seoul travel video

I didn't go on this trip but this is a love letter (video?) to my two kpop loving friends and their nostalgic trip in Seoul in 2019.

batulao travel video

I'm not an avid hiker but I get peer pressured to join on occasion. The selling point of this hike is that it's not a difficult technical hike -- which I realized was true approaching the summit but we made the decision to do a longer route back to our detriment haha.

Here's the rest of that 'longer route' at Mt Batulao in 2019, with my persevering (and hilarious) friends. I made a wrong setting in my camera which led to overwriting of some of the clips, hence the lack of substantial clips on the ascent. This mistake also happened to my UK trip in 2018 but I'll save that rant at another time (when I'm done with THAT travel video).

el nido travel video

El Nido will always be one of my favorite spots in this country so here's another video in the lovely Miniloc island (El Nido Resorts). My first El Nido trip was back in 2013 and every experience never disappoints (though management's doing some changes so deals don't feel as much of a bargain compared to before).

So here's my El Nido travel video from the tail end of what has been a stressful week back in 2022 :)

hongkong travel video

So this might be a jump scare to whoever is (still?) looking at my blog...a NEW travel video after FIVE YEARS!!!

Finally became semi-serious about upgrading *ahem spending a lot* on my tech so that I can finally catch up with my backlog. I switched to a different software and slowly going through my list. Thankfully the investment paid off since I don't have lags anymore. Hopefully I'll finish my backlog before the end of this year :)

*Cue drumroll* here's my travel video of my trip to Hong Kong back in 2018 with college friends! This is (to date) our only trip out of the country that we're complete so I'm happy I got to generate a video out of it (although I'm barely in it lolz)

waterfall circuit

Quarantine period is not allowing me to procrastinate any longer so I'm taking on my severe vlog backlog (starting from my trips back in...err...2018). I already managed to finish one trip that year during the last Christmas holiday and here's the next one!

I LOVE waterfalls. I seriously only get motivated to go on hikes if I know that we will be hitting waterfalls (and swim) at some point. So imagine how ecstatic I was when I found out that there's a waterfall circuit hike in Luisiana, Laguna where you can see not one but THREE waterfalls! So I dragged my Laguna-friend who fortunately also loves the water on this hike. Got doused in the second waterfalls and went on a swim in the third one. Apparently they don't allow swimming in the first one for safety reasons. We went during the summer so the amount of water is less compared to the rainy months but we were happy nonetheless :)


So I have...three more trips in 2018 that I have to edit. And four vlogs for 2019. Good luck to me.

inwangsan travel video

After years of making my friends swallow their pride and dance for my travel music videos, I decided to try the vlog format, er, two years ago LOL. This is my first foray into travel vlog-ing. I encountered a whole new set of struggles in this format (part of the reason as to why this took me more than a year to finish -- plus I'm just plain ass lazy). I'm not sure what style do I even want to adopt but I hope I get to develop one as I edit more vlogs (I have...ummm...six trips for my vlog backlog hihi).

Anyway, here it is --- a vlog of our hike at Inwangsan in Seoul, South Korea back in April 2018.

 

siem reap travel video

FINALLY done with my travel music video backlog! This is four years delayed. Good thing my best friend has WAY more important things to do than pressure me to finish. Drove myself to hurry up because we (hopefully) have another (more) major trip that this year.

Next on the to-do list: edit clips from four trips this year ala travel vlog (why am I doing this to myself again?)

seoraksan travel video

At least I can say that the bed rest forced me to be productive.

This is my "best effort" at a hiking video. I do not hike in general but seeing that this is our nth Korea trip (and some pressure from my Korean boss to do it), we decided to take a break from stuffing ourselves with food and drinking soju by exercising more.

So we booked a shared tour (apologies to our new friends that somehow got forced to do our trail) and told the driver that we wanted to try the Ulsanbawi Rock trail. We know it's an intermediate (2km)-advanced(1km) trail but decided to risk it. The driver however got a case of "tinimbang ka ngunit kulang" moment and told us not to do the Ulsanbawi route and instead do the Biseondae-Geumganggul Cave trail.

Going to Biseondae was easy enough (it was categorized as "moderate" for 3km) but wtf the climb towards the end was pure torture. Our party of 6 soon dwindled to 3...the other half stayed at the viewing deck while I and two of my friends soldiered on to see that cave. No wonder I almost cried from the steepness (and exhaustion) and I can barely film because I can't keep my balance (took off my bubble jacket despite the winter weather so one arm is basically useless) -- that leg is "expert" (so, uh, higher than advanced) level for 1.5 km. I guess our guide thought that 4.5km of moderate-expert is equivalent to 3km of intermediate-advanced (mukhang pwede nga naman).

So with my shaky hands and general laziness in exploring stabilization techniques in the post-editing process, I give you my most unstable mv to date hehehehehe. At least the view was worth it!

Someone please give me a gimbal to overcome this! Oh and this is the first time I used my SJCAM on land. As I said before, not bad for such an inexpensive camera!

caliraya travel video

Another travel video that is way overdue...went with my ex-colleagues to Caliraya for a hello summer trip in March last year. I'm so used to filming a different set of friends in my previous travel videos (as you may have noticed) so shooting this one was entertaining and challenging hihi.

I tried some post-edit color correcting methods but I don't think I achieved the effect yet...must practice some more.

soliguen - fajardo nuptials

So I finally surrendered and bought a new (more powerful) laptop a few months ago -- which means I can now tackle my video editing backlog! Almost cried when it only took less than 10 minutes to render my travel videos T__T

So here's my "two-year edit" of my friends' wedding last year in Guimaras. Only brought my Go Pro 2 (ie shooting blind) and I was part of the entourage so I barely have any clips. Good thing I get to steal some from my other friends hehe

Which reminds me, my Go Pro finally gave up on me and I'm poor so I bought an SJCAM 4000 instead and wow, talk about value for money hahaha. Hopefully I get to edit the videos I took from that soon.

europe travel videos!!!

This trip was almost a decade in the making (in terms of scouring for funds) and it was freaking worth it! Three weeks with awesome friends to five countries...I won't forget 2015 because of this.

Compared to other travel videos, I was able to make this one pretty fast -- largely due to the deadline imposed by my friends (um, thanks). So here it is and hope you enjoy!

The viewing of this video is much anticipated so we even made a reaction video LOL. We were all reacting to an almost final version of the video compared to the final final video :)

And then there are still way too many funny clips leftover so I made another travel video -- or more like a vanity video since these are all just us goofing off.

boseong & busan trip music video

I finally got around to making this music video about our trip in 2013 (I know! I deserve to get beaten) in Busan, South Korea. Rissee and I made a side trip to Boseong since I want to see the tea fields, which was a huge endeavor since we commuted the whole way although I got to say the place itself is very photogenic. We only spent two days in Busan/Boseong and then squeezed in two more days in Seoul (which won't be featured in this video) so pardon the limited footage.

I also chose a freaking difficult song to edit with, using Gain's Bloom (which was my "jam" in 2013, hahaha). It's the most challenging song I had to layout for so far and may be the reason as to why I've been putting it off for most of 2013/2014 (and the fact that I got sidetracked with other personal projects). Nonetheless, editing the video at the end of 2014 made me reminisce of the craziness that happened in just a short amount of time haha.

So here you go, enjoy. And a super HUGE thanks to my travel buddy Rissee for her patience!!!

el nido trip music video

Hello! Here's another one of my travel videos, from our trip to El Nido, Palawan here in the Philippines. Once again, it's highly unlikely that I'll be writing an extensive post so I'll let this video do the talking :D We got a bargain during the Travel Expo and stayed at the luxurious El Nido Resorts. The trip was a much-needed break for the three of us (too much stress in...life) and you can tell how much fun we had, hehe. Also thank you to my awesome travel buddies who are better swimmers than I, lol.

With my luck *sarcasm*, I had a stupid moment while transferring the videos to my laptop which caused me to lose around a third of my raw footage in the Go Pro. So while I'm pretty satisfied with this video, I think it could still be improved (I lost a ton of kayak shots and clips by the beach). Oh well, learnings.

This is also the first time I edited underwater clips! I still don't have a good handle on it so I'm sorry that the "look" of the underwater stuff are not consistent. Oh and I got to use my Go Pole! Hell yeah!

Okay, I think I rambled on too much. Here it is. Enjoy!

myanmar trip music video

And it's finally here! Another travel video, this time from our trip to Myanmar. The editing took longer than I expected because there are WAY too many footages (can't imagine there are only two of us in this trip given the number of files in my hard drive) and the song made it relatively more challenging for me to select the appropriate clips (compared to my previous videos).

Since I bought new toys (my Canon EOS M and Go Pro Hero 2) to shoot the videos, I might as well milk it and make travel music videos for all major trips in the future. So I'm debuting the travel nut logo as well in this clip (thanks to bro-in-law for the art!) and would probably re-upload our Seoul video using the same markers. UPDATE(7/28): Re-uploaded our Seoul video in the link provided.

So here you go, enjoy!

seoul trip music video

It's highly unlikely that I'll make an extensive post about our trip to Seoul, South Korea last November (given ALL the other topics I have yet to blog about *sigh*). So I'm just showing this music video that I've edited featuring the highlights of our trip! Besides, I think my other friends can blog about the trip on my behalf, hehe.

So here you go, another music video (the first one was from our family's trip to Siem Reap) that caused me two weeks of barely enough sleep. The reactions when I debuted this to my friends were priceless though, so it was worth it ^^

the majesty of Siem Reap

When I was plotting the Asian destinations that I want to go to a few years back, I must admit that Cambodia wasn't on my priority list. Therefore I was glad that the deadlock in the family meeting on where to go resulted more on, “which places that I haven’t been to that are accessible by Philippine passport that is palatable to the rest of my family”, than “where do the rest of my family REALLY want to go?”, which then translated to this amazing place that will be stuck in my mind for many years.

Going to the different ruins in Siem Reap was like an onslaught to the senses, it really is too much to take in at first glance that it warrants a second (and a third) look. Because of the tight schedule, we only have 1.5 days for the trip, and I think that would suffice to go to the main ones (but obviously you must not expect to go through the entire floor area of each site or else you’ll spend a night there), both for the Grand and small circuits. I’m awe-struck by how huge everything is and how intricate and carefully-planned everything is. The weather was also perfect at that time (December), I swear if it was summer I would’ve passed out despite the heaps of cold towels that our reliable driver has in his tuktuk.

So here’s a brief run through of each site we went to (in order, hehe):

• Bayon – it’s hard to take a decent picture here with all the tourists, the large stone heads are overwhelming (and I bet scary at night)
• Baphuon – I love how there’s a bridge going to the area, makes it more grand. It also looks like a bigger English mansion for me, without paint.
• Terrace of the Elephants – this was a doozy, we were wondering where the elephant reference comes from and apparently we were at the side of the Terrace and therefore didn’t see the elephant carvings (we turned going to Phimeanakas)
• Terrace of the Leper King – I just remembered being in a hurry to take a picture so that I can get out of the sun. the backstory of this place is fascinating though.
• Phimeanakas – My sister and I are the only ones who went here, ‘cause my brother and mother are already tired from all the walking
• Banteay Kdei – It’s interesting to see the different structured halls and visualize that this was a place of learning during that time
• Ta Phrom – okay the only thing I remembered in this place is that this is where they shot Tomb Raider and also the giant roots with the matching platform.
• Pre Rup – this is my favourite since it has a burnished red glow when I saw it (we went there late afternoon) and therefore stands out from the others (it’s made from brick instead of stone).

Before climbing the stairs at Pre Rup  
• Ta Som – all I remember again is the tree at the end with the big roots, hehe
• Neak Poan – I like the fact that we have to go through a long wooden bridge going through mangroves (it was really long) before seeing this place…change of scenery
• Angkor Wat – what can I say, books are not enough to fully appreciate this place. The sheer size and imagined opulence is just astounding. I’m happy that we saw this right after sunrise and therefore we don’t have to contend with large tour groups

Early morning, just "chilling" at Angkor Wat

• Preah Khan – Sadly, I can’t remember much of this place, maybe I was still hung over on Angkor Wat :|
• Baksei Chamkrong – this is a small ruin that serves as a guarding post of sorts for Phnom Bakheng
• Phnom Bakheng – wow, this is an apt conclusion to the entire route we took. The fact that we have to walk up a mountain to see this one makes it more satisfying. We spent a lot of time here since the fact that it is a mountain temple gives us a grand view of the other structures below.

High up at Phnom Bakheng

What I love about the whole experience is that it really lends itself to go beyond what you see and imagine the history behind it. I’ve seen a lot of ruins and cultural sites before but nothing tops this so far. It’s like the structures are still breathing and it won’t take an intellectual discourse or even a very thorough guidebook to fully appreciate and respect what these structures are and what they stand for.

I felt that although we covered A LOT of ground, it is still not enough to fully take in how wonderfully complex the Khmer culture is. The moment we left Siem Reap to go to Phnom Penh I was already raring to go back again. Thank God that we finally have direct flights going to Siem Reap, I can’t wait to experience it all again (this time by biking) and go to the far-flung areas which our guide said also feature awesome carvings. I am fully appreciative of the painstakingly detailed restoration work that they’re doing to the different sites, I can just imagine the future generations having a more fulfilling experience than I had when all of these are finished.

And, as a testament as to HOW MUCH we enjoyed our trip, here's a video showing the highlights of our trip. Just for pure fun, thank God that my siblings and mom got on board with the idea. Kindly do not share though, I might take the video down after a month or two and just put it on private since my sister doesn't want it publicized (you'll see why). Play at your own risk :D



Thanks to Sam (facebook.com/samtuktuk) for being our trusty tuktuk driver. He comes highly recommended: speaks good English, very patient and gives all the necessary information, and has unlimited cold water and cold towels (a must!). We stayed at Angkor Pearl Hotel, which is also highly recommended (definitely value for money).