My CNY Vacation to Dumaguete

The past two weeks had been a great refresher to my seemingly (and slowly becoming) monotonous life in Singapore. It was a great way to kick off my year and to start putting some new plans into action.

Where did I go to, you ask? The one place every person wants to go to. Home.

I took the chance to return to Philippines as Chinese New Year in Singapore commenced. I had been looking forward to that trip for months. It had been six months since I last saw Dumaguete.

Coming home felt a bit weird at first but as soon as I saw our house, my family, my friends and everything familiar to me, things felt right again.

One of the highlights of my vacation would be my first mountain hiking trip, which was so kindly organized by a mountaineer friend. It was quite an adventure and a memorable one at that. It was packed with so many firsts. I was proud to have reached that high up from the ground, as I never was the outdoor type of person. I aimed to go up and back down without any help but due to some unexpected foot and leg pain, I had to humbly accept help.

I will tell you about that climb in a dedicated blog post but one thing I can tell you is it's true what they say: "it's the journey and not the destination." My only (slight but negligible) regret was how I missed a lot of opportunity to take photographs along the way. I was (and still am) a newbie mountaineer and I got too focused on every step I took in climbing up and down so as not to injure myself. In the end, my companions had more photos to take with them home to share with friends. It's actually not really a big deal because there are always more chances to go back. At least I still have vivid pictures of the fantastic views I saw from the top.

Overall, it wasn't bad for a first climb. Here is a scene I photographed while we stopped to rest along the way. I must tell you that photographs will never be able to give justice to the beautiful scenery up there.

The rest of my vacation consisted of painful trips up and down the stairs because of body pain caused by the hiking adventure, dinner and lunch dates with my few good friends as well as occasional walks along the quaint but disheveled streets of Dumaguete.

My sister also visited home from Australia, which was good for the family. We were complete at the dinner table again after so many months. My father prepared our favorite food which of course we absolutely enjoyed. My sister and I love the food my father cooks. For us, he will always be the best in the world.

I also went out to take some fun portrait sessions with my sister. I allowed her to take advantage of my experience in taking portraits and let her pose all she wanted in front of my camera. In return, I demanded that she also take photos of me and just gave her directions.

The women in our family. I loved the golden light at this hour. I have no words. I felt like I wanted to bathe in that light for days.

I took these guys on the road trip and finished some rolls of 35mm film still in the cameras.

And what would be better than these beautiful sunsets to end those days? Nothing, except maybe a spectacularly starry night sky.