Adventure Accounting

Hello Blogsphere. I am alive. This blog isn’t. Not very much. Blogging has become a chore. Look at this post’s title. I can’t even get creative. I just put “special” in it just because. Ho ho ho! What’s so special about this post? I blogged, and published the entry in the same day! Ho ho ho! *Looks at the draft year-ender posts for 2011 and 2012* Like 2011 and 2012, I filed my leaves for 2013 on the first working day of the year. The flights for my trips were booked in 2012, except for my trip in Malaysia. January is the busiest month of a tax accountant because of all the necessary permits renewal, tax audits and year-end reports. I’ll stop blabbing about my work here. Read on! I channeled my travel energy to prepare for the Wushu Discovery Friendship Games. I was an athlete *cough cough vomit* With my Wushu family in Wushu Friendship Games in SM Annex No trips since my Japan trip . Four months of travel hiatus was a refreshing break. I took a break from al...

I was not enticed to go to Malaysia, specifically Kuala Lumpur. I’ve talked to people about their travel adventures in KL. The general consensus: MEH, but there are some interesting tidbits. I wasn’t even enticed to buy a round trip ticket even during those glorious Piso fare days when the fuel surcharge was way lower. What made me change my mind: Beth, one of my best friends (BFF 1), moved there for work. Given a Piso-fare opportunity, I booked a roundtrip ticket with Cebupacific for Php 3,755.61. Sarah (BFF 2) booked her ticket as well. Sara (BFF 3) just gave birth two weeks before so we brought her hugs to Beth.Tickets were bought in February. Travel date was in October. Lots of time to save up for the trip. The very famous Petronas Towers. The standard tourist view shot. The Itinerary and Budget          I am the self-appointed itinerary-and-budget manager for travel. I had some difficulty crafting this itinerary because...

Long weekend. A rainy night. The "5-day-long-weekend" ends tomorrow. The sun has been hiding; I've accumulated enough bedweather for a whole month. Had covert this stored up potential energy something productive. I caught up with some BIG TIME BACKLOG entries on blogging.  However, the internet has been irritatingly wonky during this 5-day workbreak. I can't even work from home decently because of the slow connection. I saw this revised Maslow's hierarchy of needs posted in Facebook: Too bad Maslow didn't see this Facebook, Twitter and Gmail have been loading unusually slow from time to time. It made me think about my other non-Gmail email addys.I remebered: Edsamail! Edsamail CD anyone?   Remember those 56 kbps dial-up days? When the cheapest internet card was Reb el? It was Php 100 for 4 hours, and you can get a free email add with Rebel. Then Pacific offered Php 100 for 10 hours. Then came ISP Bonanza with Php 100 for 20 hours. I...

I cannot find the photos I took on my way to Lisbon airport and my whole flight back. Bummer. Probably, I mistakenly cleared the memory card thinking I saved the photos but I didn’t. Booooo.  So here it goes with less photos.   I bought two souvenir shirts from the shop below Good Morning Hostel Lisbon. The guy here calls me out whenever I leave or arrive: “Hey there Philippines!”. I bought two shirts from him for €19 for my parents.  I had a bunch of euro coins left so I splurged €6,90 in Haagen Dazs for an apple pie ice cream before heading to the airport.  The bus going to the airport costs €3,50, the stop is right in front of my hostel, so it was very convenient. I wasted more euros for pasalubong at the airport. I was closely monitoring my spending throughout the trip and I was still way below my planned budget. I never fully utilized the food allowance. I am blogging almost two years after the trip itself. I already forgot some o...