Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Photo Diary: Warsaw - International Day

I had great weekend as I'd say it. Met some Filipinos in Warsaw and spent half of the day with them so as feasting the Filipino foods being served. Whew, I truly miss Pinoy food so much, I just let myself attacking the dried fish, sure enough my stomach was happy.
On that day, Warsaw had a special activity for its last celebration for the summer & that's International Day. There was a parade from a handful of different countries who just participated. Just wondering why Philippines hasn't participated any of Poland's program.

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Man from Peru.



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A very seductive lady.



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A Jamaican brother teaching the crowd a Jamaican moves.


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Turkish exotic dancer.


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another dancer from Turkey.


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A Somalian brother singing & dancing for a cause.


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Young street performers.


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I can feel her loneliness & sadness.


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Young Polish girls dancing A Cuban break dance.


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Strike a pose for a while.


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Dancers from Belarus.


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Dancers from Poland.


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Young dancers from Armenia.


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From Mexico.


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Dancers from Turkey.


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From Romania.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Was Featured in a School Promotions in Poland

I was featured in a Christian Primary School- School of Montessori in Poland with my co-Filipino teacher.
The school was trying to promote its new curriculum program about making its Bilingual school as a School of Montessori.
'Am just happy that the school has trusted me to teach in the school though I don't have much skills on handling kids.


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Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Why are Foreign Tourists Hesitant to Visit the Philippines?

As a newbie Filipino backpacker, I always try to promote Philippines to any backpackers that I met on my travels even in a gathering of group travellers. Honestly, everytime I introduce myself or being asked where I'm from, I answered it with so much pride and friendly manner to encourage one of a picture of Philippines in me how nice we are.
I've met several tourists in Thailand and Malaysia and none of them had given me a positive signs of making Philippines as their future target of destinations to visit, yet, a negative comments and a silly grin. In my opinion, I knew why we can't encourage tourists to come & enjoy the beauty of our country its because of the travel advisories against Philippines that they heard and saw in TV issues about terrorism, kidnapping, killing, pickpockets, swindlers etc. That really broke my heart because it's true, and it turned out to be so embarrassing in my part and losing my spirit to continue my story of promoting my country.
Reading travel blogs from experienced and professional backpackers I've known, keeps me motivated to dream of traveling no matter what, and one of those travellers that I admire is Plif Damon of Flipnomad.
Browsing his blog and reading his articles every now and then gives me a lot of ideas about the recommended places to go, budget travels and the do's and don'ts on travelling. One of his writings caught my attention that also brought so much answers to my questions, Why are Foreign Tourists Hesitant to Visit the Philippines? I didn't ask his permission at all to repost his blog post, but here are the answers that he gathered from fellow travellers.

Juno of RunawayJuno.com
“I don’t think Philippines is well known as ‘backpacking’ destination to Koreans. Well, to be fair, there’s not so much ‘backpackers’ in Korea. I’m really a unique case. (or weird? ) Philippines is well known as ‘beach’ and ‘honeymoon’ place, especially Cebu. I think Philippines has a lot to offer other than just the perfect beach, like culture, or people but it’s just Koreans way of travel. because in Koreans mind, travel equals luxury. So they are finding luxury beaches. Well, it’s a long story to talk about. But it’s popular destination. It’s close, it’s cheaper than other places and it’s beautiful!


Nina of JustWandering.org
“People fear what they do not know. Not a lot of news about the Philippines are good — they’re mostly about a bombing or foreigners getting kidnapped and killed. The tourists I met in the Philippines have the same thing to say about the country: that it’s beautiful and they’d like to return. The travelers I met outside the Philippines, however, don’t know much about our country. That’s one of the reasons why people don’t consider coming here as much: they don’t know what they can expect here and if it’s safe to travel here. Another reason is our location in Asia. Even with budget airlines, going to the Philippines is not as easy as it is to travel from Singapore to Laos, which can be done overland or at least much cheaper by air.


Dave and Deb of ThePlanetD.com
“Having not been to the Philippines ourselves I can’t say that we are experts. But I think that people are hesitant to travel to the Philippines because of the crime rate. There is a perception that the Philippines is a dangerous place. Something like the “Wild West” complete with pirates and bandits. It has a dangerous reputation. There isn’t a lot of literature out there to promote its beauty and not enough people are writing about it to encourage visitors. The tourism board should do more to change people’s perception by inviting journalists and bloggers to show the positive side. We look forward to visiting soon.”


Mark of Migrationology.com
“I think many travelers are just not familiar with the amazing sights and things to see in the Philippines. Part of the reason is because the entire country is made of up of islands, that happen to be inaccessible by land forms of transportation. Once a traveler gets to the mainland of SE Asia, it’s easy to get around and visit many places by land. To travel to the Philippines takes an extra flight which can translate to a little more effort (and money). However, traveling to the Philippines is worth above and beyond all the effort it takes to get there!”


Dave of TheLongestWayHome.com
“Initial hesitation on the part of international tourists is first, and for most part, brought on by the prospect of multiple flights. The Philippines by nature is broken into many regions only accessible by flight. So it needs to tackle this element logically.
In relation to this, the first city many people will encounter is Manila. Which is not exactly inspiring, fun, nor enjoyable. The airports are badly linked, confusing, and the international one when flying out is easily the worst I’ve ever encountered.
Internal infrastructure for tourists is very weak compared to neighboring countries. Simply trying to find out how to get from point A to point B is a challenge.
Bad press. Simply put, the antics of your politicians makes people laugh. Used, correctly, it might even become a tourist attraction. But for now, people shake their heads in disbelief. Examples last year alone would be the farce that was the tourism boards new plagerized website and tourism campaign (I won’t even mention the pornographic dibacle attached to it). To the utter tragedy of the tourist bus massacre in Manila, and how it was handle afterwards.
The Philippines has all the potential in the world to become a premier tourist country for all of South East Asia, but it keeps shooting itself in the foot before it can even get to the planning table.
It will continue on this way until someone final takes the Pinoy ego out of the equation, and actually see the reality on the ground. Focus on the end goal of a tourism campaign. Draw up a blue print for this. Relate it to other similar countries based on real tourism not just a junket. Involve national regional tourist sectors. Control the campaign nationally, and not regionally. Make someone fully accountable for the campaign with full transparency.
Could this happen in The Philippines? Maybe the real answer is, if this did happen great things would happen”


Anil of FoxNomad.com
“Personally, I think it’s due to a lack of organized and sustained travel marketing by the Philippine government. A single message to put the Philippines into people’s subconscious, so that when they’re planning a vacation somewhere, the country comes to mind would go a long way. Beautiful beaches, diverse islands, wonderful people, and a great deal in southeast Asia, getting people to come won’t be difficult once they hear about it.”


Claire Raborar of LakwatseradePrimera.com
“Yet compared with the hordes that visit other popular destinations within South East Asia, the Philippines remain largely undiscovered. It’s just not on the “tourist radar”. Why is that?
Partly it’s geography. Lying well off the coast of mainland Asia, the Philippines is not en-route to or from any other destination. It’s hard to tempt travellers off the beaten “backpacker trail” through Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos when to do so would mean incurring the expense and logistics of arranging additional flights – easier to just jump on the next bus to Krabi.
But that doesn’t explain it fully. Intrepid travellers will always find a way to get to a new, unexplored destination – but you have to know about it first. If you know nothing about a place, why would you go there? Tourism in the Philippines suffers because people simply aren’t aware of the wonderful things it has to offer.
Other SE Asian countries have had great success running extensive global tourism marketing campaigns, raising awareness and creating a “brand” for themselves. This is something that the Philippines lacks. You would be hard pressed to find a backpacker or travel agent in a western country that knows anything about tours or places to see in the Philippines. Thailand or Vietnam? Absolutely. Philippines? Ummm…”

(Don't forget to check Flip on his travel blog at FlipNomad.com)

Friday, August 12, 2011

Warsaw Summer Photos

The sun hasn't shown its full appearance up to now, it's supposed to be sunny and hot, yet the weather isn't giving us the exact pictures of a European summer. I really want to see and feel what it's like to be summer in Poland.
I had enough rain in the Philippines so as a cool breeze last spring so enough for these gloomy rainy days. However, I am still appreciating the cool breeze of the wind every day and it's boring gloomy days, I know when I get home in the Philippines you surely hear me again complaining about the excruciating hot weather back home...so probably I must praise God still for this.
Well, I took a lot of pics around Warsaw since I couldn't do that much at all when winter comes..so here are the pics that I have last weekend.


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Sunday, August 07, 2011

Inspiring Travel Movie

What would it be like to travel the world? That's the usual questions of everyone around who desires to travel but never get enough courage to do so.
Not recently, I posted about a travel movie that inspired me to go and backpack more one day. Today another movie again that is even more convincing to me that I need to go out from my comfort zone and see the entire world no matter what. And that is " A Map for Saturday".
It is a documentary movie of a man name Brook Silva-Braga from New York who quit from his good job and travel around for a year. The name comes from a feeling that Brook says you find, living this kind of lifestyle. He describes it as the feeling that it’s always Saturday – not really a vacation but, still, you don’t have to go back to work tomorrow.
The movie was truly amazing and it moved me, really spiritedly convincing that sitting and be bored on your job without travelling is only a matter of money and time wasting.
This movie reminds me of a certain blogger sisters in the Philippines who decided to quit from their jobs and sold some of their things just to travel around the world for a year. Honestly at first, I was thinking that it's a crazy concept of quitting your job just to travel, better yet when I started my backpacking abroad realizations proved me wrong that backpacking/travelling is a good idea.
When I saw the video it stucked in my mind that I could possibly do it and get the chance when I could to travel.


Americans - Taxi Drivers in the Philippines?

Because I am on a summer vacation right now, checking the internet like Facebooking, watching movies and everything has been my usual hobbies for the meantime. As I tried to check some videos in youtube about the possible videos that would reminds me of Philippines, I stumbled into a recorded video cam in youtube about two Americans experimenting jobs in the Philippines. They were featured in Jessica Soho's program, and that really astonished me to see how these two foreign people in my country doing the Pinoy jobs. So funny to see yet it reminds me that we could possibly survive if try to start on doing the minial jobs in the Philippines.
I might be too late to post this on blog but you see, I am trying to update myself on the latest buzz in the Philippines, it so happened that I was late about this infos.





At Jessica Soho's Report:
http://www.channel-pinoy.org/watch/v-230666?title=KAPUSO%20MO,%20JESSICA%20SOHO%20-%20SEPT.%2004,%202010%20PART%201/7

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

A Travel Movie that Inspires Me to Travel More

Have you ever watched a travel movie? well, I did. Movies are great way to inspire us more especially if you are a traveller and the more it motivates you to bring to the unique places around the world.
As a neophyte backapacker of sort, I might have seen movies before about travelling but that didn't ignites me to carry my backpack and travel, as backpack word wasn't born in my vocabulary then. Backpacking really provides all unexpecting adventure which contribute to your unforgettable experiences.
A travel movie that inspires me to carry my backpack and see the world was the "Last Stop for Paul". That movie dropped my jaw that it makes me so emotional about travelling.
As what Paul says:
"Travel it gets inside of you, it touches your soul- the more I saw the world, the more I realize how little I knew, there's so much to learn & experience in life"
."

Well, see it for yourself so that you'll know, least try backpacking.


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My Favorite Instrumental Music