Destinations – Page 7 – Chasing Dreams

Saying Goodbye to my Childhood Friends

March 5, 2010June 27, 2010 Rhiza8 Comments

Summer is here, I can hear Donna Summer singing in the background again.

The past weekend was life-changing. I got to unwind and chillax with the bestest best friends in the world, in a foreign country, and we parted knowing that things are never gonna be the same again in a melodramatic but exciting sort of way. What a way to start summer, yeah? :) (And what a way to start another chapter in our lives.)

Gone are my dark and twisted days. I think I’m starting to fall in love with life again.

Photos from Sentosa, Singapore.

No More Wasted Plane Tickets This Year

February 26, 2010February 26, 2010 Rhiza4 Comments

2009 for me was a year of failed attempts in the travel department. 2008 had a couple of missed flights too, but at least it was the year when New York and Sydney happened, and surely, when two of your dream destinations happened in a period of 2 months, it simply trumps the stack of unused plane tickets you accumulated the whole year, right?

But when you booked tickets almost every time Cebu Pacific launched an International Seat Sale and the whole year passed and you didn’t get to use every single one of them because of reasons beyond your control, then that’s a different sob story altogether.

Sadly, this photograph was the closest I’ve ever been out-of-the-country last year. I was off to Bangkok with Joni and Romela but as we checked our bags in, I came face-to-face with one of the most devastating news in all my history of travel: Sorry Miss, we can’t let you fly out.

My passport was expiring in 5 months and 3 weeks that time, and okaaay, I kinda knew that it was expiring, but I wasn’t aware that the 6-month rule applies to Asian countries too.

Well, now I know.

Prior to that failed Bangkok flight, I missed a Hong Kong trip with Mae and Joni (why hello Joni, it’s you again) because *cough* I happened to have acquired a disease that was too sensationalized I was sent off to solitary confinement for 2 weeks, I mean, come on, universe, are you serious?, there are 365 days in a year and you chose this weekend of all weekends for me to come down with The Flu, how freaky coincidental is that? *cough*

There were more missed flights, but those two I mentioned were the best ones. (Or worst ones, whatever.)

Cruel. Cruel was the year 2009. It’s one of those years you don’t ever want to replay over because you don’t want to be reminded of all those wasted plane tickets.

Hence I made it my personal goal to make things right this year. Chase dreams. Fly. See places. Be a ridiculously happy traveler. Fall in love in a foreign place. Fall in love with a foreign place. Get lost in a foreign place.

Oh, and NOT waste a single plane ticket again, EVER.

And hey, I know there will always be circumstances I won’t have control over, but I also know that I’m one year older and wiser now.

You see, it’s impossible to come out of a year like 2009 and not be a better person — hats off to God for making awesome things out of, well, years like 2009. And given that I’m, I believe, *ehem* a better version of myself now, I’m pretty confident that I have better judgment and wisdom to know which tickets to invest in and which are not worth wasting time and money over. (Send in your truckloads of grace, Lord. Bring it on!)

Brighter days ahead, I can see it now. This year is going to be great.

~~And yes, I’m really just talking about plane tickets, okay, gimme a break.~~

Fine. I think I may be talking about more than just plane tickets here.

Read. Between. The. Lines.

Thank you, Delgado Place

January 27, 2010January 27, 2010 Rhiza10 Comments

I don’t know if it’s a girl-thing, but I have this peculiar ability of attaching memories to places. I remember places by the way they once made me feel, or by memories I thought I already forgot. It’s a curse and a gift at the same time. Curse, because even when I don’t want to remember what happened here or there, I can’t help but do. Gift, because that also means that I get to contain memories in places, hence avoiding those places will ultimately make me forget and help me move on.

Exhibit A. Sometime in 2006, I had to avoid Greenbelt for one whole year because I had to forget a college boyfriend. Typical, I know, but effective nonetheless. Exhibit B. In 2007 when my Dad died, I had to avoid being in his office for a couple of months because it’s impossible to be there and not cry over the reality that we’re never going to see him there ever again. Exhibit C. In my last day in New York in 2008, I had to ask the cab driver to pass by 34th street on the way to the airport. Just one last ride through my most favorite spots in Manhattan, I thought, because I knew that after that ride I would start to forget. And that time I didn’t want to forget just yet.

In the past 5 years that I lived in Ortigas, Pasig, my moving from one apartment to another was characterized by some huge transition in my life — my Dad’s death, that big career move, a relationship that ended badly, etc — as if it’s become a coping mechanism of sorts. Consciously or unconsciously, I wasn’t quite sure. I just know that for me to be able to transition, I had to start over in a new place, akin to flipping a fresh new page in a notebook.

Six is the number of apartments here in Pasig that I moved in and out of in the span of 5 years. Anyone can beat that record? If moving is a degree in college, it would’ve been time for me to graduate by now. But I guess it’s not time to graduate from this moving around just yet.

In all this apartment-hopping, Delgado Place was where I stayed the longest. Not only was this low-rise condominium the prettiest and the most secured I’ve ever lived in, it’s also the one place that actually felt like second home to me. The guards and caretakers have become an extended family. “Adobo To”, that karinderya (eatery) across the street, has become my most favorite lunch hangout.

I loved living here. I honestly believed I would stay longer, that this was going to be my last stop, but hey, life’s funny that way. Often, the things you thought you were so sure of, you find out later, are just mere phases in your life. Nothing is certain, I learn over and over, so you’ll have to be ready to pack-up, leave the unnecessary baggage behind and go when God says it’s time to go.

Tomorrow I make my 7th move. I have been feeling sentimental about it the past two weeks, boxing up everything in this room that once made it feel like home. But I’m almost ready, and excited to make new memories in the next city I’m going to conquer.

“..and with that, we say goodbye to Delgado Place,” Mae tweeted after she & Joni spent one last night here in Delgado with me. Glad to know I’m not the only one sad to leave this place behind.

So yeah. Thank you, Delgado Place, I just had to say (and blog). It was lovely spending 2008 and 2009 under your roof.

Got my Hillsong Conference Pass Right Here But..

June 25, 2009June 29, 2009 Rhiza4 Comments

I think I’m going to cry.

Today, my Hillsong Conference 2009 pass and registration receipt finally arrived at my doorstep. But unlike last year, I’m not jumping up and down now. Instead, I think I’m going to start tearing up when the lights are out.

The conference is in less than two weeks. I have all the support documents that I need, but because of the recent events the caught me by surprise, my schedule got totally screwed and working on my visa application had to be delayed. Admittedly, there’s no one to be blamed but myself and my horrid habit of putting things off up to the last minute. I should’ve prepared my documents a month ago.

It’s just like last year. I submitted my visa application one week before the conference started, confident that I would get my passport and visa back in 3 days (like they promised in their immigration website) but, for some reason, I got them back one week later, exactly on the day the conference ended. (Blpht, so much for not making the same mistake twice, ikr.)

But you know how God has a reason for everything, and how He always knows better. While I failed to attend the July conference last year, I was still able to see Hillsong last November.

Now, holding this familiar-looking Hillsong envelop in my hands, I just can’t help but think of the big possibility that this conference pass will (once again) be put to waste. In my head I start re-counting all those plane tickets, concert tickets, and now, Hillsong conference passes that I spent for but never got to use. I could’ve bought a new camera with all that money!

But okay, the unnecessary expenses was not the reason why I was sad to see the package delivered to me this afternoon. It’s just that, I find myself wishing I never laid eyes on it at all, you know, for the sake of not rubbing it where it hurts. I actually almost forgot about it already, and I didn’t want to be reminded!

I have wanted so badly to experience the Hillsong Conference since 2003. I’m not about to linkback to all the blog entries I made all these years (from across 5 blog urls and 4 blogging platforms), but let me just say, I blogged and journaled everything about my quest to fly to Australia and experience Hills with a passion. Frustratingly, year after year, the timing was still not right.

So yeah, let me wallow in depression just for, er, I duno, 11 more minutes I guess. I promise to be back to my sunshiney self as soon as I hit publish.

It’s Time to Chase Dreams

June 19, 2009June 25, 2009 Rhiza10 Comments

I was so restless last night, I had to do something I’ve been putting off for so long. The day I’d let go of an old domain name for the sake of starting over. (In case you’re totally lost, changing domain names is serious business, y’all.)

So there were three major things happening at the time of this impulsiveness:

I missed a trip to Hong Kong with J & M because I was sick, leaving me at home pondering upon the tragedy that is my life, while my healthy friends carried on the dream that we happened to have saved up and planned for so long (fine, Joni did most of the planning, but still);
I was tested positive for a disease that has made the whole world tremble with fear at the sound of its name (say it with me, H1N1); which resulted to a self-imprisonment, or what they aptly call as “self-quarantine”. It kept me as far away from human beings as possible where no one could get infected—again leaving me with a lot of time to think about everything that I’ve always wanted that is not happening and everything that’s happening that I’ve never hoped for to happen;
I quit project 365, exactly two months after I started it. (I did what?) I know, I know, it’s just some silly Flickr project and who cares anyway. The only reason I’m listing this one as an important event is the fact that it says a lot about my inability to stay focused and carry on a goal to completion. I feel like a failure.

So just imagine the contemplation that brought me to register this new domain, install a fresh WordPress package, modify a template to my liking, and type a handful about why I’m doing it.

And don’t even make me start explaining why I chose this domain name. (But okay, I’ll explain anyway.)

To be honest, I was choosing from a list of annoying, overly cheesy, teenybopper-sounding domain names, along the lines of pastelsky and chasingrainbows. Ones that remind you of those days when the internet was young, and innocent, and carefree. Days when bloggers have blurtys and livejournals and guestbooks and pretty pastel-colored layouts along with their cheesy-sounding domain names.

My first ever self-hosted blog’s URL happened to be riz.daydreemz.com, did I ever mention that? It was the year 2001 and you guys, that site was a magical place, at least to my 16-year-old self.

It was a place where I didn’t care what people thought, and expressing myself was the most important thing.

I’m obviously relieving those years, so please, allow me.

Chasing Dreams, it is

Three months ago when I told my then-boss that I was going to resign, he asked me why and I told him, “It’s time to chase my dreams“. To which he replied, “Okay, I’m not about to get in the way of chasing dreams, but give me a month.”

So yeah, maybe I blame my former boss for this domain name too. (Thanks, boss!)

Hello, world. It’s me, Riz. And this is my new blog.