Tangadan Falls Adventure!

Super duper late post but who cares haha. I just don't want to forget this event 'cos it was so fun!

We went to La Union during one long weekend in December last year and our itinerary included a trip to Tangadan falls. I was actually surprised that we were going somewhere else aside from Urbiztondo beach area so I was internally freaking about it because I wasn't prepared! I didn't bring my pang-malakasang tsinelas (ie my Sandugo) and I didn't bring enough clothes. I was so dreading the thought of river trekking and wading in the waters while I'm not equipped with the right, uhm, slippers. I could die you know?!

But what have you, our biglaang Tangadan proved to be my favorite part of our LU trip. Aside from our friend's proposal hehe! It was thrilling, exhausting, and rewarding. And even if I woke up super sore from the short trek to the waterfalls, I could do it over and over again because the experience is truly worth it! Littered in this post are a couple of snaps from that super memorable trip. We were driving all the way in that we didn't notice a bunch of locals had gestured for us to stop. They chased us for a bit until they were able to catch us to inform us that they do not allow private vehicles to drive up the mountain because it's not safe.

So quick note to those using Waze or Maps to drive to the place: DON'T IGNORE THE SIGNS. We missed the checkpoint so they had to chase us hehe.

You either have to trek, or rent a vehicle (motorbike, tryke, or jeepney) to get you up there. Since we're a big group we opted for a jeepney and paid over 1k for it. We thought we were being scammed but eventually got convinced of why we had to transfer vehicles.

The trip to the falls was soooooo exhilirating. Nerve-wracking climbs and steep descends filled our short journey. And on a road just wide enough to accommodate our bigass sarao?! We were juggling between trying to enjoy the moment and praying for dear life. Kaya naman pala pagsabayin.

After the jeepney ride, we still had to trek a bit to reach the falls. And when we got there, man was it so beautiful. You can swim, dive, or just chill by the big rocks. Water is cold, the river is deep but they rent out life-jackets naman for 30 pesos each.

There are locals who can guide you during the trek too. You can even borrow a walking stick to help your knees lol. Our kuya was kind enough to lend me his and GRAABEEE sobrang hayahay magtrek pag may walking stick lamoyon?!?! Hahahaha

Can't express how much I loved this trip! I wanna go baaaack!

Looking around EaTogether Food Hall by Vikings at Capitol Commons

Chanced upon this newly opened food court one weekend while doing the laundry hehe

Disclaimer, I just looked around and didn't buy anything cos Jeckie and I already decided we'd eat at Coco Ichibanya that day. Here's what to see at the newly opened EaTogether Food Hall at Capitol Commons.

Super nice and well designed interiors, lots of dining space, and also an outdoor area for smoking.

Based from what I read from other bloggers (who were lucky to be invited to a press opening lol), transactions here are CASHLESS. You either pay through debit or credit card, or use the reloadable Vikings Rewards Card. Hmm... for now I can't say if that's a good feature or not.

There's a variety for you to choose from. There's Shabu-shabu, Chinese, Japanese, and Italian...

There's chicken and steak...

And a drinks station with cocktails, beer, juices, and bottled products.

There's even a small nook for live performances. Cool!

Will definitely try this place out next time! What do you think about this place and how do feel about the cashless transaction?

ETA after a week: We did come back to this place to eat but upon circling the place twice nothing seems to catch our attention. Not to be nega about the food hall but there's seems to be not a lot of food offerings. There's only around 10 stalls inside. Food is generic and price tag is a bit hefty. You'd have to spend 250/head for a single meal in here. The stalls have a Mercato feel to them, alam mo yun, unfamiliar but interesting. But the price tag would shoo you away talaga haha.

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EaTogether Food Hall is located at the 2nd floor of Unimart Capitol Commons

Operating hours: 11am-3pm and 5pm-11pm (is Unimart even open until 11pm?)

Swamped

I have so many things I'm putting off doing at work that I'm starting to feel like it's gonna bite me anytime now, specially in the coming weeks. Whew!

First, I've been delaying on this RPA project for so long because it scaaares meee. How do you handle this? I keep on pushing it in favor of the easier ones, but now I feel like I need to get it rolling somehow. The thing is, I'm already quite sure it's gonna be very hard to automate, if not impossible. Part of me wants to get back to the client and say it's not possible to do this since it's too complex, there are too many exceptions, and yet a part of me wants to keep on digging for solutions. So what happened? It's been benched for two months JUST BECAUSE I can't afford to say it can't be done. I have yet to understand why it's so hard for me to break this kind of updates to our clients. I know perfectly well how some scenarios don't fit into the robotic scheme of things, that there's only so much I can program without the use of ~real~ AI algorithms. And we're not even there yet, so there's really not much I can do.

Second, I have like two other RPA projects in-progress that I can't seem to drag to the finish line because, uhm. Yeah that's on me. They're supposed to be my quick wins but procrastination got the better of me. Huhu.

Third, I have another RPA project that super duper hard and complicated I don't even know where to start.

Fourth, I have a wedding invite and two logo studies to finish this week. Invite's almost done actually, so it's just the logo that I need to really sit on. I have a couple of ideas running in my head but recently, work has been eating more than four hours of my life each day that I'm left with no time to focus on my other ~endeavors~ haha. My boss is gonna kill me for this.

Anyway. UPDATE! My first problem just got officially solved so that's now old news.

Thanks to my senior, I was able to get through that trap. I really just needed validation that it can't be done, and if my senior agrees, then I have to be confident about it.

Yey. So now I'm working another project with them lol, cos you know, just in case one of the proposed ones doesn't work out they've listed a ton of other things we can try haha.

Smart Tips to Start Socialising Again

Photo from Pixabay

It's a lot easier to start isolating yourself from others than you might think, especially if you're a naturally introverted person. Maybe you work from home or spend a lot of your time doing something that doesn't require you to leave the house, like playing video games. You might go through a period when you don't feel like socialising, but then find it difficult to reconnect with your social circle once you do feel like being social again. If you want to get back out there, you need to have a plan to start socialising more.

Reconnect with Friends

If you haven't been socialising much lately, it doesn't mean you don't have any friends. It's easy to convince yourself that your friends might have forgotten about you or no longer want to hang out with you, but most of the time, that's not the case. In fact, they might be wondering where you've been and when you're going to get back in touch. You have nothing to lose by reaching out and asking some friends if they want to get together. Start with just one person who you're more confident will be happy to hang out with you or maybe plan a get-together with a few of you.

Deal With What's Keeping You In

Sometimes you don't spend much time socialising because something is stopping you from going out. It might be that you're always online, whether you can't stop streaming Netflix or your whole life is video games. Even sex addiction can keep you from going outside or can limit your socialising. If you're dealing with sex or pornography addiction, professional sex therapists can help you to address your habit. The same is true for other addictions that might be stopping you from having a normal social life. Even if you're shy or dealing with social anxiety, getting professional help can allow you to confront the issue.

Photo from Pixabay

Find New Social Circles

Not everyone feels that they have friends who they can reconnect with. Maybe you've moved to a new town, or you've found it hard to make friends since leaving school. Looking for new people to socialise with can help you expand your social circle. It's a good idea to look for activities and groups to join, whether you join a hiking group, become a member of a choir, or start volunteering. Making new friends as an adult can take a while, but when you find your tribe, it can encourage you to be a lot more social.

Set Goals

If you want to achieve anything in life, it's always a good idea to set some goals. As well as having big goals, you can break them down into small objectives and actions. Your main aim might be to make some new friends but to do that you might first challenge yourself to start participating in a new activity, talk to three different people or ask someone to hang out with you.

It can be tough to start socialising again if you've been isolated. But once you decide to make a move, you can get out there and step out of your comfort zone.

Retrain Your Mind To Slash Your Anxiety Levels

Anxiety is a modern epidemic. It’s something that seems to permeate every level of our society and imposes enormous costs. Stress literally ruins people’s lives.

It’s only relatively recently though that anxiety has become a publicly-recognized issue. Not only have we become better at talking about it, but it’s also become a bigger problem. We live in a society where no matter how much success you have, it’s never enough. We’ve become slaves to the constant need for “more” in all aspects of our lives. The pressures of the modern world create a situation where anxiety is the inevitable result. The good news, however, is that it doesn’t have to be this way. We can retrain our minds to overcome the pitfalls of our economic and romantic lives and live more healthfully (and joyfully).

Shrink Your Amygdala

Scientists think that the amygdala has a significant role to play in the modern anxiety epidemic. The pea-sized region at the center of our brains is responsible for a vast amount of the anxiety that we experience. It’s an ancient part of the brain which gives us our essential “fight or flight” response.

Photo from Pixabay

The problem is that the modern world can corrupt the amygdala. It played an essential role in helping us avoid danger in our evolutionary past, but the contemporary world confuses it. The daily stressors of industrial production switch on the amygdala continually, enlarging it and putting it into a state of permanent activity.

Shrinking the amygdala is vital for long-term mental wellness, but how do you do it. The leading approach right now is to spend 30 minutes per day meditating. The incredible thing about meditation is that it appears to shrink the amygdala back down to a regular size while cutting out the unwanted activity.

Supplement To Reduce The Activity Of The Amygdala

Incredibly, as CBDOlja.nu points out, some foods and supplements reduce the amount of brain activity in the amygdala. Ashwagandha, for instance, is a natural herb which cuts the level of activity in the brain and helps people to feel more relaxed about their day.

Something as simple as taking a powdered berry supplement can help too. Inflammation in the brain can change our thought processes, making us more susceptible to negative and unhealthy emotions. Using berries to flush out some of the inflammation cuts the odds of our thought patterns from getting out of whack with reality.

Try Unlearning Your Fear Responses

What’s so upsetting about the whole anxiety epidemic is that it is almost wholly unnecessary. Our lives are not in danger the majority of the time, but our biology causes us to react as if it were. Ancient biology hasn’t yet adapted to the realities of life in modern offices. It’s all so new.

As bodyandsoul.com.au points out, researchers are now experimenting with ways to help people unlearn their fear responses. They do this by asking people to create a list of their fears from least bad to worst. Practitioners then get people to face their fears head-on, instead of avoiding them, helping them to see that they’re usually not in danger after all.

About this weekend

God has been so gracious to us this week, super! Friday night Jeckie was supposed to come home early because his stomach isn't feeling well. So yeah he was about to go home, but the car won't start so he was stuck for a while hahaha. He figured it's a battery problem. Our options: Motolite 24/7 delivery or Petron roadside assist.

Called Petron to seek help in jumping the car but was denied because we didn't qualify for their free assistance. Apparently, we needed to gas up around 5k/month to qualify and our last transaction was 4 months ago pa hahaha.

How useless, we don't even spend 5k per month on gas and we barely fill up at Petron anymore since there's a Clean Fuel nearby. Nearer and cheaper. Okay, anyway

Jeckie's officemates came to the rescue and he was advised to just jump the car and get an Amaron battery later. Thank God for his friends, they were able to get a jumper cable, and start the car. After a while he was able to drive home safely, with one of his friends even following him closely behind in case the car conked along the way. He had to drive with every battery operated thing off except for the engine and headlights, to conserve power. So no aircon, no signal lights, no hazard, no radio, no dashcam, no everything. Just the bare minimum to arrive home in one piece. When he got home I took care at having the battery replaced. I searched all over Facebook for recommended Amaron models and suppliers who can deliver to our area.

I couldn't wait for opening hours so I tried to message some of them if there's any chance they can delivery asap lol. The quickest to reply and offer its services was Dremzie's Battery so I went ahead with them. Delivery took around 30 minutes and kuya Darwin from the shop was kind enough to let me record the process for future reference!

Dremzie's is an official sponsor of a car group I'm on at Facebook so I never doubted haha.
FYI, I'm not car savvy but I enjoy lurking around car groups on Facebook because I'm learning a lot hahaha.

Dahil dyan, here's a Youtube video of the installation of Amaron Hi Life on a Toyota Vios. I was meaning to learn here okay so I was talking to kuya Darwin while he does his thing.

This couldn't have happened any later as we had an important trip the next day. So imagine our relief that it happened right when it did!

Yehey for a new battery! Not the best color out there but who cares. Ako lang to hahahaha. Like why would you choose a battery because of its color lol. Hopefully this would last like The Hulk lol.

The following day, we woke up early to get ready for a friend's wedding. It's my first time in a looong time to participate in the entourage and maaaaan was it a challenging feat, physically. Call time was early and we had to drive almost two hours to get to the preps venue, a resort situated at a very very very high point at Baras, Rizal.

I kid you not, as we approached the resort, we saw this road on the side which was terribly inclined. Sabi ko pa, grabe naman yung kalsada na yun sobrang taas! Everyone in the car agreed. And just like that... surprise! That's the frkn road to the venue! Yehey! My head was shaking in disbelief. But I had to trust the car. Hindi naman pala ganon kalala, I didn't even have to lower the gear. I also didn't have enough bwelo but it sustained just fine. Maybe the new battery has something to do with it haha but yeah, I thank the Lord for keeping us safe!

Sobrang haggard mag-preps. Dibaaaaa? But I'm not complaining because it's just as fun as it is exhausting. I gained new friends and truly enjoyed myself! This wedding was so beautiful despite the heavy downpour. Our gowns and shoes were soaked in mud but we didn't mind! ♡

Here's a collage of a few photos! I hardly feel pretty about myself but heeeeeyyy a layer of foundation, eyebrows on fleek, and a truly long lasting and waterproof lipstick and this girl is feeling GGSS that day.

We were so tired on the way home but we still managed to stop by Metrowalk for a Japanese fix at Nommu Yakitori Izakaya. We had sushi, sashimi, miso soup, and uzura bacon. Ang saraaaaap! ♡

Definitely July's highlight! ♡

Surefire Ways to Stay Fit and Healthy While You're Travelling

You spend all year daydreaming about your holiday; don’t you?

Where to go, the kinds of adventures you’ll have - and picture yourself out there in paradise - blissful!

Photo from Pexels

But although we all make lots of practical preparations -  it’s easy to forget our own bodies - and we shouldn’t do. Travel can be a big drain on your health if you’re not careful - so it’s important to take the appropriate precautions.

Before you travel

Boost your immune system

A strong immune system is crucial to your overall health - so make sure it’s in shape before you set off.  Try to eat well in the run up to your holiday - and include lots of fresh fruit and vegetables in your diet. Dark leafy greens like kale and brightly colored fruits are particularly helpful.  And remember to take small, healthy snacks with you on your journey.
Check if you need any vaccinations

Depending where you’re going, you might need vaccinations - so make sure you’ve checked - it’s really important.  If concerns about pain put you off - don’t let them - perhaps using a numbing cream could be the solution.

You can find lots of useful information online about which vaccinations might be appropriate for your holiday destination.  So do your homework. And your doctor, physician or pharmacist will be able to advise you too.

Photo from Pexels

Buy the right sunscreen

We can’t emphasise enough the importance of taking - and using sunscreen - particularly if you’re visiting warmer climes.  Make sure you choose a cream with at the very least a factor 15 (30 is preferable, particularly for children).  Look for good UVA ratings - and apply it really regularly while you’re away.

While you’re travelling

Get enough sleep

Sleep is essential to our health and wellbeing and research has revealed that it’s crucial for our immune system.  Put simply, you’re more likely to catch a virus without it - and to shake one off if you do get sick.  So getting proper sleep is very important before and during your journey.

Consider packing a travel pillow and earplugs or noise-canceling headphones to help you sleep more soundly too.

Stay hydrated

When you travel by air, the lack of humidity in the cabin air can lead to dehydration - and dry out mucous membranes.  This can make you more susceptible to germs - so remember to keep as hydrated as possible.  Water is the best option - obviously - so consider taking a bottle with you and refill whenever possible. Potassium-rich foods like bananas are also great options to help keep you hydrated.

Try to keep active

That might not sound straightforward while you’re travelling but it is possible - and, of course, crucial. Because it’s another really effective way to stave off unwanted infections - and boost your energy.

Photo from Pixabay

So make time in your travel schedule to do something that gets your body moving - even if it’s just a quick stretch.  And when you arrive don’t neglect this either - check out the hotel gym and go for a walk or run to explore your new surroundings.

Wash your hands regularly

It’s surprising how many people forget the importance of regular hand washing - and how it helps maintain health.

This is even more important when you travel - as you come into contact with surfaces that many other people have touched. Using handrails, touching counters and opening doors are all things we do without much thought.

Health professionals recommend carrying out the following steps to make sure your hand washing is effective:

1. Wet your hands with water.
2. Apply enough soap to cover your hands.
3. Rub hands palm to palm.
4. Rub the back of your left hand with your right palm with interlaced fingers. Repeat with the other hand.
5. Rub your palms together with fingers interlaced.
6. Rub the backs of your fingers against your palms with fingers interlocked.
7. Clasp your left thumb with your right hand and rub in rotation. Repeat with your left hand and right thumb.
8. Rub the tips of your fingers in the other palm in a circular motion, going backwards and forwards. 
9. Repeat with the other hand.
10. Rinse hands with water.
11. Dry thoroughly, ideally with a disposable towel.
12. Use the disposable towel to turn off the tap.

If you can’t get access water to wash your hands fully while you’re in transit - try using an alcohol based sanitiser.  And remember to keep applying it frequently, to make sure you’re properly protected.

Photo from Pixabay

In conclusion

Just a little common sense and a tiny bit of preparation can help you stay fit and well while you travel. And then you’ll be sure to arrive at your destination - and home - relaxed healthy and happy.