturday saying that my friends flight has been changed from the morning flight to the evening flight. After coming back from the beach party at Azzura beach club, I got a call around 6am on Sunday morning, just couple of hours before we were supposed to leave to the airport - my flight was postponed too, but that was okay, now we had the same flight to attend to. We arrived to the Changi Airport Budget terminal around 2.30pm where we realized that we didn't have any details about the flight changed. We started asking around the counters and they started bouncing us around, but finally after 30min waiting we got ourselves a tickets to Clark, Manila. And as always, we almost missed our flights boarding which for the first time happened like scheduled. Even though we boarded the plane in time, we had to wait an hour for permission to departure, all of this without any information shared.

And so we arrived to Manila Clark, 100km off the target - money gives and taxi gets. We ended up taking a two hours taxi drive to inner parts of Manila, to the area of Malate. Ermita and Malate are the one place in town where to see lots of travelers enjoying the old neighborhoods stretching south from Rizal Park and east from the Manila Bay. It offers accommodation in every price range.

We had looked up an backpackers estate named Pension Natividad from Lonely Planet. It is a nice budget place. Set a bit back from the street and couple hundred meters from the Manila Bay. Outside it offers a long shady area for meeting other travelers and it also hosts a 24 hours coffee house with excellent breakfast. On the first night we headed to a close by 24h Pit Stop market to get some water and couple of beers. And so we chilled outside the estate planning our next day.

Monday was a day for sightseeing. We decided to checkout what Lonely Planets "see Manila in two + two days" had to offer. We woke and got up around 9am and headed to enjoy the best American breakfast I've had in these past 4 months! After breakfast we headed out for a quest of finding a hanging lock for the secure locker to hold our valuables.

Around 11am our trip started, our primary destination was the old area of Intramuros with Fort Santiago and Rizal Park in Ermita. First we headed towards the bay to check out the view. I admit, I got scammed by a horse tuktuk rider, "let me take a picture my ass." I should have just took a picture of him contrary and asked to give me 20 pesos. But yeah, that's practically nothing, like 35 euro cents...

From the shore we started zigzagging towards the Intramuros, we  knew it was towards north, just before the Pasig River which is the main river. After 50minutes walking through the Rizal Park we had seen a local movie filmed, visited a Chinese Garden, gazed upon some memorial statues and miniatures of Philippines 7000 islands floating in a vast watery pool.

Around half past noon we had seen also the Plaza de Roma with the 7th reconstruction of Cathedral of Manila and found our way to the Santa Clara Street in Intramuros. There we visited the most famous Fort Santiago guarding the vital entrance to the Pasig River. The walled city of Intramuros was founded 1571 by Spanish troops and thereafter, has been invaded by Chinese pirates, threatened by Dutch forces, and held by the British, Americans and Japanese at various times, yet it survived till the closing days of WWII, when it was finally destroyed in the Battle of Manila during the US bombing.

As a culinary tourists we decided to get something really tempting, something that really hits the spot and... ended up smashing it at Pizza Hut... Around 6pm we reached home. It was time for some planning beers, and planning. I have actually been craving to get into a proper beach to bath in the sun - to get some manly tan lines! The late night was actually spent reading happenings in Finland, Europe, everywhere, I have to admit that I've been in a bit of a news shade. We also watched the movie Kumar and Harold go to the White Castle before calling it night.

Our plans were to hop on a charter bus and head about 30km south of Manila to a beach resort close to Cavite, although these plans were ruined by the rain that kept us in until half past noon. We were supposed to plan something new but the closing change of t-storm kept the Internet channels dead. Although it allowed us to revise our memories by watching the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Finally the rain stopped and we headed to a post office about 2km in distance from our apartment. Just hoping that the postcards will find their way, because we were just told to leave them standing on an empty counter.

After the trip to the post office we headed towards the roundabout of Del Pilar which we had passed previously. We entered a premiere restaurant Adriatico for a proper meal. We enjoyed a full three course meal under 15euros per head consist of the best Hummus with Pita bread I've ever have had, tasty Chicken Corn Soup, delightful Penne del Puttanesca, Caramel Glazed Walnut Cheesecake and Chocolate Dressed Banana Crepes with premium San Miguel beer and coffee America.

While eating we realized a flaw in our plan, we were supposed to walk around the area of Malate to Manila Botanical and Zoological Gardens, but we were just too full. After a while of digesting we were ready to continue. We walked through slums filled with people and animals coexisting. Chickens and roosters roaming free with cats, dogs and children while some folk sleeping on the streets or trying to make living by offering tuktuk rides or selling something - actually anything. At the gates of the Zoo and Garden thingie we immediately realized that I would not have anything to offer after the one we saw in Singapore. This one only had the size of an big football field enclosed by busy streets from all around.

After the refreshing walk in the cloudy, but really moist and warm atmosphere we arrived back to our estate around 4pm. The rest of the day was spent reading news from back home and around the world. We also spent couple of hours planning our upcoming spring semester back home in the Technical University of Tampere, and my friend finished weekly work for his bachelor thesis. We chilled outside the backpackers lounge zipping beer and enjoying ourselves until 1am before calling it night.

On Wednesday we decided to travel a bit closer to the Clark Airport to the Angelos City. After a well slept night, refreshing cold shower and American breakfast with hot coffee, we were more than ready to checkout. The security guard of the pensions hailed us a cap and we drove to the Philtranco bus terminal in Pasay, Manila, 5km in distance. From there booked a tickets to a bus to Clark. Imagine the price difference, 4000 pesos taxi drive was only 450 pesos with a bus.

The bus took us directly to Clark airport and so we had to hail a cap to get us to the hotel in Angelos City close by. We had previously checked a quite affordable place online, stating only 1500 pesos night. Although in the end it was only 1350 pesos per head, due to 10% cash discount, it was just that we had to buy separate rooms so the price doubled. The hotel was nice, we had a quiet pool with a bar on the side and a restaurant at the back, and not to forget to mention, a free pool table to use - and so we did.

Angelos City was a bit contrary compared to the outskirts of Manila metropolis with 12million people and being the 18th biggest in the world. Although it wasn't as shady as the Malate, it showed another side of the Philippines. As one British guy stated to me at the poolside "Philippines is good for two things; one girls, two diving." He actually ended up sharing a part of his life... He had just found out that he had a three years old kid back here in Philippines and he had came here for two weeks time to make it legal, so that the bastard child would not be or get killed, and would have a change in life.

The reality hit you. The streets of Angelos City were filled with somewhat beautiful 20 year olds hanging out with older westerns, sometimes two to four with the same guy, and still the guys were flirting to some more girls. While chilling at the terrace of the Beer Garden bar and restaurant, enjoying some San Miguels and Nachos Grandes, we could see guys disappearing with the girls to the shady street across, and after a while later returning with a hint of a grin and a smoke on their lip. We called it night around 01am after some more pool and couple of more beers.

We woke up at 5am and backed our stuff and headed down for checkout. The nice girl at the counter helped us by ordering a taxi for us too. Everything went without surprises although at the airport we had to withdraw and exchange some extra money due to the airport service fee of 600 pesos per person on international flights. And so we arrived back to Singapore; for me to sleep on last night at UTown and for my friend to catch a flight back to Finland. It actually made me a bit homesick, but I think the morning flight to Vietnam will cure it!

NUS finished

On Saturday morning at 11am on 19th of November 2011 - I had finally finished my studies in National University of Singapore. I was actually first one that I know to finish the studies completely. Moreover, the upcoming two weeks are meant solely for final exams and some of my friends are finishing their studies in the beginning of December, good luck for all of you guys!

After my last exam, we headed out to celebrate with my Finnish visitor and a good Pakistan friend. We went into an Italian restaurant called OChre in Somerset, one of the busiest and most expensive areas in Singapore,  the Orchard Road. The restaurant has a wide range of excellent but a bit expensive pastas and pizzas. There is actually some thinking behind the decision to choose this restaurant. I had previously heard a rumor about all you can eat pasta and pizza buffet offer for the price of 22sgd on Saturdays from 11.30am to 3pm. It was there, when we realized that it wasn't a buffet, we were actually allowed to order as many pastas and as many pizzas we wanted from the menu with the fixed price even though the pizzas and pastas cost more than that price separately. In the end we managed to indulge ourselves with six different pizzas and three different pastas before our bellies started bursting - the best pizzas and pastas that I have had in a long long while.

The upcoming night was filled with excitement. I had some free tickets to a beach party I helped to promote and sell tickets to. The night was success in every way, the swimming and partying in the beach clubs pools was refreshing. We started heading back home at 4am and finally went to bed at 6am already anticipating the following trip to Philippines with my friend from Finland.

Ps. Pictures will follow later, it takes eternity and a half to upload anything here in Philippines...

Travels to come

While being visited by my good friend back from Finland, we are leaving to Manila (Clark) in Philippines on Sunday 20th of November. Don't yet know what to do there but it will come up in time, and I have my Lonely Planets, thanks! We'll return back from Philippiles on 24th for my friend to catch his flight back to Finland on that same day.

I'll have my second to last night in Singapore over the following night leaving to Vietnam on November 25th.

To sum up some of our plans, we are travelling in a group of four to Vietnam. I, my spanish roommate and two lovely Russian girls to accompany us. With my roommate we made a pact, if there is multiple points of interest to see, we'll throw a coin to decide, living the life by a change.

For Vietnam, we only bought tickets to go up north to Hanoi and will be travelling from there towards south to Ho Chi Min in two weeks, covering the distance spanning them apart.

From there we'll continue to Phom Phen in Cambodia and furthermore to Laos over the next one and half weeks. I've planned to return back to Singapore on December 20th to sleep my final night and catch a plane back to Finland on 21st of December arriving to Helsinki on 22nd.

So I'll see you all back home over the Christmas.

Ps. My journeys doesn't end there! I just booked the AlppiHupellus trip 5.1.-16.1.2012., to Méribel in Les 3 Vallees in France. To the largest unified skiing location in the world!

So whats next - keep em coming!

Past weeks

Here is pictures of my trips to Universal Studios, Pulau Ubin and Singapore Zoo!

There has happened quite a lot after the trip to Hong Kong and Macau. First of all, as I already realized after Bali, that I'm a bit late with my school work, I've been studying some long ten hour days filled with couple of hours of exercise at the gym or by the pool.

I was also visited by my good friend back from Finland who is an exchange student in Bali at the moment, and whom I met previously in Bali. He was accompanied by his villa-mate, a Finnish girl also as an exchange student. I shared our flat to them to couch surf for the duration of their trip. It was nice to have more life in the apartment and my roommates didn't mind at all, thank you guys!

With them and some other friends from Singapore, I also visited the acclaimed world tallest rooftop bar, the 1 Altitude on top of the One Raffles building. They enjoyed Singapore and we had some good times, even though I had to do some studying too at the same time.

After their visit, the trip to Penang was up, it was amazing, nice gathering of good friends I've made here in Singapore.

I also visited the Singapore Universal Studios, and to say, it was actually pretty amazing. I liked the roller coaster rides of Battlestar Galactica, the spooky trails under the pyramids filled with mummy's, gazed upon the varieties of dinos in Jurassic Park, enjoyed a full fledged Waterworld show with watery chases and explosions, saved the princess Fiona with Shrek in 4D, danced and sung with the Ass, stepped upon a 5level hurricane hitting Manhattan with Steven Spielberg and listened the Monster rock musical just to mention a few... We spent around 9hours there, it was worth the money!

At school it has been quite a work, I would really much like to tell what I've been up to with my studies but I haven't had the time or concentration to do it. Just to sum it up quickly... As a group project, we composed a video lecture of Chinese remainder theorem. I held two presentations about Context-Sensitive Program Analysis as Database Queries and one presentation on topic of Analysis and Usage of Fuzzy Logic for Optimized Evaluation of Database Queries. As a pair project we implemented three algorithms on Hadoop, the algorithms were PageRank, Shortest Path and K-Means Clustering and returned a 25 pages report on it. On another module we are at the moment finishing our 35 pages survey on Software Outsourcing.

I've noticed that for me to be efficient, I need to work out, that is one of the reasons I started to go to the gym or / and to the pool four to five times per week. I also started running again a while back, whit my roommate we circled through the university's inner route which spanned over 5.5 kilometers in around 40 minutes.

Over the past week on November 10th, I received my Student Pass. Now I'm legally finally legally in Singapore after my first three days in July. As you might know, tourist visa is a single entry 90 days, but I've been abusing that fact... Now I can travel safely for the rest of my stay before handing the Student Pass back before departing back to Finland.

I also got a Finnish visitor arriving from New Zealand, where he had spent the past ten months as an exchange student. After four nights, actually just yesterday, he continued his journey to Germany.

At the moment I've been visited by my good friend back from Finland! I consider myself lucky to have visited by so many friends here. Just this Monday, 14th of November, we visited the close by island Pulaud Ubin, which is a part of north east Singapore, located between the countries Malaysia and Singapore.

I had visited the Pulau Ubin already past year, but my two Finnish friend had not. The ride to the ferry terminal took around 1h30min with MRT and bus. The actual bum boat ride from the Changi Point Jetty Terminal to the Pulau Ubin took only around 10 minutes.

While visiting the island, you can experience the Singapore 20-30 years in the past. Fishing village with roaming wildlife and uprising civilization. The Pulau Ubin can be seen in half a day riding a mountain bikes. We actually saw over three meter long Komodo Dragon and some fishes wiht lime green glowing eyes while cycling through the jungle and mountain bike trails.

We also visited the Singapore Zoo, it had quite a lot to show us, actually we both recalled that last time we had been in a Zoo was back in preliminary school in Korkeasaari or Ähtärin Eläinpuisto.

Now I'm facing my final project deadline on Friday and one and only upcoming exam Saturday morning. Hope to cope them through!

To celebrate the end of the school, we are having a beach party on Saturday, it is actually managed and organized by a business student from Germany who asked me to promote the event too. The party is called Rapture of the deep - Berlin meets Singapore!

Penang revisited

Pictures can be found from picasa and facebook!

If you can recall, I actually visited Penang already on my first weekend as an exchange student. It was a bit controversy decision for me to go there for a second time, but as planning it, I realized that on the first time we really didn't see that much of it.

The day to travel arrived, twenty of us backed our backs and headed towards the Kranji MRT station and continued to Singapore customs in Woodlands. For me it took a while to get past the border...

I actually have to make a confession, I don't yet have my student pass (visa). I had three months of time from 7th of July onwards and I arrived to Singapore on 27th of July. I went to ICA to complete the formalities on 17th of October but after three hours of queuing and paper swapping they realized that my in-principle approval letter from the National University of Singapore had become void already, no shit... I was asked to contact my University and obtain a new letter immediately, cause I've practically been living and traveling as a illegal immigrant since the first weekends journey to Langkawi and Penang, and back. I reapplied for the letter and made the 90 SGD payments again to complete the formalities, I received my new IPA letter on Thursday 27th of October but decided not to go to the ICA for completion cause I had an exam on my PhD module on Friday just before leaving to Penang.

So now you know the reason why it takes a bit longer for me to go through the customs, to clarify, I don't have any problems at the border and they didn't have any questions (this time). But just to be sure I had my IPA letter with me to Penang. After crossing the Singapore customs we continued to cross the border bridge to Johor Bahru border in Malaysia and towards the bus terminal in Larking.

We ordered the bus to depart from Larking just to save some bucks with the travel costs. The trip cost were around 110 SGD per head which included the ten hour bus rides both ways and a accommodation in serviced apartments. The night was spent driving like crazy, of course we stopped to meet our good friend 7 Eleven to get some drinks which followed by a series of toilet stops. The bus was great, seats big enough and comfortable to sleep or have a movie theater in it! We occupied the last rows and put up a movie theater, I had speakers with me as always, who else would provide the party music. I recall us watching Captain America and American Psycho.

Brakes squeaked, we had arrived to our destination in Pulau Penang, to the town and beach resort area of Batu Ferringhi with lots of hotels like Hard Rock Hotel with Hard Rock Cafe night club. We left our bags to the reception of our serviced apartment cause there were no rooms empty at the moment, respectfully it was only 7am. We brushed our teeth and refreshed our travel strained bodies beside the pool.

As a group we started to walk along the beach street to find a open breakfast place. It felt weird, everything seemed empty like in a ghost town, no lights in the hotels, only some people washing cars trying to make a living. After a short walk we found two open restaurants that had a breakfast menu, and guess with what I settled; an American breakfast with bacon, sausages, beans, fried eggs and toasts, but of course I ate my precious dragon fruits that I had brought along all the way from the UTown Cheers. I just can't get enough of dragon fruits, It makes me a bit sad to imagine how will I replace those in my diet back in Finland.

By the way, to rewind couple of days, we went to see a movie in cinema back in Singapore. We watched the Killers Elite and there was a man bringing Dragon Fruits to Jason Stathams character! I believe they are the reason behind his real charm and power.

After the breakfast we walked back to the apartments to check if anyone had returned, but none had. We decided to jump in to bus and head to the main city of Pulau Penang, to the Georgetown.

Georgetown is actually the second biggest city in the whole Malaysia and the capital of the island and state of Penang. It has been made as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008. The atmosphere of Penang is often likened to reflect Singapore back in the 1960s and 1970s.

We take our tour around the harbor scenery, visited the Little India and Chinatown sightseeing all the heritage buildings, the temples and markets. To note, the rainy season in Pulau Penang is in September and October turning down a bit already on November. Nevertheless we had a good weather for the most of the day until we decided to take a taxi towards the Penang Hill.

Penang Hill is a mountain reaching 833 meters above the sea revealing astonishing view over the Georgetown and the surrounding ocean. It is only reachable by either Penang Hill Railway viaduct build between years 1906 to 1923 or by a jeep trail which is only allowed for walking and small vehicles like scooters etc.

So because of the stormy weather we decided to head back towards the city and back to the Batu Ferringhi to meet others for dinner and pre-partying for the Saturday evening. Rest of the day was spent in a joyful spirit in the apartments, by the pool, in the streets and inside Hard Rock Cafe.

Sunday morning started with a mediocre headache, actually the worst that I have had on my trips, but it was fine after some painkillers. My friends had rented scooters to drive around the island and I asked to join. We were driving two on. We headed towards the mountains. We crossed the area of Teluk Bahang with the artificial freshwater lake and dam and all the way through the Kampung Batu Kecil to the town of Balik Pulau. The view from the spiraling mountain roads were breathtaking. We stopped for breakfast at a fruit farm in the mountains after passing the Teluk Bahang Dam. From there we continued the rest of the way. On our way back we found the other scooter boys and got our gang together for a picture.

Rest of the day was spent on a beach in front of the Hard Rock Hotel, we did some water sports like banana driving with seven people. Quite nice but a bit disappointing, the speedboat guy didn't make us all drop off until we started to tip the banana by ourselves.

After that I took a one to two hours nap at the shore of the beach while waving water cooling me down. My friend woke me up by bringing me a drink to refresh myself and we decided to go chill in the ocean. After the drinks we had a great idea of doing back flips from each others shoulders. After couple of jumps it was my turn. On the second jump I felt like stepping on top of something alive while my leg going in it. But I wasn't sure. I jumped the third time and while making my way back to the surface I felt like a whip hitting around my wrist burning and electrocuting it all at the same time. I had accidentally got my hand inside jellyfish tentacles and it was wrapping around my wrist. Luckily I was close to the shore, I walked out of the water without knowing what to do, my hand burning and swelling. My friend poured some fresh water on it which was amateur mistake, but how could we have know. One local from the beach shouted to me and told us to get some vinegar from the hotel to rub on it and so we did. Other solution and said to be better would have been peeing on it. Just for you to know! I was told not to take a shover or use any soaps for at least one hour to let it settle.

While walking back from the hotel pool we saw the warning signs indicating jellyfishes. Luckily these weren't the poisonous ones as the local guy told us. You could feel the hand burning a bit over a 24 hours but now it's already starting to be fine. It seems like I won't be getting a permanent scar from it after all, which is actually most usual in these cases.

Five minutes after we had threated my hand we saw the guy darkening like it was falling down, the locals told us to get inside in five minutes and so we did. The rain was amazing, it emptied the streets of people and filled them with water. The storm was over as suddenly it arise, although it roamed almost an hour.

Around 6pm our bus had arrived and we jumped in for the trip back. The movie theater was again formed and this time we enjoyed movies like RED (recommendable action movie) and Gladiator (legendary as always). Around 4am we reached the border customs of Malaysia and Singapore and got home back to UTown just before 5am.

Again a great trip with lots of memories. Thank you everyone!