4 Geeks and A Paradise

"All work and no play makes..." well if you're a workaholic like me then you know how the saying goes.


So Charlie, Rishi, Chris and me, the 4 geeks, took a weekend get away from work to 1 paradise. The nearest of course from Makati is Puerto Galera which is about 3-4 hours away depending on traffic conditions.

We decided to get most of the trip weekend so we packed early at 3:00am from Regenes Hotel where Charlie and Rishi had stayed during their visit here. It was a chilly morning and I had to take a jeepney from my house to the hotel to fetch them. I arrived to wake them up and Charlie struggled to get up from bed. Chris who spent the night also at the hotel was snugged comfortable at the sofa. "Guys we really have to go if we want to be there early as planned", I reminded them. In my mind, waking up early in the morning here is not much of a problem for me but when we were vising at Melbourne I couldn't possibly even get the blankets off me. Not to mention take a shower *shivers*.

After much effort packing while half asleep we got out the hotel and took a cab to MRT Pasay, from there we got into the first bus we spotted going to Batangas port. The bus was half empty, it was Saturday anyway, so each of us took a window seat so we could see the view on the way. It was close to 5am when the bus finally departed Pasay on our way to Batangas port.

The bus trip lasted over 3 hours due to some heavy road construction at SLEX past Alabang, we arrive approximately 8am where we waited an extra 30mins until the boat was ready to depart. Our destination is the White Beach resort which basically recommended by my friends. It has good rooms at the right price, we could have stayed at lavish resort but its not practical since we would be staying for just the night.

The boat trip took around about an hour because of the heavy waves and the boat couldn't dock near there so we ended disembarking on another port about 1km away from the resort.



Finally we arrived at our paradise, and about time too since were so hungry already. After settling into our rooms, we decided to have lunch at a pizza place, Rishi settled for a vegetarian pizza while the rest of us go with as much toppings as we can.

Time for the beach! We'll it took a lot of skill to get into water, the waves were outrageously high so we ended up getting dragged into the sands as you enter the water. By the time you pass the break point, the water becomes really deep and the waves are a feet high above our heads. In the end Charlie and I were the only ones who dared to venture into the waters and we kept going back to the shore to rest because we have to swim against the currents so we wouldn't be dragged by the waves back to the shore or pulled out into the deep parts. Overall it was a fun morning, even just watching Chris and Rishi as they attempt to enter the waters but gets knocked down and dragged by the waves. Hahaha.

Around 3pm we decided to go snorkeling by the reefs. We first explored the shallow ones, it was so shallow that when I jumped into the water my toes hit slightly one of the corrals. Chris was clever to bring some bread with him so I took a few crumbs and started luring the fishes.. wow, were they hungry -- I was virtually surrounded by them and even spotted two 'nemos'! On the second site, Chris and Rishi hired small boats to tow them around the entire stretch of reef while Charlie and I stayed much on the boat watching after being stung too many times by jelly fishes. After about 3 hours, we had enough and the jelly fishes stings are starting to increase anyway.



During dinner time, our resort hostess were kind to cook us anything we wanted which delighted Rishi since he has special requirements for the vegetarian dish he ordered. Charlie got a whole snapper while Chris and I went for Calamaris, it was awesome. Having to eat fresh seafoods is one of the major attraction why we chose to go here.

After dinner we went to a bar where an amateur bikini contest is being held, the contest hosts were making fun of the contestants and even the guest that i laughed so hard till my lungs hurts. Charlie and Rishi, although they couldn't understand much of Tagalog were equally amused by the awkward candidates they had -- which is actually staged to make people laugh.

We went back to the hotel past 1am, but Chris and I were looking for something else to put us fast into sleep and decided to hit the bar near by. Shortly Charlie followed and brought chips and nuts we bought earlier. We had a pitcher of God-knows-what but it was good anyway, we talked mostly of what we do outside of work and recounted the snorkeling experience we had earlier. It was around 3am when we finally had the pitcher hung to dry, on the way back we kept on yelling "here it comes!" as outrageously high waves smashes on to the shore and up to the hotel's front entrance.

By morning, were traveling back to the city -- dead tired. I was so tired that I actually slept till Monday, dreaming of all the wonderful stuff we saw on Paradise.

Working in Australia, Pt 3 Last

We're back!

Actually we arrived last June 6th but I was so busy at work that I haven't posted about our arrival sooner.



Anyway this is the last part of the post with all the photos we took during our final Melbourne city tour.


On that day we had Chris' friend and ex-boss guide Joan us, from Flinder's station we first visited the famous Queen Victoria Market where we shopped for souvenirs at very low prices, you can almost get everything here for under 10 AUDs! I would advise to look around first before buying, we banged our hears a couple of times because we jumped into buying what we thought was the cheapest deal we could get only to find a cheaper deal a few meter's away; most of them are from Chinese merchants so find them all first before buying.


After the frenzied shopping we had our lunch at a nearby Asian restaurants before proceeding to Red Square which is on the opposite east of Flinders station where an on-going European cultural expo is being held.




After a quick picture-taking session near the river banks we decided to be adventurous and wonder further into the city, so we took a tram going to the Docklands to visit the New Waterfront City and see the big boats for the big guys.



The place is awesome, we saw the Sea Shepard which is a vessel of the non-profit environmental group that helps protect the waters of Australia. She was a battle-scared boat but loved by many who treasures the great oceans. Also near it, we had fun climbing the modern sculptures made of metal tubes (yes, its allowed).


Finally we wondered the Waterfront's wooden board-walk, watched Australian football shown at the big screen TV (really big) while Chris manage to eat chocolate ice-cream while the weather is actually freezing cold!


After seeing the magnificent sunset, we decided to head home but we couldn't resist stopping by the nearbly Warner Bros store to take pictures with our idols :)

We had lot's of fun during our last city adventure at Melbourne, thanks to our lovely tour guide Joan (picture below). Dear Joan, we promise if you ever visit us in the Philippines we will be glad to be your tour guide. We promise we will let you ride all you can on the Jeepneys rather than walking. Ok? :)


Finally we would like to thank all the people of OnQ and BillExpress Limited for inviting us, we had a great time working with you all, especial thanks to David P, David Q, Ian McKenzie, Namith, Radj (my yosi partner!), the guys from SysTime, and Charlie who spent about an hour explaining to me all the stuff we need to know :)


My thanks to Chris who took most of our picture because my camera-phone basically discharges so fast due to cold weather :)

Working in Australia, Pt 2

Last week I posted Working in Australia Pt 1, this is the second part of that post.

It's been two weeks since we arrived; the first week were spent planning all the project details while the second week were spent on learning the frameworks and designing the database. This coming week we plan release some ass kicking codes. However all work and no play... isn't the IT way -- so we went for a little city tour today and below are the videos and pictures we got.




We took a train to Flinders St then roam the nearby stores.




We passed by the Melbourne's Museum for a quick shot.

We visited the street market at Burkes to shop for souvenirs.

On the train way home

Oh-oh, we're lost.

Back on track at last.

We're home!

This is a bonus video: During our stop over HK airport.

Working in Australia, Pt 1

Its been a week since I left Philippines for Melbourne along with my colleague Chris, we flew via Cathay passing HongKong and Adelaide.

On board our first flight we enjoyed talking to other Filipino passengers and watching TV, then half way the flight we got our dinner served -- braised chicken with mushrooms!! Sadly, we didn't have much time to eat coz 15 minutes later were already preparing for landing.

Our stop at HongKong got us confused; we followed signs saying our transfer area is on the other end but half way there an airport official pointed us a detour through a temporary security checkpoint which saved us a lot of time.

The HongKong airport is huge and spacious; it will take time to get where your going by just walking! You either take the airport buggy or ride the conveyors, its that huge! -- and it should be since most connecting flights pass here. We waited at the transfer area where we were joined by other passengers bound to Adelaide; most of them are talking to their laptops, huh? -- because HK airport has free ultra-fast WIFI!! Too bad we didn't have laptops with us but we will surely have that chance again on our way back since we already received our company issued IBM ThinkPads.


We caught the urge to call home while looking at other passengers casually use VOIP via the WIFI so we tried to place a call but our roaming didn't work. I checked the settings -- there were too many service providers at HK, our phones couldn't just find the right one to use (note: ask your service provider what's their partner network on the country you are traveling to before leaving!). After an hour we boarded our plane for a n8-hour flight to Adelaide.

On our second flight we got another dinner! -- I have chosen the same meal and savoured it this time, another perk when flying via Cathay air. The entire flight went well for 8 hours but we could get ourselves to really sleep due to slight turbulence that occurs randomly.

We reached our 2nd stop early morning still very sleepy -- just had 2 hours sleep, we got our breakfast 30 minutes before landing so I chose egg omelet and mashed potato for a quick munch. We landed Adelaide for another transfer, the airport is a just big enough unlike HK. Security is very strict, aside from the imposed limit for carrying liquids and aerosols (gels, water, perfumes, etc) customs has forbidden us to bring any kind of food -- even chocolates! Chris was even got randomly picked for a voluntary "pat search" as added security precaution which surprised us at first.

We stayed at the transfer lounge for 2 hours before finally taking off for Melbourne. The flight lasted about 50 minutes, at arrivals section we presented our passport to the immigration which gave us an all clear. Welcome to Australia at last!

We waited a bit at the airport lounge area until David Pleasance arrived to pick us up, David gave as a ride to our new home away from home and and first thing we notice about Melbourne is.. right hand drive cars! On the way we passed the office then dropped by a local supermart to buy a few things before finally proceeding to our new place.

Our new home is a typical US type suburban house; it has 4 rooms, kitchen, sala, and appliances -- just like the Google motto '..developers will just want to work if you take care of their needs'. Anyway we got so tired that we decided to sleep thru the rest of the day.

The next day we started out on our job, there are around 190 developers on our section alone -- coming from all corners of the globe while others work from home or other country thanks to the fast VPN access.

Right now were really enjoying our work, its a lifestyle far from what were used to. Everyday we cook breakfast and dinner, im no cook but I'm starting get the hang on it. The only main difficulty is finding where to buy the food were used to like bagoong ang tuyo but the usual ones are available at the supermarket -- they even have a section dedicated to Asian food!

We haven't had the time to tour the city yet so I'll post all about the place next time as soon as we had explored enough. For now I'll post a map of our office, you can drop me an email if you're near!

Trip to "down under" Australia

We will be finally leaving for Melbourne Australia tomorrow around 8pm, for a 20-day something meeting in preparation for the upcoming expansion project.

It's a mind numbing 11-12 hour trip via 3 connecting flights; there were no available direct flights and that's usually fully booked anyway -- what a memorable way to start my first down under trip. I'll post updates on this sky adventures when I arrive at Melbourne.

Bye! ^_^