Philippines | Pahiyas Festival in Lucban, Quezon

Held annually on May 15 with streets of consecutive houses in competition for the best decorated with kiping (edible ground rice wafers), fuits, vegetables and other agricultural products to honor the patron saint of farmers, St. Isidore the Labourer. Residents welcome all visitios, local and foreign, to bask in the colourful houses, cheap and delicious local delicacies like longganisa (indigenous sausages) and pancit habhab (noodles served on babana leaves), festival parades and nearby sights and trails.

Philippines | Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Taguig City

Philippines | Oslob, Cebu

Philippines | San Juan Beach, La Union

Hosting

New friends I met working in India recently visited me back home!

Tom from Taiwan was assigned in the same project I was for Genesis (HIV/AIDS awareness). Tina and Gerry from China, on the other hand, worked on different projects. However, we all lived in the same house in Begumpet, Hyderabad. Tom brought along Eason who, same as he, is a Mechanical Engineering student in Taiwan.

They all arrived the weekend of January 21, and left just yesterday, January 30.

It was great fun being host to them. It was also very tiring. We got to see a lot around Manila, as well as places out-of-town like Tagaytay, Pagsanjan and Boracay. Some, new sights even for me. I'll write about our awesome adventures some other time. In the meantime, I would just like to share something Eason wrote me as soon as he got back to his home in Taiwan. Mind you, we had only met here through Tom - It makes his message even sweeter (in a platonic way, of course). I was just glad he enjoyed his stay here very much.

India | Srisailam, Andhra Pradesh

Nepal | The Last Resort: Free Falling Over the Bhote Koshi - Twice!

I had 2 short weeks to spare in between work projects in India, so I decided to join my friends in traveling to Nepal and to go bungee jumping (among other things).

A few nights before our travel from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, we met a Nepali girl who was actually born and raised in New York, and who after college went soul-searching and worked in Nepal as an adventure-writer. She told us all about her own experience bungee jumping with her mom who was a lot braver than she was.. made me more and more excited for our short trip. It was just what our group needed to boost our confidence and excitement.

hanging bridge at The Last Resort

Here's an edited video of my own experience, hoping it, too, would inspire you to go and be excited for your next adventure :)

SSS: Week 5

Sarvajanik Shikshonnayan Sansthan (SSS)

A-3/302, Vishal Khand, Gomti Nagar, Lucknow

226 010 (Uttar Pradesh) India

sssngoindia.org

Initial itinerary:

12-16 June, Hardoi

2 batches of meetings with focus groups

We separated the days between 2 batches due to the lack of transportation, and for efficiency. Ideally. The first group - the "white group" /the Europeans - left on the 12th. They were delayed a lot of hours, and I was not really surprised to see them after I woke up midday when they were supposed to leave early morning. While they were gone, we were supposed to work on our reports and presentations for the final week of the project. Instead, the Malaysians, Yi Ni and Khar Khee, left for Jaipur and Agra since they weren't going to have enough time to travel before their flight back in July. America and I, on the other hand, will have more time to spare after the project and so we stayed and went shopping in the Aminabad market that Sunday.

What we didn’t know was that markets are closed on Sundays. Too bad. But still, a few shops were open, and we found some nice fabric and accessories! I bought a beautiful jewellery set for 600 INR (600 PHP). Here it is worn in the wedding we attended on the 17th:

SSS: Week 4

Sarvajanik Shikshonnayan Sansthan (SSS)

A-3/302, Vishal Khand, Gomti Nagar, Lucknow

226 010 (Uttar Pradesh) India

sssngoindia.org

Initial itinerary:

7-11 June, Almora

Working with community and discussing with district authorities

This week was not very productive. We were supposed to be in Almora doing further research but some problem with our accommodations made us travel back to our office in Lucknow. Instead of in the hostel where we stayed in the first week, we're living in our office! Good for us girls since we were placed in an A/C bedroom above it..:) love. it! The boys, however,  got it bad sleeping on the floor of Dr. Trivedi's windowless office, and under a ceiling fan.

Another plus for us (girls at least) is that we finally have unlimited access to the world wide web!  Time to check our accounts, mail, etc. update our blogs and chat and skype with our friends and family we miss from home.

Due to the change of schedule, us AIESEC interns used the first 2 days to meet, discuss and make reports of our individual research collected from the past three weeks. By Wednesday, we had sent it to KC. We met to further discuss it with them, and plan for the remaining 20 days of the project.

SSS: Week 3

Sarvajanik Shikshonnayan Sansthan (SSS)

A-3/302, Vishal Khand, Gomti Nagar, Lucknow

226 010 (Uttar Pradesh) India

http://www.sssngoindia.org/

Initial itinerary:

29-4 June, Lakhimpur Kheri

Working with community and discussing with district authorities

5-6 June, Lakhimpur Kheri

Action with World Wildlife Funds (WWF)

Our weekend spent in Varanasi postponed our initial work plan to visit the forest and tribal villages in Lakhimpur Kheri, which is found 3-4 hours north-east of Hardoi. Instead of being there on the 29th (Saturday), we left Wednesday morning and started our work straight away.

The postponement gave us time to rest and recharge, clear our heads and finally EAT MEAT! :) 

 Chicken do Piaza in Varanasi. Our only options were to eat chicken or mutton (goat). Still meat nonetheless. I missed it so much!