New Zealand - Land of Milk and Honey

Literally, New Zealand is the land of milk and honey as it is a vast agricultural land . We have been invited to visit New Zealand. Why? After my husband's friend heard that I have gotten my nursing degree, he sent us a link about how NZ needs nurses and how they prefer Filipino graduates. That's good. After all, I had been prodding my husband about migrating to NZ for a very, very long time.

As an Executive Secretary, I saw several pictures of Auckland, Wellington and Queenstown from business contacts. They had brought me goods from the place. I heard so many stories about how they live by the beach while driving to work everyday. I love that kind of life.

Auckland is a city near the beach. But despite its urbanity, it does not fail to showcase its heritage and culture. Wellington is the capital of New Zealand and apart from being an arts and culture center, it is beautifully set in a place very close to nature - forests, mountains, wildlife sanctuaries, the sea. It's a nature lover's paradise. Imagine the tranquility of the forest or the sea breeze on a cloudy day...

I think it's worth a family vacation to check on whether the place suits our taste. Or, if not to immigrate, at least to enjoy its culture and its landscape that sets it apart.

A trip to La Mesa Ecopark

Several negative things have been written about Metromanila - pollution, traffic, garbage concerns, bombings, etc. Well, despite all these, something good has happened in Metromanila - the La Mesa Nature Reserve and Ecopark.

I had recently been to Puerto Princesa City in Palawan and had been so envious about how it has so far been maintained and kept clean despite the fact that it has become one of the major tourist attractions in the Philippines. Mayor Hagedorn has his right foot on the accelerator and the people has responded well to him.

During my younger years, mom had brought me and my siblings to the La Mesa dam. It has not since been maintained well and reports were that the watershed had continually regressed. but, like the forests of Palawan, the watershed had been reforested and restored to more than how I remember it to be. Now there are plenty of tall trees, the grass is greener, there's a proliferation of different animals including butterflies which you rarely see in manila these days, camping ground, swimming pool, and other recreational facilities.

We had a visit at the La Mesa Watershed today. I had previously watched advertisements and shows where the dam had been featured and to my surprise and satisfaction, the dam is more than what has been publicized about it. Bantay Kalikasan must have really done a lot to restore the place. I take my hat off to them. But somehow they should also be able to really reach out to the people in terms of really educating them during their visits. It's a pity to see how some people take their time, money, effort and other resources to build and help something that takes practically years(!!!) to accomplish while yet others who are mere bystanders try to watch what the poor guys do and even contribute to the detriment of the activity. I refer to the trash in La Mesa. Sure there are numerous (and I mean numerous!) garbage bins that are even color coded for the segregation of trash. There's even a fine on littering. But do the people use them? Some do while others - many of them - don't. It is a good thing that the bantay kalikasan has stationed some volunteers/employees to watch over the place.

Perhaps a better option is to have some volunteers give an orientation of the place, how it was before and how it is and should be. The place must be protected and the environmentalists (I consider myself as one) should enjoin everyone especially the guests who go to La Mesa to contribute at least by trying to promote the park and maintain the place as they had found it. I'm sure even the boy scouts and girl scouts would be able to do this. Perhaps the DepEd (and CHED perhaps) should require that the protection of La Mesa be part of the curriculum? How can we contribute to the cause? Can we attain the same success as the people of Palawan? I wonder...

A Camp Out at Laiya Coco Grove: Day 2

It was hard for me to sleep last night. First, because I was not feeling so secure about sleeping by the shore. Next, because the sand was not flat and there were bumps on where I was sleeping on. Another thing is that the people singing did not stop until it was about 2 or 3 am. But as I told my companions about this, Me-an commented that I had actually snored slept soundly when she heard me. To their credit though, Laiya has its guards roaming the place every so often that it was a shame that I still did not feel safe.

I was up at 6:45 am and prepared breakfast. I boiled some water over my "burner" and made some serena starbucks coffee (it was soooo good to drink it there!) using the portable coffee maker. Breakfast included the French bread and some liver spread, hazel nut spread, soy milk and buko (young coconuts) which we had ordered from the resort harvested that same morning. Later on we decided to do some snorkeling and hired a boat to go to the snorkeling area. It cost us 800 pesos for 1 hour but we had a grand time. Me-an who originally didn't want to swim, joined us and held on to the "katig" of the boat while snorkelling.

It was Ikee's first time to really snorkel. While in Palawan, she tried it once but was too scared so she opted to stay in the boat. This time, with her dad and myself, she swam and snorkelled and really enjoyed it. The water was cool and clear. We first fed the fish while we were on the boat and then fed them again when we were on the water. Boyet held a piece of bread close to his mouth and ikee said she saw the fish swarm near him and had passed by her mask so close that she felt comically frightened by it. The area we were at had corals. We were told it was about 10 feet deep but it didn't seem like it because the corals were so high that we could reach them with our feet. It's a wonder that the fish are still there since the corals we saw had been damaged.

The fishing gears that I asked the boatmen to bring were prepared when I went up the boat so I tried my hand at it. My first catch was a grouper but it was so small that I had to let it go. The buko that I ordered at the resort were brought with us so we got to drink them while we were there. I had seen the boatmen throw the husks in the water so I lectured them about keeping the sea clean so that the marine life would thrive and they'd ultimately have continuous income from it. Not sure if that sinked in though. Perhaps next time I should be armed with some pictures and stuff like those for teaching aide.

We had our last meal at the beach again. This time I had asked one of the staff to buy pork and some other veggies for us to cook over the grill. As we didn't consume all of the buko that I ordered earlier, these were added to our salad (to become an instant buko salad which, mind you, was a great hit. You have to check my janecajuguiran.blogspot.com for the recipe). The coconut water was used in place of drinking water, since we had but a few more hours to stay anyway, and to rinse off the pork. That my friends was one of the most sumptuous meals we have ever had. Sand flavored of course (everything fell on the sand even before they went over the coals. hehehe) Then it was time for us to leave.

On our way home, we stopped by at a Colettes' store near the SLEX. It was almost 7:30 and we were still at the SLEX so I suggested we stop for dinner at the bonjour - a gasoline station and complex. We ate at the Grace and Rose Restaurant (or was it Rose and Grace?) where we had some bulalo. It was ok but not as good as I had imagined it to be. Anyway, this complex had some other establishments. One of them is the Seattle's Best. They also have a chowking store and we did want to get some halo-halo but were too stuffed that we decided to go home. Would we go back to Laiya? Of course!