Adventure Mode Weekend: Mt. Pinatubo

My adventure started out long before I boarded a bus to Capas, Tarlac. November: More than five months before, Anton of Pusangkalye.net and I started planning out this adventure. We had to cancel and push back our plans a couple of times due to the weather and other things, but eventually everything fell into place last March 20, 2011.

We took the Victory Liner bus bound for Baguio City, which left the terminal at 4AM. After an hour and a half we arrived at Capas, Tarlac. There are other bus options, just ask the conductors if the bus’ route will go by Capas. They’ll drop you off by the highway which has a nearby gas station (Caltex) and a McDonald’s. The fare was about P165 (approx US$4) per person.

From there, you can hire a jeep or a 4×4 to pick you up and take you to Pinatubo Spa Town and back to the highway when you’re on your way home. Of course going into our adventure in the most stylish way possible, we opted for the 4×4! We arrived at the Spa Town at around 7:30AM, and I was pretty surprised that there were a lot of people there already there.

Corregidor Island Day Tour

Corregidor [Fort Mills] is the largest of the four islands that form the harbor defense of Manila Bay (the other three being El Fraile Island [Fort Drum], Caballo Island [Fort Hughes] and Carabao Island [Fort Frank]). Dubbed by servicemen as “The Rock” or “The Gibraltar of the East,” Corregidor was the last stand of Filipino and American troops against the Japanese in World War II.

Here’s just a short run down of what happened:

Holga 120: 135 (35mm) Film Modification

On impluse, I bought a Holga 120N a couple of weeks ago and the first thing that I did was to slightly modify it so that I could make use of 135 (35mm) film.

Why? So I could do some sprocket hole photography and because 120 film is expensive.

Here’s what I did with my camera, and while it is a Holga, this should work for a Diana as well.

What you’ll need (Click photos to enlarge):
Sponges / Foam
Gaffer’s or electrical tape
Rubber bands

Pwede bang itigil muna ang pagikot ng Mundo?

Pwede bang itigil muna ang pag-ikot ng mundo?
-Spoliarium, Eraserheads

Adventure Mode Weekend: Shooting Range

What do you get when you have a couple of guns, a SWAT team and a photographer?

Adventure Mode Weekend: General Santos City

I was fortunate enough to be able to visit General Santos City in South Cotabato some time ago. While I did have some companions that were from there, I wanted to have some idea of what to expect for the trip. Because, as usual, I’m just along for the ride so the planning and itinerary was up to the majority of the group.

Adventure Mode Weekend: Gumasa, Glan, Sarangani

It really useful to know people who are from where you are going. 🙂 I went on a short trip to General Santos City, South Cotabato (Yes, Manny Pacquiao’s hometown) and some of our companions were from there. One of them suggested that we visit the beach at Gumasa, which located in the neighboring province of Sarangani. It’s a 45minute to 1 hour drive away from GenSan, and there is public transportation available from the city, behind KCC Mall… a van to Glan and then a tricycle, I think the van would cost about P80 (about US$2) per person and the tricycle about P30 (US$0.75). I suck. I know. We had a private vehicle.

A Question and Its Answer

Questions don’t always get answers. But I’d prefer that whenever I’d ask this, I’ll get a response.

Rough translation: “Do I still have something to wait for?

Rough translation: “Will you be able to wait for me?”

Adventure Mode Weekend: Capones-Nagsasa-Anawangin

At the beginning of the year, I had resolved to travel with friends more. Particularly during the summer.

I was invited by my friend Fatima to go to Anawangin Cove in San Antonio, Zambales. I’ve never been there before this trip, but I’ve already read and heard about it from other people. And in fact, I was also invited by another friend, Anton, to go there.

There were six of us in the group namely, me, Fatima, Ronald, Lorna, Ednan, and Ping.

Paper Cranes for Japan

Friday night, I was out with a friend of mine and we couldn’t help but overhear a couple talking about an earthquake and a tsunami in Japan. He mentioned to his companion power outages and fires, death and destruction everywhere. I didn’t have any access to any news at the moment, so I couldn’t confirm anything. The way he said it made it sound almost like a plot for a film. “No way that’s real,” I thought to myself.

Of course, I was wrong. Prayers were an immediate reaction, but I wanted to help out in other ways.

Thanks to my friend, Anton, I came across the Paper Cranes for Japan movement on Facebook. I’ve made paper cranes before, so why not give it a go?