Day 6:

So on our way to go visit the family in Mandoluyong. We experience more of the Filipino driving, which at time is quite fasinating. There is no such thing as lanes as you can see from the picture above. We arrived there safely and I was introduced to family that I haven't seen in 11 years. I hardly recognized anyone. I recognized the little bit around the house but that was about it. We had some dinner and then the family decided to break out the karaoke machine. We sang a few songs and then we decided to head to another mall before heading home. It was called Market Market and it was a place that had condos, resturants and shopping. The 3 things needed for any person here in Manila. There was a firework show and then we went home very tired and ready for bed.

Day 5:

Again a little behind on my days. But on day 5 was my barhopping day with my two cousins. In the morning I woke up and went downstairs to have breakfast and drink some tea. By the end of breakfast (which normally lasts quite some time since I sit back and enjoy myself) I decided that I have time to relax. It was slightly sunny so I went to the pool, lounged back and listened to some tunes. My parents joined me later and I decided to finished my book "Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Thought the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu" by J. Maarten Troost. Interesting book and quite funny for a real story.

At about 9 my cousin Rizza came to pick me up from the hotel to meet up with my other cousin Roanne. The first bar we went to wasn't very packed so we decided to go to Green Belt to see what they had. We stopped in this placed called Ice Vodka Bar. It was really neat...couldn't really hear anything cuz the music was so loud but I had a long island and we took pictures. Then we went next door which was this Middle Eastern/Indian inspired resturant called Queens of Bollywood. They had hookah which both Roanne and Rizza never tried before. They wanted to try it and I said that it was my treat. All the hookahs were being used so we had to wait about half and hour till the next one was available. We wandered around until it was time. We got set up and also ordered a curry chicken pizza which came out about 15 minutes after we sat down to smoke. I explained how to smoke and showed them what to do. We were there till like 12.30 then we all had to figure out how we were going to get home. We tried many taxi's and nothing. They were going to charge us 200 pisos to start when it only cost us like 80 to get over there. So then it was about 1.40 am when we caught a bus over to Shangra-la Mall which is right by my hotel. So by about 2 or 2.30 I arrived at home and fell asleep.

Day 4:

Well before the day was out; my Internet service decided to go down for some repairs. So I couldn't report on the days events. So here is a quick recap.

The day started at 7ish in the morning. Wasn't really tired waking up which is wonderful since I get more time in the day. I decided that before breakfast my family and I should work out. We went downstairs and went to the health club there; complementary for the hotel with a well stocked gym with bikes, treadmills, elliptical, machines, and free weights. Working out for about an hour and a half was great; I made a goal to work out every-other day to stay fit for all the wonderful food they serve us. Afterwards we had a breakfast at Heat (which is the hotel restaurant). Afterwards I had till 2 till my cousin came to take me out. My father and I decided to go to soak up some rays by the pool. At noon I decided to slowly walk into the non-heated pool. There were a few others in the pool at the time and as I got use to the water, a little Korean girl (I believe she was Korean, I didn't ask) with a little blue plastic inter tube came over. She laughed a lot when I blew bubbles in the water and tried to imitate me. For a while we just kept each other company not saying much. Finally I asked her what her name was; she answered that her name was Pali. She asked my name and of course I told her. She started naming parts of her face like her eyes and mouth. Just adorable beyond belief. Anyways she told me her age and we just hung out in the pool for a while. After all was said and done, I got out of the pool and she went with her family. I saw Pali and her dad come over to where I was sitting. The father had a mango and he handed it to his daughter so she could give it to me as a thank you for looking after her. So adorable =)

At 2 my cousin came to pick me to show me around the town. We started off at the Shangra-La Plaza and took the train to Alana to the Landmark, Greenbelt and one other mall. We shopped around for Christmas gifts for the family and friends, then she showed me where were going to hang out tomorrow. We ate lunch at the Landmark foodcourt which I must say is 100 times better than any fast food that I've ever tried. I had a korean bowl filled with rice, beef, a little bit of veggies and an egg. So good! After all the shopping we decided to go home. The line to go onto the train was crazy and it would have taken forever to even get to the platform. So we decided to take the bus to our stop. Now the buses are like the charter buses and the traffic on the road is quite crazy. We ran onto the bus and just went along for the ride. When we arrived to the room it was about 8.30. So that was about a 6 hour adventure of shopping and seeing the sights.

So that was day 4. Tomorrow....bar hopping!

Day 3:

So third day in the Philippines. Today was a relax day which consisted of the pool, the hotel room, and Mega Mall ; mother was sick for the first part of the day so she stayed in bed trying to get better. Dragged my dad to the mall to get a swim suit ($20 which is great) but then I stayed by the pool for a while to soak up the rays and possibly jump in the pool to cool off. What I didn't realize was the pool they have for the guests here is not heated like at home...instead I walk in and bearly make it past my knees. It a lot of willpower to go completely under, and when I did I was treading water to keep warm and doing some water polo moves to stop from shivering.

After my poolside experience I came back up for a little relaxation. Turning on the television I watched Kirby. Something I rarely see ever which was quite interesting since it was also in a different language. Afterward my family and I wanted to explore Mega Mall.

Kinda a back story, but when I first visited the Philippines, the biggest thing there was Mega Mall. A 6 story mall filled with a department store, a bowling alley, an ice rink, etc. That was about 11 years ago.
This time I visit and there is no ice rink, but they have an extremely large movie theater, a gym and an area they call cybertron (everything electronic). They have tons of stores too; but what shocked me the most was my cousins telling me that Mega Mall had been outdone for the biggest mall in the Philippines. Apparently theres a place called "Everything Asia" or something like that. I think I might be taken there by my cousin here tomorrow or something like that.




Now this was a funny thing I found at Mega Mall. To tell you the truth, the Philippines loves western culture; they did have Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, McDonalds, and KFC within the building but I saw 2 Pizza Hut's that were classified as a bistro. I saw that the place was more...oh how should you say it...dressed up than your usual Pizza Hut. But that was crazy. Needed to take a picture of it to show that I am not crazy.




But on with my plans for the next couple of days....since discusssing with my cousins, I actually have plans this trip. Which is actually great considering it would be a complete waste of time to come all this way to sit in a hotel doing absolutely nothing. But anyways....loose plans; tomorrow I'm taking a train to go to a mall or something like that with one of my cousins. Shopping for friends and whatnot (me too cuz of whats happening on friday). On Friday, both my cousins are taking me to go clubbing/ or bar hopping which is what they call it (since the drinking age is 18 I can actually get into clubs). And on the 30th, it's my cousins birthday so we are going to celebrate by going to a day spa. I've heard its completely different than going to an American spa but we shall see. Should be very relaxing; and I get to have just a cousin's couple of days! Well off to bed....extremely tired (still trying to get use to the time change).

Day 1/Day 2:

My 3 week vacation to the Philippines is finally here. My goal is to keep a record of whats going on here and post some of my findings every day. I kinda have a late start since I started flying on the 13th of December. But I can make that up no problem.

We took Hawaiian Airlines since it was the most direct flight from Portland. My family and I woke up at 6am to board our plane at 8 and we were off to our first stop; Honolulu, Hawaii. Our flight had a 24 hour layover in Honolulu (which I must say was wonderful) so when we arrived we decided to go out for lunch and then go for a swim. 81 degrees on a December day. Anyways our little stop there was quite nice and I just couldn't come to the fact that I was actually in Hawaii. Just insane since I haven't had a vacation in a while (about 6 years since Hawaii I believe).

But this morning I woke up and took a pleasent walk on the beach. Watched some locals catch some small waves and tourists waking up and flocking to the beaches. At about 10.30 my family decided to head off to the airport. We arrived there and waited our usual 2 hours. As everyone was waiting an announcer came over the intercom saying, " Ladies and Gentlemen on flight 422, we are sorry to inform you that there will be a slight delay in our flight..." a slight delay in the flight? What? Why everyone was wondering, "Since our plane is too heavy we need to make a stop to refuel the plane before making the final trip to Manilia." Little did I know that about every single Filipino on that flight decided to pack their whole lives plus another families worth of luggage with them, "Our flight will make a stop in Guam to refuel and then you will be on your way. If you have any questions or concerns please ask the front desk and they will assist you as best as they can. Thank you and Mahalo." So....everyone was shocked that we needed to stop since our plane couldn't carry enough fuel to get us to our destination. Has this ever happened to anyone else? I have no clue...a first for me. I believe the only really good thing about that flight was the movie's they had for us to watch. Made the time go by a little faster than it would have otherwise. But anyways; never seen Guam before so when we saw land everyone was looking out their windows (myself included) Took some pictures coming in and of our lovely fill up tank...such an interesting island...didn't think it was that large actually.

It took about an hour to refuel the plane but we were off again. This time it took about 3 hours to get to Manila. But finally we saw lights! From there it took about 30-40 minutes to get to the Shangra-La Hotel. Man, driving here would kill me. I'll try and get a video of it cuz it's so crazy but I'm glad we had someone drive us. It looks so different than I remember (course it was 1998 the last time I was here). But more will come. 2 days down; 21 more to go!

New Project

This is the new project I'm working on. It's called Release; and I have had the idea for a while in my head and I had a color theory class. They said I had to work on a final project so it gave me a perfect excuse to take this idea and actually create it. The idea is that this vessel is containing "energy" and it will crack and things will be coming out of it.

For the colors I used a cyan and mixed it with a little bit of black to create that nice midnight blue. For the brown, I created a red orange with magenta and yellow. Added some black to create that reddish brown. All the colors here were mixed by me which is good. When I start working on the "energy" I will be using some store bought colors but changing them a little bit with the paint I have now.

Cartoon Bubble Tutorial

Again this was a test before I would do my Hoots book. Found this way from a guy on youtube. Was interesting on how he did his, and a little bit obsessed, but oh well, to each his own.


So this is how this guy started out: First draw a circle around the text and then make a copy of the circle. Send the copy circle to the very back layer and put it flush against the top circle. From there you will make the bottom circle slightly bigger to make a more "realistic" or handdrawn effect. *Note: you will also want to put the top circle in a white middle and no boarders that way you will have no interferance when attatching the arrow.


So here you have this starting, now all you would have to do is add the arrow pointing to someone. He suggested to use the pen tool which is very handy. From there, you would have your own arrow that would be apart of the bubble except for one thing: the arrow is on the very top. That is easily remedied.


As you can see I fixed the arrow by sending it backwards one layer. I found this excercise good to know, but I found another way to do this sort of thing. If you wouldn't want the whole thick circle around the bubble, then you could just take your pentooled triangle, and circle, overlap them the way you want them too and then use your pathfindertools and combined.