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{miniature chinese terracotta warriors}

If there's one thing that I learned from working with my Justice, it's that travel will never be a waste of one's time and resources. And if there's one place that piqued my interest from her many stories, it'll be Xi'an's terracotta warriors.

My new company's personnel policy won't vest me with any vacation days until 2013 when I'll hopefully be able to finally visit my parents in the US. Then there's still Cambodia on my travel bucket list. I do know that a visit to China, whether sooner or later, is in order, and that one day, I'll be face-to-face with the full sized terracotta warriors.

Until then, these miniature ones will have to do.

*Thanks to Tin for bringing home these miniature versions for me. Your friendship is too precious for words.

no passport required

{finally, the eTicket}

while i would've been thrilled at the possibility of using my passport in its new passport holder and hie off to some fabulous location *ehem*cambodia*ehem*, i'm not. rather in fifteen days, i shall be flying off to the wonderful island of mactan.

cebu has always been that elusive destination for me. i guess the love affair began when i developed a huge crush on this boy from mactan. trips were planned but never made, and at one point, i was overly excited when a friend had a possible work prospect in cebu. that never panned out, and the crush eventually waned but cebu, well, the desire to go to cebu just grew and grew and grew.

last year, cebu and i had a "near meet" -- i got offered a short-term engagement for a supreme court project and i had a choice between cebu and bohol. since i visited bohol the year before, and since it was cebu (B! remember the commercial? or am i way too old?), the obvious choice was the latter. a week later, i was informed that another lawyer had beat me to cebu so would bohol be okay? fine. bohol take two it is.

early this year, i was one of the crazy ones who hounded the cebu pacific website when there was a piso fare sale. and, when texting eight other people with different destination goals and different schedules and different desires while praying to dear god i don't get booted out of the website got to be too much, i made a declaration: cebu it is and whoever wants to go may come. i had two other yesses and so, the cebu trip, for less than P800 for the round trip ticket, was booked.

and then, as i said in this post, tita celia texted, i computed my dwindling budget, and searched online, and P2,060.00 later, i was the proud owner of a roundtrip zest air ticket to, where else, cebu (B! yes, i'm makulit like that). so, come july, i'll be seeing my dream province not once, but twice: the first, to bum around shang mactan as tita celia's mascot, and the second, to cavort around with theo (first time!) and cathy.

i've no doubt it'll be exciting, and fun, and (sad to say) that money will be spent. but it's okay. after all, it's been a dream since forever (okay, fine, since 2007!) and it's CEBU (B!)

thinking of sipping buko while digging my toes in the sand

{last photo of jackson wagner before it crashed}

maybe it started the day i got home and discovered that my hard drive had crashed. or maybe when i allowed myself a totally inappropriate crush. or maybe the day i got horribly disappointed about something at work. i can't really tell when, but i do know that i'm not the same girl who was blogging with so much gusto just a month ago.

maybe hormones are to blame (although i've always hated anyone who'd insinuate that my bad mood could be attributed to me having my period -- that's just an excuse, IMHO) or maybe i'm just tired. maybe it's cause i haven't really spent time with my true love, henry sy. i don't know. something's amiss, and i can't fix it for the life of me.

so now, as the title implies, i'm thinking of sipping buko while digging my toes in the sand. and i don't even like buko. tita celia has so generously offered to share her room at the shangri-la mactan when she goes there next month for a conference. and, while i initially said no since i have a cebu trip planned with theo and cathy (we were able to get piso fare tickets) that same month, i figured that no one in her right mind would turn down shangri-la mactan. so, i reconsidered and told tita celia i'd look for cheap tickets online and if i could find one, i'd go with her.

the cheapest i found were P2,000++ ... not bad, considering that in the span of six hours last sunday, i spent half of that for lunch, a pedicure, and a facial. so now i'm just waiting for tita celia's confirmation that the trip is a go, and once i get that go-signal, i'd buy my tickets (keeping my fingers crossed that pat the pilot will be able to get that flight as well ... it would be cool to actually see if he's as great a pilot as he claims) and start scrimping (translation: baon + no lakwatsa for july) and start thinking of, well, what else, sipping buko while digging my toes in sand.

it doesn't get happier than that.

i'm getting ready ...

today i ended up going shopping for clothes for my dumaguete trip. a bit of a background: i'm not the type who actually shops before a trip. in fact, when i went to bohol for the first time, i packed at 1 am (after coming home from a prayer meeting + fellowship that ended really, really late) and left the house soon thereafter. as with all of my trips, i rely on friends who pack light since i end up with overweight baggage due to the fact that i just stash anything and everything i could think of and keep my fingers crossed that i had packed okay for the trip. and, notwithstanding having overpacked, i always end up not having the exact kind of clothes i want to wear. i think the only time that i ever lucked on packing perfectly for a trip was when i went to puerto princesa with friends and i totally hit the jackpot the afternoon before when i did last minute shopping at robinsons manila and sm sucat. ☺

i've always envied this girl i know who just looks so put together all the time. i found out from her sister-in-law that she's a MAJOR planner. for example, weeks before she and her then-future hubby flew to bacolod for their pre-nup, she carefully shopped (and not all at the same time!) for her outfits -- some from her existing wardrobe and some from the malls -- and planned each look in great detail. another girl i know is almost the same thing and packs outfits, not individual pieces, so there's no guesswork when she gets to her destination.

so, inspired by gay -- a friend who recently channeled her inner goddess-diva and shopped her heart out before her trip to kota kinabalu -- and by emily -- an apparently uber-famous who i stumbled onto because of apartment therapy -- i did a bit of shopping to prepare for dumaguete.

i was planning on getting this brown floral dress -- similarly styled, but sweeter looking and a bit more expensive than this -- but this just fit perfectly. it's actually longer than the dresses i usually wear, but it's bright yellow color is just l♥ve! i love the ruching in the boob area (not itchy at all!) and how it's sexy and yet modest at the same time. perfect for those places where you don't exactly have a place to change in. slip it off for a dip in the ocean and slip it back on for the trip home ☺☺☺

as you must know by now, i have a thing for multiples of the same thing. at least this dress isn't exactly the same, although the genetic material is: tube dress, with a tie that could either be a bow in front or be tied around the neck for "security". i love how its tiered and how it's sort of like denim but with a lot of other fabulous colors and prints. the ruching isn't as generous as the yellow dress, but it was too lovely to pass up.

i've always loved the combination of a blouse and shorts. it just feels so luxurious to my (limited, at least fashion-wise) mind. when i saw this silky top, i just had to have it and imagined how the soft material would billow gently in the breeze while i'm aboard a banca getting to some tiny island with gorgeous white sand. the zipper in front could be opened up to reveal a gorgeous suit underneath, and the long-ish sleeves can protect me from unwanted sunburn. it was too short to wear as a dress (although i had hoped it would be long enough, boo!) so finding shorts that don't make my thighs look like sausages was just the best thing in the universe.

shopping loot = ♥ ♥ ♥

now if only i could lose the sausage around my waist, life would be perfect.

... or at least this vacation would be.

yet another sun cellular hate post

i think i've mentioned before how sun cellular and i go way back. i think it was sometime in december 2003, at one of those bazaars, when i signed up for sun cellular's i-text 250.

this was before call and text all you can.

this was before half of metro manila had a second cellular phone.

at that time, all i wanted was an alternative to my globe line which was giving my wallet a heartache each and every single time the bill arrived.

over the years, i've given up my globe line, switched to smart prepaid, then gave up prepaid lines for a while, then once more got a globe prepaid when they started offering the unlitxt promo, then switched globe prepaid numbers because of a phone stalker. one thing, however, has remained constant: my sun cellular phone line.

and, no matter how many loyalty promotions and what not they offer, i always choose not to avail of the promo since that would mean giving up my itext 250 plan, which i love to bits.

i don't mind the lack of signal whenever i head out of town - i lost my signal at the bee farm in bohol, at certain places in palawan, in calaguas, camarines norte - or even when i'm in my room at home. i think i've learned to live with the fact that no matter what phone i use, my sun cellular sim would never have a signal as strong as a smart sim.

i also didn't mind the fact that there are times when the bill would arrive late, and i wouldn't pay it cause it hasn't arrived yet, and then my line would be cut. after a while, i got to fix that problem and it never happened again.

as a matter of fact, i was so in love with sun that i even opted for their sun landline (which i paid so much money for but hardly got to use, again owing to billing problems) AND their sun broadband prepaid (which i paid P1,888 for but, again, hardly got to use, this time cause of signal problems).

i must however state for the record that once more, sun cellular has done me wrong.

a couple of days before we were supposed to leave for HK, i checked the sun cellular website for their roaming options. and, i was quite happy with it. i thought it was very informative.

it simply said that all i had to do was to call the sun hotline number and to update my account.

now, since i had paid my last bill in full, and the upcoming bill hasn't arrived yet, i thought i was good.

wrong.

i called the hotline number as i was in line at the check-in counter. turns out that since i had used my phone a wee bit more this month than in the months past, my unbilled charges were somewhere in the P800 range.

not bad, i thought, considering that my credit limit was P1,500.00.

apparently, that wasn't good enough for them -- i can only activate roaming if my unbilled and outstanding balance was below half of my credit limit.

now, where did they say that in the website?

even crazier was the fact that the person on the other end of the line -- who sounded as if i had waken him up from a gory dream -- told me to settle the bill that day so i can activate roaming. and, oh, he told me that after i had already mentioned to him that i was at the airport already.

boo, i say, boo.

needless to say, i spent the next four days in panic over the fact that i couldn't be reached since i had specifically (or stupidly?) put in my memo of pending work (something that we have to prepare for the office should we be going on leave) that i can be reached by phone. so much for that.

of course this had to happen when i left my globe prepaid at home -- i could've easily loaded that and went on roaming using that phone.

and of course if i had assistants and what nots i could have asked someone to go to the mall, pay my bill, and activate my roaming for me. but i didn't -- taong bayan lang ako - so i was stuck with silently fuming against the poor call center agent i had woken up from his leisurely slumber.

and, before you could say it, it was indeed stupid of me to have waited until the very last minute to activate my roaming when i could have done it in the days leading up to my vacation. yes, i agree.

well, now i at least know. so when i visit vietnam in august, and kuala lumper in september (yihee! travel spree this year!), i'd know better.

but sun cellular -- you have been warned!

breaking up with henry sy

dear henry,

you know i've loved you since forever. my entire life has been brought by the letters S and M and all numbers that end with xx.95. when i had to make sure that i'd pass the bar, i studied in one of the coffee shops located inside your mall. when i had a major fight with an ex, i hid in one of your cinemas where i know there wasn't any signal.

every single day, i park in one of your malls and could not help but take a peek at your offerings, hoping i find a good deal.

then again, you always offer a good deal. that's what i love the most about you.

i hope you understand, though, that for the next couple of months, we'll have to stop seeing each other.

you see, sometime at the beginning of this year, when i had zero plans for vacation and what not, my friends from community said "hey, let's go to vietnam". now, since i've never been there and the tickets were cheap, i said yes. i figured, even with occasional regular dates with your stores, i'd still have enough left over to pay for my vacation expenses. after all, we weren't going till august. that's more than enough time to save.

and then my mom finalized her vacation plans and approved of a trip to HK. now, you and i both know that mall of asia aside, HK is the shopping capital of asia and it would be pretty stupid of me not to shop while i was there, right? still, i believed, i can still sneak in the sporadic mini shopping sprees. after all, a nice black cardigan that would go with virtually everything in my closet is too good a deal to pass up.

but then last night, my tuloy friends and i booked a trip to KL. and hotel too. and, boo to me, that set me back a couple of thousand pesos once more. but then, my dear henry, i've never been to KL, and i would most definitely want to check out the formula 1 track. and the petronas towers. and, okay i admit it, i want to check out the malaysia sale too.

so, even if the HK trip is courtesy of my mom, and the vietnam plane tickets have been paid for, and the KL trip relatively cheap, my salary isn't big enough to cover all these trips AND a regular spree around my favorite mall. one of these things i'd have to give up, and i'm so sorry it had to be you.

don't worry, i've tried breaking up with you before and wasn't really successful. after all, i think you're the one addiction i couldn't really kill, at least not for extended periods of time. but for now, i think it's time for a cool-off.

with much love,

rosa

p.s. let's get back together by november, okay? by that time, it'll be the perfect time to go shopping for christmas. xoxo!

*image from http://pinoybusiness.org