Boracay: The Rocky South

After enjoying the small patch of greenery at the southern portion of Boracay, I proceeded to the very southern tip of the White Beach. A small cave/arch of stone marks the transition from the sandy beach to that of rocks


Again, I was caught under the noontime sun and it was HOT! I think I was really pushing myself to finish exploring the beach before I headed home *sic!*


Although there really wasn't much to see, I was glad I explored this area.



Next: The Last Sunset

Tags: beach, Boracay

POLL: Are We ALONE?

Sometimes we pride ourselves by thinking that we are the only beings in the whole universe. Let's look at the facts:

The Earth is 1 PLANET of the 9 planets surrounding the sun.
The sun is the 1 STAR in our solar system.
The sun is 1 out of the 200 BILLION stars in our galaxy
There are 100 MILLION identified (lots more are out there) galaxies
That makes about 20000 000 000 000 000 000 (20,000 TRILLION) stars
Lets say EACH STAR has at least 3 PLANETS (ours has 9)
So that's 60,000 TRILLION planets

Do you think that we're the only planet with INTELLIGENT!?! Life?

Do you honestly think we are ALONE in the UNIVERSE?
	YES
	NO
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Boracay: The (Green) South Beach

I have a bit of obsessive-compulsiveness in me. Since I had reached the northern end of Boracay, I was determined to reach the southern part too. At 10am the following day, I started walking towards the southern portion of the White Beach. It proved to me more than a 2 kilometer walk and I got a bit tired of seeing the white sand, blue ocean, and blue sky and wisps of white clouds.


It was a pleasant surprise, on the southern half, to find something new - grass, green grass :) It seemed this was the only place along the 4km stretch of white beach where grass could be found.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was already noon when I reached the southern end. Here I found another resort that I think I would like to stay in (if ever I could afford it (",) - Lorenzo South.


I think I was the only one on the island who dared to walk under the noontime sun. It was scorching hot! What I needed was an ice-cold fruit shake. Luckily I can across this bar. Unfortunately, all they had was soda, but hey, at least it was a photogenic place hehehe


Next: The Rocky South

Tags: beach, Boracay, south

$1M or 1YR

i'm still suffering from a lack of ideas to blog. Seems like the harder I try to think of a topic, the harder it is to find one. Layla and DayByDay4-2Day gave me some good suggestions to get my mind started again :)

1.) Where would I like to go on my next vacation?
EUROPE

2.) Would I rather have a million dollars or an extra year of life?
$$$$ :)

3.) Did I have any pets growing up?
Unfortunately, No.

I'm still coming up with an ABC list of gratitude. Thanks guys

Bloggers' Block

I think i'm suffering from this. Life has become routine... again.

I need a vacation... again! :)

Boracay: The North Beach

It was already nearing lunch time when I left the Butterfly Farm. The sun was high in the sky and there was only one thing that could fight the heat - a very cold shake. I heard that Jonah's restaurant at the northern portion of Boracay was famous for their shakes especially the banana peanut butter shake (rightmost).


Well, I'm not really a good food critic but it was too creamy for me. I prefer the fresh mango shake a Sheena's Seafood Restaurant near D'Mall.

I had lunch at Jonah's and despite that heat of the day decided to explore the northern end of Boracay. This portion is where most of the high-end resorts are located: Pearl of the Pacific, Fridays, etc. The expanse of the beach is at its widest here and the sand felt even finer here.


At the very northern end of the White Beach is a paved narrow path that works it's way below the low cliff marking the northern edge. If you recall, I opted to go barefoot because of blisters on my toes and this was one of the rare occasions I regretted doing that - the pavement was HOT! I saw this parent and child along this path:



On the way back, I met a local celebrity - Dyango. The only thing this Labrador loves for than the sea is playing fetch - whether on the beach or in the water. I watched him swimming for 15 minutes straight! between 2 groups of kids throwing a ball.

Next: The Color Green

Tags: beach, Boracay, shake

Lying & that 'Gut' Feeling

At one point or another all of us has told a lie. Have you noticed feeling a 'sick' sensation in your stomach during those times? Some observant scientists have, and they decided to make a study to determine if they could use this 'normal' reaction to stress as a lie detector.

A new study shows that measuring changes in the stomach may be better at spotting a lie than standard polygraph methods.

Polygraphs use electrocardiograms (ECGs) to measure changes in heart rate and sweating to detect lies. But researchers say the stomach and gastrointestinal tract are also extremely sensitive to stress, and this mind-stomach connection may betray even the best liars.

Their results suggest that adding gastrointestinal monitoring to standard polygraph techniques may increase the accuracy of lie-detection methods, which are about 90% accurate.

The study showed that both lying and telling the truth were associated with changes in heart rate and stomach activity. The act of lying was associated with a decrease in the amount of normal gastric "slow waves."[CBS News, Oct. 31, 2005]

Of couse telling the truth when your stomach is empty might confuse the measuring instruments :o)

Boracay: Butterfly Farm

After the slightly disappointing trip to Puka Beach, I asked the tricycle driver to head towards the Butterfly Farm which is located along the main road of Boracay inside the Fairways & Bluewater resort. Although not exactly a beachfront resort, it is one of the upscale resorts in Boracay. It is one of the few (maybe the only one) that offers a golf course and the only one that has a butterfly sanctuary.



The Butterfly Farm looks more like a small garden/greenhouse than a farm (hehehe). There is an entrance fee of P75/head ($1.40). It's a simple place but it provides a welcome change from the sand-sea-sky scenery. There were at least 10 butterfly species but it appeared that the more exotic species didn't like to have their photos taken :)


Next: The North Beach Resorts

Tag: Boracay, butterfly

Count the Black Dots!

Boracay: Puka Beach

At around lunch time, we headed back to the White Beach. Since it was the monsoon season in the Philippines, we got caught in a sudden downpour on the way back. Everyone on the boat was soaked and shivering - part of the fun! Its a good think I brough some plastic containers since I had the following with me: mobile phone, digital camera, binoculars, sunglasses, and some cash. If you ever get to visit Boracay, don't fail to take a boating trip.

I headed back to the Sunshine Place and fell asleep exhausted but happy.

The next day, I decided to visit the other parts of the island that I wasn't able to visit during the Boating Trip SnorkelingCrystal Cove. This time I decided to travel by land. A tricycle was rented for P300 ($5.50) for 3 hours. I left the Sunshine Place at 9am. I was hoping to gather some shells, and since the main beach of Boracay was almost pure sand, the tricycle driver suggested we go to Puka Beach first since it was a well-known area to gather shells.



After 20 minutes along a bumpy road, I finally arrived at Puka Beach. It was on the opposite side of the 'White Beach' and unlike the calm seas there, the waves at Puka Beach were big and I wouldn't dare go for a swim. It maybe about a kilometer long and had very little shade - oh, I was here to get some shells but where were they?



Just then the tricycle driver volunteers that it was high tide and we should have come during the afternoon when it was low tide (now he tells me!) - he's supposed to be the local resident - *sigh* Aside from some shells and large waves, there was nothing else to do here so off to the next destination.

Next: The Butterfly Farm

Tag: beach, Boracay

Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter... Fat?

In my post, 'Eat Your Vegetables', many studies have shown evidence that eating vegetables may offer protection from various kinds of cancer. But why is it so difficult to get most kids (and adults) to eat vegetables? Why is it so difficult to train our tongue to crave for veggies but so easy to like the taste of french fries, cookies, and other fat-filled delicious food?

A new study may have the answer - Our tongue naturally craves fatty foods!

Scientists have speculated that the tongue may have a receptor designed to detect fat, but this study is the first to pinpoint one, according to Besnard and his colleagues. The receptor, a protein called CD36, is already known to exist in many tissues and is involved in fat storage, among other jobs; it is also goes by the name of fatty acid transporter, or FAT.

Rats and mice, not to mention many humans, have a natural preference for fatty food, and rats have already been shown to have CD36 proteins in their taste buds.

To see whether CD36 might be the tongue's fat detector, Besnard and his colleagues studied rats and mice that were either normal or had the gene for CD36 "knocked out," inactivating the protein.

They found that while the genetically normal animals naturally opted for fattier fare when given the choice, the CD36-deficient mice had no such preference. And when the researchers put fatty acids on the tongues of the normal animals, this alone triggered a release of fat-processing substances from the digestive organs. Again, the same was not true of mice lacking CD36 activity.

It's possible, he speculated, that the receptor's effects -- encouraging a preference for fat and launching a quick release of digestive substances -- conferred an evolutionary advantage when food was scarce. In modern times of plenty, however, this may be a disadvantage for the waistline. [Reuters Nov. 1, 2005]

If proven to be true, a successful diet may be as simple as inactivating these receptors on the tongue and maybe implanting vegetable-loving receptors.

A One-Click Answer

I've been on 24-hour duty every other day for the past 6 days. Sometimes I get to sleep, sometimes I don't. I leave the clinic around 8 in the morning and arrive at home at around 9. What's the first thing I do when I get home - change clothes? Eat breakfast? Bathe? Sleep? - not even close. I go straight to the computer and wait for the dial-up modems to establish a link, then I blog. Once in a while, my ISP is down, sometimes I can't get my mail, Blogger is down (panic!), Haloscan is inaccessible - my mood changes and I'm pissed off!

I agree that interacting on the Net is very important but exactly how important should it be? Minor hiccups by Net services, software, instant messengers, and email services are to be expected but why do I feel that I will miss out on something big if I can't log in with just 'one click'? Or even worse - Why do I sometimes feel that the world will miss out on something big if I can't log in?

I came across this post by chance and was brought back to reality

One of the most irritating things to me is the expectation of six-nines service (e.g. 99.9999% uptime) from things which are free (or $1/mo). Haloscan, Blogger, LibraryThing, you name it. This is the internet--things happen. Also, people _sleep_ for chrissakes, or at least they sometimes try to. You can't have it both ways (free and always available) and you know what? Even if you pay for something, you're not going to get six-nines service. You'll be lucky if you get two nines. Hell, you'll likely get a nine and an eight, or no guarantee at all. Or maybe a nine and a seven. Maybe a six.

My point is simply this: it is naive to think that everything is always on, even if you are. Blogger sucks because it went down for twenty minutes and I couldn't post about what I did today, or the world is going to end because for several hours no one could leave comments to my post, for the love of god who cares. Who cares? So we're inconvenienced because our blogging service burped. TypePad burps too. So does Yahoo. So does Amazon, and eBay, and every other entity online. Every single one. While we're inconvenienced, there are engineers running around trying to fix whatever the f*ck got broken because every nine that drops off the counter means less income for their company and probably they'll be out of a job. The Blogger folks--and there aren't that many of them relative to the size of the company, as Google headcount != Blogger headcount--don't think they don't personally feel the weight of the entire internet on them when Blogger goes down unexpectedly for even a few minutes. It's one of the most f*ck*ng stressful feelings ever to watch your app crash to a halt and the collective hate of ten people, let alone 10 million people, focuses itself squarely between your eyes.

...Go take a walk or something and come back later and the whole matrix will all be back in place and we can resume our whatever-insignificant-thing-we-all-blog-about blogging and commenting.[Irritating @ No Fancy Name]

I just got home from a 24-hour duty and I'm here still in duty clothes, with an empty stomach, eyelids drooping, and haggard looking, blogging - because you guys might miss out on something big if I don't! Hahaha!