It's been almost 2 months since I've blogged. Time sure has flown by these past months, work has been alright, and aside from snowboarding in February, no big events have transpired. Given the month vacation I'll be having in May, I will be finished "working" at the end of April. With that mind, it's time to think about...well, where to go next? I recently, signed up for a website called "World66" which is a place for travellers alike to post comments about places, they've been. I filled out a form and realized (according to their website) that I've only been to 6% of countries in the world! What does that mean? It means, there are plenty of places left for Chaq to see!
At the moment, it appears I'll be heading to somewhere in Malaysia and probably to China as well. Dang, less than two months to go! Well, here's a map of the countries I've been to/lived in. Man, seems like I haven't been anywhere when I look at the map like that!
Man, I can't believe it's already 2007. Many things to look forward to: 1) finishing my contract in about 3 months 2) goin' home 3) Spider-Man 3 and the Transformers movie!
2006 just flew by, and literally for me with all the travels I was fortunate enough to do. I was able to go to my mom's hometown in Manila, visit the (most) impressive country of Japan, head back to T.O. to see the lil' ones, experience a genuine Thai massage, and fall 350km/h in Australia. With all these great and unique experiences, still some of the coolest things to experience are things from home.
Last year started with one of my DB friends visiting me in January, then Paul in July and the next month, my other friend Dave came to Seoul. It's pretty neat to see your friends from NA on the other side of the world. People who are normally just text on a screen (MSN) and having them hang out with you in your new environment is surreal. Recently, I received some things from home which reminded me of things I miss from home:
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Ketchup Chips!
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and of course the lil' ones.
Fo' real, thanks for the stuff (U know who U are) guys!
Well, I'm in Seoul one week after coming back from Australia and it's gettin' cold here. Australia's weather is opposite to that of what we're normally accustomed to. Their winter is our summer and our winter is their summer. So coming back to Seoul from the hot weather down under was a bit depressin'.
December 24: Seoul to Singapore (6.5 hours) With a lengthy flight ahead of me (~15 hours of flight from Seoul to Brisbane [via Singapore]) I prepare myself for all the stopovers that lie ahead.
1st stop: Singapore's Changi Airport By far, Singapore's Changi Airport is one of the most passenger friendly airports there is. All over the terminals there are free internet kiosks and if U don't want to pass the time there, U can hang in the designated lounge areas or if U're in spending mood, shop around at the many shops there. The Airport itself doesn't feel like an airport, but more like a nice shopping mall.
December 25: Singapore to Brisbane (7.5 hours) Boarding the red-eye flight from Singapore to Brisbane, I'm hoping to get a row to myself for the overnight flight. Instead, I find out I have plane mates, so no sprawling out for Chaq on this flight .
Brisbane to Cairns Arriving in Brisbane at 9:30AM in the morning on Christmas day, my flying still hasn't ended. I board yet another flight from Brisbane to Cairns (2 hours) to get my thrills in. On the agenda: 1) Skydiving 2) Snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef. Having been sports & activity deprived here in Seoul, I decided I needed to get my fix "down under".
Arriving in Cairns on Christmas day I decided to just take in the city and walk around.
December 26: Skydiving I gotta tell ya, on Christmas day, my mind was thinking: "What the heck was I thinking?" No doubt the idea of jumping out of a plane seemed freaky, but at the same time I couldn't help but think how incredible it was gonna be. I've watched many videos of people who've done it in the past and all of them show them having a good time, so I just kept those images in my head and on the day of my big jump, it was more a reality check than feelings of anxiety.
Originally, I had only planned to do a 10,000 ft jump which is a 30 second freefall. Upon arriving at the skydiving center, I learned that the other tandems jumping with me are doing the 14,000 ft jump which is a full minute of freefall, so I decide to upgrade (I mean how many times will I do this in my life?) to the higher altitude.
I get geared up, meet my instructor and off to the local airport we go. At this point, I'm psyched, excited and can't wait to get up to the skies. As the green plane rolls around, we get in and we're up in the air in no time. As the plane ascends into the clouds, I turn to my instructor and ask "How high are we now?" and he replies "5,000 ft.". Dang, we were in the clouds and only 5,000 ft! Just made me realize how high we were gonna go.
So, as we approach 14,000 ft of altitude, I'm told we are the last tandem pair to jump, as the other two tandems are going to go ahead of me. I actually wanted to go first, but whatever. So as I watch the people ahead of me jump, its quite surreal to see each of them jumping out of the plane. It's like 1 second they jump and the next they're already 100s of ft away from the plane. So after about a good 5 seconds after the last tandem, we get to the edge, have a long look down to the earth and 3...2...1 and we're off. Man, that was the freakiest feeling I've ever felt. Normally when U jump or fall from someplace, it's only a matter of seconds before U're on the ground, but this was waaaaaaaaaaaaaay different. The G forces yanking U down to the earth are quite strong. When we exited the plane and tumbled around for the first 5 seconds, I felt like a piece of paper being blown around. It's quite disorienting. Once the instructor releases the mini chute which enables us to hover horizontally, all was well. The wind, the speed and the rush just made it all worthwhile. As we were falling, I roll my eyes to look at the instructors altimeter and man were we dropping fast: 8,000 ft.... 7,000 ft.... 6,000 ft.... it seemed like it only took 2-3 seconds to fall a 1,000 ft. It was nuts man! Upon hitting 4,500 ft the instructor deploys the parachute and now we made our slow descent to the earth. Into the distance I see a commercial plane and the other two tandems. I was like wait a second, how come I can still see the other tandems, they should have landed already! Turns out, my instructor and I were a bit heavier and so we fell much faster and fell a longer distance than the others! A-Sa!
Well, enough of my talking, for those that missed it, here's the video:
One of the things I like about my school is the fact we get a lot of vacation time. In December, we will have one week off for Christmas and New Year's. Originally, I had planned to go back to Toronto for this week off but I was unable to get the necessary day off to go (grrr to my school), so I've decided to try out Christmas down under instead. It'll be my first time to Australia, so I'm looking forward to that. Check back for my updates.
Man, it's been a long time since I've updated this page. I haven't been in the "xanga" mode these past couple of months. Anyhow, a reminder and reading others blogs jarred the writing spirit in me, so here's an update for the 1 or 2 readers out there
Well, as some of U saw, I went to Tokyo for my week vacation back in October. Having been to Osaka & Kyoto, I was impressed, but after going to Tokyo I'm even more impressed by the Japanese. Osaka was great, but Tokyo has a certain vibe to it that makes it one of the coolest cities I've ever visited. From Asakusa to Shibuya to Odaiba, Tokyo's got so many hot spots to see. Having only spent 4 days there, it wasn't enough to get the full Tokyo flavour, but if I had stayed even one extra day, my wallet would've been hurtin'
Odaiba
Shibuya
Rainbow Bridge
Fast forward to last weekend. Went down to Busan to attend a wedding and meet up with some of my Korean friends down there. After a couple of hours with my foreign friends trying to find a hotel (which wasted 2 hours), I ended up meeting my Korean friends for a drink and a couple of games of pool. My Korean friends were with a couple of foreigners from Calgary and Boston. The Boston dude and I started talkin' about schools, why we're here etc. Got to talkin' about sports and baseball. Did U know the BoSox shelled out $51.1 million to negotiate with a Japanese pitcher? Cray-z eh? Anyhow, so I say to the Boston guy that the AL East is the toughest division in baseball with the Red Sox and Yanks. I mention that Toronto finished 2nd in the division last season and he says to me: "It's the Toronto Maple Leafs right?" I couldn't believe it, dude doesn't even know the name of a team which is in the same freakin' division as his own team.
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