Open diary: day 2 (Going to Boracay Island)

December 28, 2016 when we arrived at boracay Island in station 3. It’s so beautiful watching the sun falling down.

The place was relaxing and the way the ocean breeze touches your skin felt soothing, of course when you look at the view you will be like “atlast, I’m here”
So here how’s it go. It was a family trip, me, my brother, my mom and other realtives all in all we’re 7. We are supposed to leave the city on December 25 but it was cancelled because I was sick so they adjusted the date on December 26, and on that day an unexpected storm came so the trip was again cancelled. On December 27, there’s still a storm but we decided to go with it ’cause the storm will leave the Philippine Area of Responsibility anyways… It was a cold raining midnight when we left the apartment.

On the bus station, we waited for 8 hours. They said that our bus was stranded because of the storm. The moment we saw our bus, many people gather around it and we are all exhausted we just wanted to sit down and get some rest. It turned out to be a disaster ’cause some people are shouting, others are claiming their occupied seats, and the worst part there is the baggages to where will you put it.

I am clustrophobic and I don’t like the sound of the people screaming everywhere, I can’t breath. It’s just too crowded and too noisy. I decided to get some fresh air before I lose my mind.

When all is set and the atmosphere is beginning to calm down, I decided to go back to the bus. The other passengers who has the same bus number but not given a seat, they just stand there, I ask my mom why and she said:

“It will be new year for the next few days and they have to come back to their hometown to celebrate new year”

Most of them are prubinsyana/probinsyano they are the ones who was actually born and raised in the province but migrated in the city to make a living. Most of them knew atleast 3 languages, unlike us, who lives in the city, most of us only knew 2 languages (Tagalog and English)

After 4 hours of bus ride, we moved to a roro. It’s a 3 hours ride.

After that, we moved back to our bus and after 4 hours we again move to the roro for another 3 hours ride.

That’s me and my brother
Eventually, the most awaited moment came! We’re still in the roro but you can see the island! We are coming closer to the tourists who are riding a banana boat, and some are riding a jet ski! I was so excited that time.

I wanted to feel the sand on my feet and touch the clear water of the ocean. After we touched down, we went to a boat ride to get to Boracay Island.
The boat is good for 8 people and it is quite unusual for me because the way you get inside the boat, you have to slide down.

Gosh! I miss that slide. It was quite fun
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As you can see in the photo, that’s Boracay Island in front of me!

Stay tuned for my next update. I’m going to tell you what I did there and I’m gonna give you some tips on how to spend your money wisely here in this island.

Open diary: day 1 (Single tub washing machine)

Hi! I’m here to share my experience of being a teenage girl here in the Philippines… My family’s status is only average and we got a stable internet connection so I’m able to do some blogging. So where do I start? Hmm.. Let me introduce myself

I’m Marie Balasa, 17, from Bacoor, Cavite, Philippines. I’m currently studying in some university, I’m an 11th grade student and currently taking STEM (science technology engineering mathematics). No, I don’t have a boyfriend and now I’m trying to do some blogging stuff. I’ll just post my “cool” or maybe “worst” experiences that I’ll encounter as a student, daughter, sibling and a citizen in my country.
Okay so here goes my open diary

Day 1

I was wondering how this whole blogging stuff works, they said if you had a passion in writing then maybe you can be a professional blogger someday or maybe you can earn some extra cash through blogging. How’s that? I don’t practically know what kind of blog will I do so I just made this kind of diary, I hope it’s okay. I don’t know if someone already did this kind of blog but yeah. Give me some tips please, I know it’s always rough at first.
Okay here we go!

Lately we did some laundry, and here in the Philippines many people doesn’t have that “automatic washing machine” because it cost a fortune, it’s like buying a new refrigerator or something and we are used to wash our clothes manually.
So yeah, we have this washing machine, it has no built in dryer so I can’t call it as semi-automatic it has a single tub where the clothes will spin around for a couple of minutes then wash off the soap manually. Our washing machine looks like this:

You don’t know the pain when it comes to rinsing. Believe me, saturday is our laundry day and I was like “Ghaaaa! Damn! It’s Saturday… Laundry day again” This  washing machine has this 2 controls, the drain and the no. of minutes that the garments would spin. Later I’ll tell you how this go

Doing the laundry with a single tub washing machine:

1. Be sure to separate the white and the colored garments. Also separate the undergarments because the bacteria is different in the usual garments. The reason why we should separate the whites is because other colored garments stains, you don’t want any stains to get into your whites right? And the soap is much stronger when you wash your whites so when you put some colored garments, it might lose its vibrant color.

2. Make sure that your washing machine has water in it, medium is the best amount of water. It has 3 indicators of amount inside the machine, the Low-Medium-High. We don’t have a hose that’s why we fill up a small bucket with water then transfer it to the washing machine, it sucks because your back hurts already without starting to wash your clothes.

3. Put some soap in it. The right amount I suggest is 2-3 scoops of powdered soap. Then soak in your clothes and spin the control of how many minutes you want to wash your clothes. When we wash our whites or light colored garments it usually takes 45 minutes and 15 minutes for the colored ones.

4. Be sure to get your basins ready so that when the washing machine is already done spinning, you can take out the clothes and put it in the basin with a full amount of water, you need 3 full water of basins to rinse your clothes. It really is a pain in getting rid of the soap because you have to pull up every garment and squeeze it then transfer it to the other basin, it’s like doing the same process 3 times to all of your clothes, it’s exhausting really. Especially when it comes to bedsheets or thick jackets, I would really go to the laundry shop if I had money.

5. When you’re done rinsing, you have to hang your clothes using a hanger, we use plastic hangers, wood hangers are pretty expensive. Buying a dryer is also expensive so we have no choice but to hang our clothes under the sun and wait for them to dry.

I still think that I’m lucky though, cause other people doesn’t have a washing machine and they wash their clothes manually. With their own hands. I’ve tried it before, when we don’t have a washing machine. I usually get a small wound or something painful everytime I wash our clothes with my own hands, we also use a brush and brush board to wash the dirt off before. After doing the laundry manually, I find my hands getting dry at the same time itchy because it was soaked in the soap for too long. I was little back then, I think I was 10. I don’t want my children to have the same experience as mine so I’ll make sure when I get to have a job and make some money I would definitely buy an automatic washing machine!

Thank you for reading my blog, I appreciate it ^^