For the past few weeks I was searching for a nice getaway for my birthday.  It was a Sunday when I bought a Manila Bulletin newspaper and there it was the advertisement for a promotional fare from Cebu Pacific Air to Osaka.     That made the decision easier and so I booked the ticket through the website.  However, after submitting everything, I did not get a confirmation message immediately.  Instead I saw a message saying that the credit card I used was still being checked and so the booking was still pending.  The credit card I used was a foreign card so I wasn’t surprised.  I immediately called their customer service and after a long long time of waiting I finally got an answer : they said I just needed to wait one more hour.  I also called my credit card company and found out that they already did approve the transaction.  Two days after, it was still pending and I frantically called the customer service of Cebu Pacific Air.  This time they told me that they will prioritize my issue.  Later on, I was about to give up.  I still did not receive any confirmation e-mail.   But then when I retrieved my booking I was surprised that my booking was finally confirmed!

The next thing I did was to search for a place to stay and interesting places to visit within the area of the Kansai Airport.  First I looked around Osaka.  I was particularly interested in staying in a traditional Japanese inn (ryokan).  However, I had trouble finding something that fits my budget and there were no special places that really interested me there.  While looking around, I found out that Kyoto was actually just a few minutes away.  Travel from Kansai to Kyoto was 70 minutes while Osaka was 50 minutes by train.  After making a quick search of interesting places and available inns in Kyoto the decision was made.  We were going to Kyoto. Read more…

Check out the following gallery from my recent trip to Germany.

The places we visited were: Marburg, Fritzlar, Loreley Rock, and Cologne. The Upper Middle Rhine Valley which is somewhere between Frankfurt and Cologne is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Thea area where we visited is full of beautiful scenery, fairy tale villages, castles, good food, abundant nature, fresh air and friendly people. What more can you ask!?

I am very thrilled to share the photos I took from my leisurely trip yesterday to Brugge, Belgium. The photos are not technically perfect due to the fact that I was too lazy to bring my DSLR and just used my point and shoot/digicam Sanyo X-Acti. I feel that I did not do justice to my subject by making less than perfect images. Oh well, there will be other chances again I hope and next opportunity to see a city with rave reviews I should bring the DSLR.

I planned this day trip more than a week ago after finding out that my husband will have his boys night out. I grabbed the chance immediately to fulfill my now deprived wanderlust. Read more…

Roads are part of our everyday life. They lead us to where we want to go. Without roads there is no progress. Roads connect us to the world.

Country roads, city roads, muddy roads. I like them all.

• Note: These photos were taken during our recent road trip in the West Coast of USA, and some were from a visit to Canada, the rest are from here locally (Netherlands).

Are they barren or are they lush? These trees are extremely unique and they thrive in the desert. This huge national park located in Southeastern California, around 2 hours from LA is surely worth your visit. The attraction is not just the trees but the also the stone mountains.  When I was there mountainers or rock climbers visit the park in droves and they do group practices there.

Would it be nice to have some quiet time reflecting somewhere in France, Spain or Italy in some convent or retreat house. And yes some of them charge a nominal fee between 15 to 30 euros and some even for free!
Here are some links I found:
Order of Saint Benedict (OSB)
Santo Espiritu del Monte
List of Retreat Houses and Convents in Spain

At this moment, I am thinking that since I will be attending a conference in the UK for 3 days I suddenly thought about prolonging the trip by buying BritRail FlexPass
and travel all the way to Inverness. I found out from the Britrail site that a 4-day Flexpass anywhere in UK and Scotland costs around 203 Euros (4 days), 294 Euros (8 days).