Dirty White Jazz: Summer is a State of Mind

I drive a white Honda Jazz that unfortunately I don't get to take to the car wash as often as I should. I do, however, love taking it on relaxed long drives, often on my own, with a lot of good music to keep me company - hence the title of this series of posts. I love music of all kinds, and love putting them together in playlists that help me build memories. Often I associate a song or a series of songs to a certain trip or a specific moment from that trip, kind of like a soundtrack to my own personal movie. In these posts I will be sharing the music that I listen to during my travels, from all-time faves to newfound loves and one hit wonder flings. In a lot of these posts you'll find a download link to the entire mixtape for your own listening pleasure. I would also love to hear your music recommendations - I'm always on the hunt for new songs to play when I travel!  


The summer is nearly over and I'll bid it goodbye with two weekend beach trips. I'm excited! I suspect the next few months will be crazy busy, so some summer quiet before the storm would be much appreciated. And what's a summer beach trip without the right music? Thought I'd share the songs that have kept me company throughout summer this year (I didn't have time to make a mixtape, I'm sorry!). What were your songs from the summer?

How to Overcome Post Travel Stress Disorder

In my travels I’ve realized that the first day back at work from a holiday is the worst. I’ve never been happy to be back from a trip. There’s relief, in finding my flat intact, or in confirming that yes, I did NOT leave the air conditioner on before I left (do you ever get that feeling before a trip? My paranoid self always does!). There’s relief in realizing that I still have my job. It feels especially nice and I’m always grateful to see friends and family and give them trinkets and souvenirs, and to hear them say they’ve missed me (and then I realize how terribly I’ve missed them too!). But to be immediately happy after that cab ride home from the airport has never happened to me. I go through a lot of separation anxiety after a trip, and it’s usually directly proportional to how epic the trip was. It would take a couple of days or even weeks to get me comfortably back into “the real world”.

Overcoming post travel stress disorder is still a work in progress for me, but here are some tricks I’ve found to be of help.

Around the World in Teacups

It's summertime in the Philippines, which means it's about time we all do some traveling! I've just gone on our annual family trip to the beach and have only recently gotten back from Myanmar with Mabs, which means I won't be going away again anytime soon (until June, when we head out to El Nido, Palawan. Super exciting!).

In any case, I recently attended the Traveling Teacup Event by Lipton, where they shared plenty of ideas on how to experience the world in the comfort of your own home, with only a teacup in your hand and five unique drinks inspired by different countries around the world. So if you're staying home for the summer, read on for some tasty recipes from Lipton Philippines that will surely add some worldly fun and flavor to your summer staycation!

 Read on to find out how a cup of tea can whisk you away to these exciting destinations!

7 Essential Travel Skills

Traveling isn't only a great adventure, it is also a momentous, potentially life-changing undertaking. Whether you're going on a simple week-long excursion to a neighboring country or spending a year of round-the-world travel, it's important to equip yourself with skills that will help make your journey more meaningful and memorable. You might already possess some of the skills listed below, while others you might learn along the way.

In your trips so far, what skills have you found especially useful?

Flashpacking for Females Part 2: Practical Items to Pack for the No-Frills Female Flashpacker

1. Etude House Happy Teatime Cleansing Wipes 2. Mascara & Eyeliner from Etude House, Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry Touch Sunblock 3. Headware Loop Scarf 4. Kate Spade Daycation Pouch 5. Havaianas Flip Flops

 

They're not exactly bare necessities - you can definitely travel without them, but the practical items you'll find below can definitely make your trip more comfortable and help keep you looking fresh and presentable even while on the road. In my few years of traveling, I've come to find these items especially handy when we rough it out on long land trips, back-to-back flights and when we stay in hostels and guest houses.

What practical items do you carry around with you at all times during your trips?  

Dirty White Jazz: Sunset Drive (2013 Summer Playlist)

I drive a white Honda Jazz that unfortunately I don't get to take to the car wash as often as I should. I do, however, love taking it on relaxed long drives, often on my own, with a lot of good music to keep me company - hence the title of this series of posts. I love music of all kinds, and love putting them together in playlists that help me build memories. Often I associate a song or a series of songs to a certain trip or a specific moment from that trip, kind of like a soundtrack to my own personal movie. In these posts I will be sharing the music that I listen to during my travels, from all-time faves to newfound loves and one hit wonder flings. In a lot of these posts you'll find a download link to the entire mixtape for your own listening pleasure. I would also love to hear your music recommendations - I'm always on the hunt for new songs to play when I travel!  



Summer has officially arrived in the Philippines, if the humidity and the heat are any indication. Of course, there are plenty other, more pleasant reminders of this often eventful season - the vacation leaves being filed and spent, all the beach trips and road trips, even the city staycations, and of course, the music that goes along with any and all of these. It wouldn't be summer without a soundtrack, and here is my first one for the year - a mixtape lovingly curated by yours truly featuring remixes and originals from Classixx, Mausi, Tropics, Tuxedo, etc., etc.

Usually I just organize my chosen songs in a playlist on my iPod, but this time I tried to put them all together in one track, which you can download from the link below. It's best listened to on the road at sunset - after a quick day trip to the beach, perhaps? Give it a spin and let me know what you think!

Flashpacking for Females Part 1: A Few (Girly) Pre-Trip Tips Before You Hit The Road

1. Naughty by Orly 2. Nicole Jung's Wash & Wear Hairstyle 3. The North Face Casimir Women's 36 Pack 4. Clothes from Roxy and Free People 5. Mustache Passport Holder & Luggage Tags from Etsy

Let's face it, traveling can be a rough, rugged, and filthy activity. Shoddy toilets, long hours in transit, places in the middle of nowhere without the comforts of home - such minor details are all part of the fun, except sometimes it can leave a lady feeling more aimless vagabond than fierce, fashion-forward adventurer.

So what's a girl to do? Suck it up and go with the flow, more often than not. But there are a few tips and tricks to survive life on the road without having to sacrifice one's girly needs (but also keeping in mind not to go overboard, either - nobody wants to travel with a fussy princess).

A key point is to be prepared - you must anticipate that a backpacking trip will leave you a little filthier and more unkempt than your usual self, so it's best to plan ahead. Read on to find out how you can prepare to rough it out on the road and still look like a decent human being (at the very least).

Of Airports & Single-Serving Friends: An Old College Essay

Before traveling, my first true love was writing. I love words, love the science of putting them together and the art of expressing yourself with them. Inspired by Throwback Thursday (that thing is all over Facebook), I was looking through posts on my old personal blog and found this - a paper I wrote for my Modern Lit class in college. We were tasked to write about any of the poems we had discussed in class, and I chose Yvor Winters' "At The San Francisco Airport", about a father who accompanies his daughter at the airport to see her off as she heads for college. I thought it would be interesting to write the daughter's point of view of the moment. I thought of my dad as I wrote it - he works away from home and I live away from home as well, so we are used to regular hello's and goodbye's. I like to think of goodbye's as see you next time's.

So anyway, I wrote about what I thought would be the girl's thoughts and realizations while on the flight, after bidding her dad goodbye. The coolest thing about this paper is that when I wrote it, I had never ridden a plane in my entire life. It's personally amusing to think that not so long ago, I was a little girl eager to see the world. Now I'm still a little girl, still eager to see the world, but thankfully, I have seen more of it. I hope to see even more of it as I get older.

This post is becoming incredibly cheesy. Read my college paper under the cut, if you dare, and remember that I wrote it in college - I was young and naive. I'd love to hear what you think!

Travel Playlist: Road Trip Music from Mausi and Phoenix

 

It's Getaway Friday - gateway to the weekend, and the perfect time to take those keys and drive off to the nearest faraway beach! Here are some tracks to get you in a beachin' (and not bitchin') kind of mood from synth-driven Mausi and the legendary Phoenix.

5 Travel TV Personalities I'd Like To Go On A Trip With

It's probably one of the best jobs in the world - to be a presenter for a travel show. Every time my TV is on Discovery TLC or Nat Geo Adventure I start wishing I could work for a travel show of some sort. I'll make do with this travel blog and making personal travel videos for now, but here is a list of my favorite travel shows, and five (technically six) of their presenters whom I would love to travel with. 

The 2013 To Go List: 5 Asian Destinations To Visit This Year

In my line of work, I am plagued with to-do lists, and they are both extremely helpful (they keep me organized) but also frustrating (they never seem to end sometimes!). And with this post I come to you with yet another list, but a fun one: not a To Do List, but a To Go List, with five of my top destination suggestions for 2013.

I have fond memories of all the five destinations I've included here - from swimming through a hole under limestone cliffs into secret lakes, enjoying a candlelit dinner on a balcony overlooking a riverside view, to tasting a sumptuous pork dish that could rival the Filipino lechon, these destinations are not exactly off the beaten path, but are maybe just a little ways away from the regular tourist hotspots.

Make 2013 The Year You Travel! 5 Simple Tips To Get Your Adventure Started

I reckon it's a resolution on many people's lists: to travel more in the new year. It's easy enough to promise yourself this, but to actually do it - to just pack your bags, book a flight and leave - is a different story.

Now, I'm no travel expert, but here are 5 tips I've found helpful in my few years of backpacking/flashpacking/spending my employer's money on business trips across Asia. They're simple and might even be considered no-brainers, but I'm still putting them out there in case they might help you get your butt off your chair or your eyes off your smartphone while you read this, and out into the world.

So how about it - how do you fancy reading Filipina in Flip Flops on your smartphone/laptop/tablet in an empty beach, or on a sleeping bus en route to a strange new destination this year?

Fancy riding this double decker sleeping bus to Luang Prabang, Laos in 2013? Time to make it happen!

5 Travel-Inspired Gift Ideas

Among friends, I'm known as the one who likes to travel. A lot. When meeting with friends I haven't seen in a long time, I'm asked "So where is your next trip?" as much as I'm asked "How have you been?". So I figured that this Christmas, it was about time I gave my loved ones something that could help me pass on to them my love for travel, and something that they would remember me by. It also got me thinking about some wonderful travel-inspired presents I've received from friends in the past. So here are some travel-inspired gift ideas for travelers and soon-to-be-travelers alike.

1. A Custom-made Tour

Last year I got a really cool Christmas present from Mark, who planned and prepared what he called "a cultural and culinary day tour" of Chinatown in Binondo. Needless to say, I was extremely touched by his thoughtful gift and all the effort it took him to prepare it. You can do the same for your friends, but if you don't have enough time to plan your own trip, you can avail of the entertaining and insightful tours of Walk This Way by Carlos Celdran and Old Manila Walks by Ivan Man Dy.

Snapshots: It's Always Happy Hour Somewhere In The World

It's already past 1 am in Manila on 6th June, and I'm putting up my post for 5th June. Late I know, I couldn't catch a break at work and had a great dinner with some friends I haven't seen in a while, so I went home later than I expected. But I'm still posting this because I figured, somewhere elsewhere in the world, it's still Tuesday, just like at any given time, somewhere around the world, it's happy hour. Hence the Beerlao photo. 

Does that make sense? 

Also, local beer and shirts with local beer brands for designs - I'm definitely not the first traveler who's been caught up in their strange allure, but I'd still like to explore why they're so fun to buy. Remind me to write about that another time.

Snapshots: On The Road Back to Manila from Surfing

 

It's been rainy all day, so this photo seems appropriate. I'm so tempted to put emo song lyrics in it and post it on Tumblr. It's that kind of picture. 

Snapshots: Ace Water Spa, Kapitolyo, Philippines

Spent labor day in the company of amazing girlfriends! First thing on our agenda was a visit at the Ace Water Spa in Kapitolyo, which was loads of fun. I'll write more about our holiday in the city another time.

Snapshots: Partas Bus Station, Manila

This was a relatively peaceful scene compared to the one we witnessed last night. Crazy commuting!

Snapshots: Hostel Life, Singapore

A friend over at the Facebook page suggested I post some photos of the kind of accommodations we stay at on our trips. Here's one from Singapore, one of the cleanest and newest hostels I've ever been to. 

On a totally off-topic note, how awesome was The Avengers? I watched it last night, I want to watch it again!

Snapshots: Winter Weather, Yong Pyong Ski Resort, South Korea

The heat has been insane these past few weeks, and we're only halfway through the summer. So here's a picture depicting the complete opposite, to remind us of colder days - way too cold, actually. This was when we went to Yong Pyong Ski Resort from Seoul, which was loads of cool, snowy and icy fun. It was also my first time to experience below-zero weather! The coats, boots, and beer helped a lot.

Snapshots: Travel Superstitions on Friday the 13th

Happy Friday the 13th! My travel must-carry list includes the items above, but I'm sorry to say, I don't carry any superstitious travel items to protect me during my trips. Although I do have a page teared from a notebook with a drawing of a flower on it, given to me by a young girl who sold trinkets and souvenirs in Cambodia. I keep it with me in my passport case and take it with me everywhere I go.

What are your travel superstitions?