Secret Location (caramoan peninsula shhhh) Some of the guys in the group know a Filipino guy living in Singapore and he recommended a nearby beach/island getaway. It might be a popular destination for some Filipinos but our travel guide barely mentioned it and we couldn't find much on the internet. So we've decided to keep it anonymous in our internet posting. If anyone reading this is a traveler, I'd be happy to tell you, I just don't want to ruin this exclusive paradise by making it google-able online. Anyway, we left Legaspi and headed towards our destination! This time, all 4 [View Full Entry]

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UP AGAIN! We had arranged for guidance up Mt. Mayon volcano and transportation back and forth for P600 each for 5 people. This didn't include food, so we went grocery shopping before we went to bed the night before. We slept a bit but had to wake up at 4:30AM and out the door at 5:00AM. We started the trail at the end of the local golf course as the sun was rising in the distance. It seemed that we were starting pretty far way from the volcano, unlike with Mt. Merapi in Java where we started right at the base. [View Full Entry]

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Philippines stage 1 Alright here we go! My 11 day journey through the Philippines began with an 5:55AM flight from Singapore to Manila. There were 7 of us leaving from NUS to Changi Airport at 3:30! Talk about to early... We arrived in Clarke airport north of Manila and took a bus to Cubao bus station in Manila. After buying some tickets for the night bus to Naga City, we got some food and headed to the MRT line to explore the city. We began to notice the bad ass security guards everywhere. Our bags were searched by officers (or even [View Full Entry]

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On to Jakarta Ross, Peter, and I were getting picked up at 14:00 to catch a bus back to Jakarta. All the trains and minivans were full since it was a holiday for the locals as well (since they're +90% Muslim, I doubt it was Easter haha). Our bus drove around Yogyakarta for about 3 hours to various stations to pick up more passengers. We weren't going to leave until it was full. The 3 of us were crammed into a seat big enough for 2 at the most as we began our slow journey to Jakarta. It should have taken [View Full Entry]

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Yogyakarta Thurs April 9 5 of us (Ralf-Germany, Matthew-Singapore, Ross-New Zealand, Peter-Sweden, and myself) set off from Changi Airport in Singapore bound for Jakarta. Our plans were undecided and split. 3 of us wanted to head off to Yogyakarta in central Java while Ralf and Matthew planned on meeting up with another friend, Jonas around Jakarta. Realizing we couldn't please everyone we split up. We took a shuttle to Gambir Train Station from the airport for 20,000 Rp (exchange rate about 1USD=11,300 Rupia). We bought tickets for the "Eksekutif" class for 280,00 [View Full Entry]

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Pulau Rawa We left Pulau Tioman at about 7:30AM for Pulau Rawa. The ferry dropped us off right in the middle of the island. As soon as I stepped out of the boat, I was stunned! This place was amazing. It was only about 1000 meters long and 300 meters wide and the beach didn't even stretch across the whole island, but it was beautiful. You'll like the pictures of the island, but those don't even really do it justice. I had my camera in my room during the day when it was sunny, but I refused to leave the beach [View Full Entry]

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Pulau Tioman Saturday March 28th at 3:00AM a group of NUS exchange students and I took off in a bus for Mersing, Malaysia. We were destined for a relaxing weekend of 2 of Malaysia's most exotic islands ("pulau" means island in Malay) It was an early start but it was the best was to reduce the cost of an extra night's accommodation without wasting the whole day getting there. We arrived in Mersing without and Malaysian ringgit to pay for the ferry. We went to go get some and the ferry left without us. Hmph. We had a few hours to [View Full Entry]

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On Georgia Tech's spring break, my gorgeous girlfriend, Emily came to see me. She got in at about 12:00AM Sunday morning. It was great to be able to see her for the first time in over 10 weeks. After sleeping in and trying to shake some jet lag, we headed off to explore the city. I showed Emily my bare-bones, humble abode and got her some of the local "hawker center" food. We went to Vivo City, Singapore's largest mall and later to Orchard, where there's a lot of shopping. We tried to catch a movie, but I got us lost [View Full Entry]

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Here's Lauren's Story of the last part of the family trip. Sadly, I couldn't make it. Here's her story... Sunday March 1st ranks as one of my top 10 most hilariously bizarre days of my life. Just to recap Mark’s summary of the previous day, the Boulier family was fortunate to entertain two happy hours and plenty of 7E purchased goods, if you know what I mean. All of that was enough for Sunday to be difficult enough, not to mention that we had to get Mark back to Singapore and the rest of us to Hawaii. My favorite part of [View Full Entry]

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Honk Kong (noun) - ...... How can I describe Hong Kong? A few ideas come to mind... A friend of Lauren's described Hong Kong by saying, "If your eyes are open, you're shopping." True statement. Another way I could describe it was by the drinking game Lauren and I jokingly made up. Don't worry we didn't play. This game would have been suicide... RULES: Drink... Everytime someone offers you a "Rolex-copy-watch." Everytime someone hands you a flyer for a massage or foot reflexology. Everytime you are approached about a custom tailored suit. Everytime you see the wo [View Full Entry]

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