Moving from Metro Manila to Puerto Galera

[TizMe]

3rd across the line.

[TizMe]

@tiz - looks good. Did a lot of boats participate?

And yeah, Filipinos would love those repeating town names!

Saturday was just for the big yachts, so there was only about 10 that raced. At least 2 withdrew due to mechanical problems. One had a broken rudder, not sure what happened to the other.

I don't know who's bad planning it was, but apparently there was another race in Subic this weekend, so numbers were split between the two venues.

There'll be more smaller boats entered for today and tomorrow, but I don't know how many entrants they have.

[BLD]

^Lol. Yup, there are many repeating names for things, people and adjectives. I don't know the historical roots but when adjectives are repeated, it's to emphasise the word (instead of saying "very" or "really")

Example: magandang maganda = very beautiful
Matalinong matalino = very smart
The " - ng" is a conjugation.

There are repeating names of people too, usually nicknames. Ex: Ningning, Junjun, Jonjon, Tingting, Dindin, etc. A guy with nickname of Junjun is usually a "junior". Ex: legal name is Ernesto Reyes, Jr. Nickname is Junjun.

When I was trying to learn Tagalog the "-ng conjugation had me stumped likewise the Mga pronounced mung ah I think still confuses me. Also I found that Tagalog was very literal ? For example I could say to someone. Malaki ang bahay mo. Meaning your house is big but the first word would be Malaki, meaning big, followed by ang, meaning your? Bahay meaning house, Mo,meaning you. To me it seemed like I had to listen for the key words like Malaki ,bahay etc then make sense of it. ? Does that sound right. I halfass at English also. But my Swahili is superb I'm told

[katie23]

^yes, that's about right (about Tagalog being literal). The pronunciation of words is similar to Mexican Spanish (less of Castillan Spanish).

The - ng conjugation is to join the adjective to the noun. Ex: instead of saying "maganda ang babae" (girl is beautiful), one could say "magandang babae" (beautiful girl).

"Maputi ang buhok mo" (literal trans: white the hair is yours). One could also say "maputing buhok" (white hair).

I think I'm not the best to teach anyone Tagalog. I can speak, read & write it, can translate Tagalog to English but I think I'll be bad at teaching it.

******
@tizme - nice. Thanks for the pics!

[TizMe]

I saw this photo online today. Our apartment block is circled in red.

[DrWilly]

That looks terrible…

[TizMe]

We finally got around to visiting Sabang on Sunday.

A few quiet beers at The Garden of Eden.

[TizMe]

Anybody that hasn't been there for a few years won't recognise the shoreline, it used to be not much more than a goat track between the buildings and the sea.

[cyrille]

Nice smile from the lass, though.

[TizMe]

Our intention was to actually go and have a few drinks on the floating bar called the Bikini Bar, but when we got there it was nowhere to be seen.

Apparently they towed it away to somewhere safer when the last typhoon was passing by and haven't brought it back yet.
So we'll have to schedule another visit some other time.

[katie23]

@tiz - is that pathway/ "bay walk" at the left or right side of Sabang Beach? For reference, Jack Daniel apartments is on the right side (when you enter Sabang) and Tropicana Castle Resort is on the left. I don't remember that pathway from 2019, but maybe it's newly constructed? It was a short stretch of beach before - I wasn't impressed.

[TizMe]

@tiz - is that pathway/ "bay walk" at the left or right side of Sabang Beach?

It goes both ways, definitely newly constructed since I was last there.
Here's the other direction.

[katie23]

^thanks for the update. So that's the left portion, eh? The side of Tropicana and Captain Greg's resto?

I think the beach/ sand was just ~2 meters from that waiting shed. The govt seems to have reclaimed some portion of the sea and cemented it. If our ex-member "Sabang" sees this, he'll say that it's much 3x different from the Sabang Beach that he knew in the 90s.

I remember that I liked the White Beach area more bcos it had a longer stretch of beach. "Aplaya Munti" was kinda deserted in 2016 but in 2019, it became touristy and had a bouncy floating castle.

Thnx for the pics.

[TizMe]

Yeah, we drive past Aplaya Munti fairly often. It has become very touristy.

I like the White Beach area much more than Sabang.
Even though White Beach is also very touristy, but we tend to go just a little further to Aninuan Beach, where there are hardly anyone there.
But there's also no kiosks, restaurants or bars, so we take our own food and drinks.

[BLD]

^thanks for the update. So that's the left portion, eh? The side of Tropicana and Captain Greg's resto?

I think the beach/ sand was just ~2 meters from that waiting shed. The govt seems to have reclaimed some portion of the sea and cemented it. If our ex-member "Sabang" sees this, he'll say that it's much 3x different from the Sabang Beach that he knew in the 90s.

I remember that I liked the White Beach area more bcos it had a longer stretch of beach. "Aplaya Munti" was kinda deserted in 2016 but in 2019, it became touristy and had a bouncy floating castle.

Thnx for the pics.

This is certainly a different memory from.what I remember from my first ( and last). Visit to pg back then Marcos was about a year away from.the big Hawaiian vacation. There was definately not all that amount of concrete. Infact I think the jeepney dropped you of and that was just a SMALL stretch of sand I'm really stretching my memory now but then there was only a couple of resorts and bars . I must make a point of checking out the whole region a bit more thoroughly . The last time I saw pg through the bottom.of a beer glass.

[TizMe]

On Saturday we drove to Sablayan, then crossed to Pandan Island for a few days relaxation.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ltdm7XaCvGI


Looks like the forum software cant handle youtube shorts links.

[TizMe]

We last went to Pandan Island in 2017 here's a video from that trip.

[TizMe]

I think the resort has deteriorated a bit since we were last there.
The owner had passed away some years ago and its now run by his son.

The accommodation is very basic, but it was relaxing all the same.
The island is quite small, we circumnavigated it in a kayak in about 45 minutes.

[TizMe]

[TizMe]

[TizMe]

On Monday night the only guests on the island was us and one other couple.
Tuesday morning, the other couple left, so we had the whole place to ourselves for a few hours.

[TizMe]

Needless to say, the bar wasn't very busy !!

[TizMe]

[BLD]

Thanks for the update tizme. looks like the move from.manila is agreeing with you both. If Mrs tizme,s gorgeous smile is anything to go by.
Fantastic stuff. That's one thing I really miss about the Philippines is the Genuine Smiles that are so natural and infectious forcing even a crusty fooker like me to smile back.its not only the Philippines, seems to be an se Asian thing. Lived in in Laos 14 years and they sure smile a lot
It wasn't until I moved back to Oz 4 years ago I noticed almost Nobody smiles. It's quite bizarre actually. When I think about it I wonder what the fook it is that's making every coont so miserable? Anyway mate your Really living the dream in a fantastic and under rated country.

[TizMe]

It sure agrees with me BLD. 48 days until I retire (but who's counting )

Ms Tiz is mostly happy, but misses having large supermarkets like SM and S&R nearby.
She gets to see her family a lot more frequently though, as they are less than 2 hour drive from here.